Owen Lars

Owen Lars was the son of moisture farmer Cliegg Lars and the stepbrother of Anakin Skywalker. He married Beru Whitesun, and after his father's death, inherited his moisture farm. In 19 BBY, Beru convinced Owen to adopt Anakin's son, Luke Skywalker, as Anakin had turned to the dark side and become the infamous Darth Vader.

Owen and Beru raised their nephew as well as they could, and Owen instilled into Luke the values of his own childhood. Fearful of Luke's potential, and distrustful of the outside galaxy, Owen attempted to keep Luke isolated and ignorant of his true parentage.

Fearful of having Luke follow Anakin's path, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru protected their nephew from his past by telling him that his father, rather than being a Jedi Knight, "was a navigator on a spice freighter". Owen also tried to keep him away from the "crazy old hermit," "Ben" Kenobi.

A few years later, Kenobi had found Luke and his friend Windy Marstrap alone in the Jundland Wastes. The two youths had tried to ease their boredom by riding Windy's pet dewback around in the Wastes. They had been thrown in one of the canyons and had gotten bruised up. By dusk, Luke and Windy still hadn't found their way out of the canyon until they were discovered by Ben Kenobi. After Kenobi guided them back to the Lars farm, Luke expected Owen to "skin his hide". Instead, Owen confronted and berated Kenobi.

The reason for Owen's anger was that Kenobi had attempted to give Anakin's lightsaber to Luke, since he felt that Luke was old enough and should be allowed to have it. Owen refused to allow it because he believed the Jedi path was a destructive one. He told Kenobi he didn't want Luke to make the same mistakes his father did, stating how he felt Anakin should have never left his mother in slavery and gotten involved with the "damned foolish idealistic Jedi crusaders" in the first place. He vehemently told Kenobi to leave and to stay away.

Luke, however, being Anakin's son, had wild dreams for a different and adventurous future. Despite Owen's vague promises that he would sometime be free to live his own life, he always prevented Luke from leaving the isolation and anonymity of life on the planet Tatooine, claiming his importance to the farm. This stance sometimes brought turmoil between their relations as Luke's hopes were never satisfied. When talking about his Aunt and Uncle with Akanah, Luke remembered his Uncle as always seeming annoyed. He regarded him as a hardworking man, but also one who was hard to talk to and know.

Kenobi continued to watch Luke from a distance, sometimes seeing Luke pilot his T-16 skyhopper, although Luke would frequently crash.

Owen Lars was known to be good with blasters. Biggs Darklighter claimed Owen could hold off a whole tribe of Tusken Raiders with only one blaster.

The Lars homestead was the home of the Lars family for at least three generations. It was a moisture farm located on the Great Chott salt flat in the Jundland Wastes on the planet Tatooine.

The farm was originally owned by Gredda and Lef Lars. They passed it on to their son, Cliegg Lars who then passed it on to Owen and Beru Lars. Owen and Beru raised Luke Skywalker, son of Anakin Skywalker, on the farm until age nineteen.

Tusken Raiders, less formally referred to as Sand People or simply as Tuskens, and by the Jawas as Giants or People of the Sand, were a culture of nomadic, primitive sentients indigenous to Tatooine, where they were often hostile to local settlers. The term Sand People was given to them due to their existence in the desert, and was in use from at least around 4000 BBY; but the more formal name of Tusken Raiders was acquired much later, due to a period of concerted attacks on the settlement at Fort Tusken in 98-95 BBY. Although this name was often used as a common term for the race, it actually referred only to the participants of the attack on the settlement.

Tatooine was a desert world and the first planet in the binary Tatoo star system. It was part of the Arkanis sector in the Outer Rim Territories. It was inhabited by poor locals who mostly farmed moisture for a living. Other activities included used equipment retailing and scrap dealing. The planet was on the 5709-DC Shipping Lane, a spur of the Triellus Trade Route, which itself connected to the Sisar Run. The planet was not far from the Corellian Run. It had its own navigation system. The planet acquired a bad reputation, often being viewed as the cesspool of the galaxy due to the large number of criminals who could be found there.

The Jundland Wastes, also simply known as the Jundland, were a dry, hot, and rocky region that was located on the desert world of Tatooine, between the Northern Dune Sea and the Western Dune Sea. In the native parlance, "Jundland" meant "No Man's Land."

This remote area primarily consisted of a number of canyons that wound their way around a number of large mesas and was situated near the Dune Sea. The nomadic Tusken Raiders and the Jundland Waste womp rat inhabited the area. Several layers of rocks within the Wastes were tilted, indicating graben formations. They also contained magnetic deposits which obscured sensors.

Womp rats were creatures native to Tatooine, and were considered pests by local moisture farmers who hunted them for sport.