By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
This is weird to admit, but here goes: one of my favorite things about Blu-ray restorations of older media is discovering the craziest details that were previously hidden by crappy VHS tapes and CRT televisions. For example, when Star Wars finally came to Blu-ray, I was less excited about seeing the Death Star blow up and more excited about answering a question I’d had for decades: what did Luke Skywalker pack in his little space lunchbox before heading off to Dagobah? We see Yoda and R2-D2 squabble over a hot dog, but on my vintage Star Wars cassettes, it was always hard to tell what else Luke had packed for his journey to the other side of the galaxy.
Once Star Wars came to Blu-ray, I had an answer … sort of. We could now see in perfect detail what was in Luke’s Rebel lunchbox, but the contents looked so damn weird that online fans are still debating what the heck the aspiring Jedi brought to snack on for the long trip. Eventually, Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill took to social media to offer us the surprising answer: the lunchbox contents that Yoda went so wild over (effectively risking the entire galaxy by testing Luke) contained “mixed nuts/mint & orange Tic-Tacs/sesame sticks/crackers- basically airline food.
Intergalactic Lunchables?
When Luke Skywalker was freezing nearly to death on Hoth, he was visited by the Force ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi. His old master encouraged him to go to Dagobah to receive training from Yoda, the Jedi Master who trained Obi-Wan. When Luke visited the swampy planet, he was surprised to discover a little green critter who spoke in a backwards language and tried to steal Luke’s food. Eventually, Luke is shocked to learn that the diminutive being before him was Yoda, and all of this was a test of the young man’s patience. Had Yoda listened to his instincts, he would have refused to train Luke, effectively dooming the galaxy to Imperial rule.
Yoda was ready to fight a cranky droid for some of Luke’s food, which always amused fans. Now, when high-quality images of Luke’s lunchbox hit social media, fans always have a field day guessing (or simply joking) about what the hero of the Rebellion has been eating. One amusing reply was “bro packed graham crackers and loose hotdogs.” Others compared Luke’s meal to Lunchables and Kid Cuisine boxes. My favorite comment? “It’s like a bento box but sh*te.” The fan commentary was better than anything Star Wars has given us in years, which made up for the fact that, presumably, we’d never get a real answer.
Jedi Secrets, Revealed
Except we did! Mark Hamill is a prolific X user, and he hopped on the social media platform to comment on the contents of his (as one fan lovingly dubbed it) snackle box. According to the actor, the contents included “mixed nuts/mint & orange Tic-Tacs/sesame sticks/crackers–basically airline food.” Chances are that producers chose these items simply for their aesthetics, but it’s fairly wild to imagine anyone eating this stuff. Like, who wants to pair their loose hot dogs with sesame sticks, or their graham crackers with mint Tic-Tacs? Honestly, this looks less like a soldier’s rations and more like a struggle meal put together by the hungriest stoner.
The funniest thing is that this is the kind of food Yoda was willing to fight R2-D2 for. It was risky to engage the droid in the first place. The last time a Jedi saw R2 in action, the little droid was zipping around on a jetpack and catching his enemies on fire. Hell, even a jolt of electricity in that damp environment might have been enough to stop Yoda’s heart. Plus, the fact that this was part of Yoda testing Luke is insane. Can you imagine driving the galaxy’s only hope away and having to tell Obi-Wan’s ghost you doomed billions of lives because you went gremlin mode over some freakin’ airline food?
Fortunately, all’s well that ends well. Luke passed Yoda’s bizarre test and received the training he needed to confront Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. Thanks to him, both villains were defeated, and the Rebellion emerged as the victors in the nastiest civil war in the universe. Now that it’s all said and done, we’re left with one question: when Luke kissed his sister, do you think his breath tasted like the mint Tic-Tacs or the orange ones?
