Owen Lars / Legends 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 . Biography . Youth . Owen was born on the Core World Ator , the homeworld of his birth mother , Aika Lars . Aika died when Owen was very young , so he and his father returned to his father ' s homeworld of Tatooine . Owen lived with his father Cliegg on their moisture farm . He helped his father buy Shmi Skywalker from Watto . Shortly after freeing her and her son Anakin ' s protocol droid , C - 3PO , Shmi and Cliegg married , making her Owen ' s stepmother . Shmi often told her new family how much she missed her son Anakin , who had been freed by a Jedi to join the Jedi Order years before . Over the next few years , Owen met a beautiful girl named Beru Whitesun , and the two fell in love . Beru moved in with Owen and his family and they lived contentedly together . However , tragedy would soon strike when Shmi was kidnapped by Tusken Raiders about a month before the start of the Clone Wars . Organizing a group of thirty other local settlers , Owen and Cliegg set out to find Shmi ; however , their attempt was inherently doomed as the Tuskens set a trap . Only four of the settlers made it through , and Cliegg lost one of his legs . Owen built a hover chair for his father to maneuver following this injury . Clone Wars ( 22 BBY – 19 BBY ) . One month after Shmi ' s kidnapping , her Jedi son ( now Owen ' s stepbrother ) , Anakin Skywalker , came to the Lars ' moisture farm looking for his mother . Accompanying him was Padmé Amidala . Owen introduced himself and Beru to the guests and Cliegg explained of the Tusken Raider ' s taking of Shmi . He told Anakin he would do anything to help out the young Jedi , but his injury was too far from healed , and could not have been much of a help . That night Anakin set out to look for Shmi on his own . The next morning , he brought back Shmi ' s lifeless body , quietly blaming the Larses for being too weak to protect her . A small funeral was organized and soon afterward , Anakin and Padmé left and were allowed to take C - 3PO with them . Owen and Beru married in 21 BBY and took over the moisture farm the next year when Cliegg succumbed to his injuries and passed away . Shortly after the end of the Clone Wars and after Anakin ' s transformation into Darth Vader , Owen and Beru were contacted by Obi - Wan Kenobi , Anakin ' s former mentor . Kenobi informed them that Anakin fathered two children ( a pair of twins ) , and his son Luke needed a family . Beru convinced Owen to adopt him , and Kenobi delivered the baby to them shortly afterward . Owen stubbornly kept his distance and his back turned to Kenobi as he handed baby Luke to Beru . Raising Luke . 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 , Owen told Luke and his friend to go inside so they would be out of earshot , then 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 . Kenobi continued to watch Luke from a distance , sometimes seeing Luke pilot his T - 16 skyhopper very skillfully . Death . By the time of the Galactic Civil War , extensive exposure to Tatooine ' s twin suns had prematurely aged his body . Shortly before the Battle of Yavin , Owen and Luke met with the local Jawa traders , looking for a droid that could speak Bocce . Unknown to Owen , one of the droids was in fact C - 3PO — now in gold plating — and his counterpart , astromech droid R2 - D2 . When Luke found Leia ' s hidden message inside of R2 - D2 , he told Owen and Beru that the astromech claimed to belong to an " Obi - Wan " Kenobi . Trying to keep Luke from learning about his father , Owen ordered him to give the droid a memory wipe . The next morning , Luke left early to find R2 - D2 , who had run off the night before to find his former " master . " Owen and Beru never saw Luke again , for they were killed by Imperial stormtroopers who were looking for R2 - D2 on behalf of Owen ' s stepbrother , Darth Vader , after the droid escaped with the stolen plans for the first Death Star . According to the recollection of stormtrooper Davin Felth , the farmers were killed after Owen spat in the face of the squad ' s commanding officer , Mod Terrik , they were then each shot with a blaster before their bodies were semi - cremated with a flamethrower . Their execution was ordered by Darth Vader , who watched it via hololink , feeling it was " revenge " for their supposed weakness , and " failure " to defend his mother . It was carried out by the unit under the command of DSS - 0956 , in order to cover the evidence of their actions . Legacy . Laze Loneozner and his wife Camie looked after the Lars farm for the first few months after Owen ' s death , until Luke returned to Tatooine and gave his inheritance to the alien named Throgg . The farm eventually came under the ownership of the parents of Gavin Darklighter sometime around the Battle of Hoth . Many years later , Cade Skywalker would explore the unoccupied Lars farm and find a hologram recording of his famous ancestor telling of Beru and Owen that whatever else he may have disagreed with them , they did not deserve to die at the hands of the Empire , and they were the closest thing to parents he had ever had . When Luke traveled to Nam Chorios in 13 ABY , he called himself Owen Lars , to hide his true identity from the local population . Skills and abilities . 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 . Behind the scenes . Portrayal . Owen Lars was first portrayed by American actor Phil Brown in " " . The young Owen Lars was portrayed by Australian actor Joel Edgerton in " " and " " . Voice actor Pat Fraley portrayed Owen for " " . Conceptual history . Owen Lars and his wife Beru appear in the to Episode IV as anthropologists working on Yavin . They are established as Luke ' s uncle and aunt in the . In the later draft , Owen is a Jedi , and Luke is studying to be an archaeologist . Owen becomes a non - Force user in the third draft . Before enrolling to study cinematography at the University of Southern California , George Lucas intended to study anthropology at San Francisco State University . By making Owen an anthropologist in the rough draft , and Luke an archaeologist ( considered a field within anthropology ) he is referencing his own non - filmic interests . It is also interesting to note that Luke ' s plans to be an archaeologist in the second draft are sidelined by the need to become a Jedi ( as in Episode IV , where he abandons his first plan , to become an Imperial pilot ) , much as Lucas ' own calling as a director took unexpected center stage over his earlier academic interests . Relationship to Luke Skywalker . Before it was revealed in " Attack of the Clones " that Owen and Anakin become stepbrothers , it was intended to be that they were never brothers , and in fact Luke only falsely believed that Owen was his uncle . This was stated in most sources preceding " Attack of the Clones " , most notably in the , where Obi - Wan Kenobi refers to Owen as his brother . This managed to enter profiles of both characters in " The Essential Guide to Characters " and the second edition of " A Guide to the Star Wars Universe " . By the time of the publication of the third edition of " A Guide to the Star Wars Universe " in 2000 , Owen and Obi - Wan were no longer brothers . However , in the book " " , Obi - Wan says he remembers a brother named Owen , though this is not likely intended to be Owen Lars , but perhaps a reference to the inconsistency . There are indications that characters within the " Star Wars " universe itself thought that Obi - Wan and Owen Lars were brothers , as seen in Voren Na ' al ' s description of Owen in " " . In an interesting real - world coincidence , however , Ewan McGregor ' s stunt double in the prequels is Nash Edgerton , the real - life brother of Joel Edgerton .