In the final scene of TFA, the Falcon approaches the island from this angle which lines up with how the TLJ VD map shows the ship parked on that coast. The map shows Luke’s X-Wing on the far left side of the island from this orientation- in TROS, the establishing shot of the island shows Rey burning Kylo’s ship in the same area of the island. Let’s call this spot the “inlet” as the TLJ VD does. Since Rey hears Luke first start lifting the X-Wing while she’s digging the Wayfinder out of Kylo’s ship and then is able to run over in-time to see it lifted, that further confirms that she burnt Kylo’s ship right at the inlet. Next, the TLJ VD map shows that the temple cliff where Luke dies is also directly next to the inlet. I checked the TLJ novelization which says that he’s watching a sunset as he dies, not a sunrise, which means the suns must set in the direction the inlet is facing. Since the original TROS shows the remaining sunlight in the establishing shot coming from that direction, it lines up with the novelization saying this occurs at sunset. At the end of the Ahch-To scene when Luke lifts his X-Wing from the ocean, he’s facing the ocean from the inlet and the sun rises behind him, which again confirms our now well-established sense of geography.
First off, that’s an insane amount of detail you had to track, so mad props to you for that.
I think the current goal of the scene is for Rey to arrive on Ahch-To at night, start burning the ship, then have the heart to heart with Luke, grab the lightsaber, and get out of there. In which case, as you said, “the sun rises behind [Luke]…when [he] lifts his X-Wing from the ocean.” So aren’t we good? I feel like the time of day/night still matches up.
It’s just a weird sequence of events. In the film, the whole thing seems to happen at midday over the course of about an hour. In the novel, doesn’t it say that it takes place from dusk to dawn (while they’re also under a time crunch)? So, does it take place during the day, or during the night? Is the film “canon,” or is the novel?
I think Neverar’s grade feels best in terms of visually tracking the passage of time, and also symbolically. So that has my vote, once those last new nitpicks are ironed out.