Luke ran away at a moment when he could have stayed and averted the entire rise of the First Order. It was precisely because Luke left that Snoke Kylo and others had an opportunity to lay waste to the galaxy. This is also why, while I love aspects of the epicness of Luke’s end on Crait, the argument that we should celebrate Luke’s effort as something that should inspire the galaxy and was an amazing act of sacrifice requires me to completely ignore the fact that Luke’s cowardice created and then grew the very enemies he is now being lauded for inspiring people to fight back against.
Lets celebrate Luke simply holding off (not defeating) enemies that have already essentially crushed everything he and his friends worked their entire lives for, enemies that he could have stopped before they even got started, if he had simply not run away. Yay?
By contrast, Obi-Wan and Yoda went into exile not as cowards but because they were literally all that was left of their order, but even in spite of that they had a plan in place to fight back against their enemies. They were playing the long game.
Luke on the other hand played no sort of game and just peaced out. Yet in the end I should celebrate the fact that he has basically brought the good guys back to a barely less state than they were when we first began his path in the Force. Honestly that’s pathetic.
And thats the bottom line for so many of us, they made Luke Skywalker pathetic. Even his victory and redemption really means nothing in the end. True victory and redemption would have been to not only acknowledge his cowardice openly (he never does) but also actually make up for it by striking his own blow to the first order.
Why not let Luke be able to get to do the damage that the Holdo Maneuver caused, for example, and go out in a blaze of glory? (I suggested this in another forum) Have him actually show up in the flesh on Crait before the rebels land there and still have all their transports, and bring down the star destroyer into the planet, killing him but giving the Resistance/rebels critical time to escape and (this is the key part) dealing the first order a critical blow, essentially making up in a small way for letting them become so big during his exile. Being more than just a distraction. He deserved something more like that.