DrDre Said:
Luke was the Yin to his father’s Yang. In the OT his character was set up to have most if not all of his father’s flaws, but unlike his father he was to make the right choices. His destiny was to pass on what he had learned, to surpass his elders, to become a legend.
And he has. We don’t see the kids at the end of TLJ playing with an Obi-wan or Yoda doll, do we? And he certainly passed on the most important lessons he has learned. He has passed on the knowledge of what the Force truly is, divorced from its Jedi distortions, and he has passed on the knowledge of his failures, which is the theme of the film.
Yes, to those kids he’s Santa Clause. I’ll agree with you on that. I wish I could still believe in Santa Clause…
Luke has passed on another interpretation of the Force. Who’s to say that won’t be as much a distortion as the Jedi interpretation? Maybe not now, but in a 1,000 generations, or when another director at some point has a different idea of what it represents. This is the real lesson of TLJ, methinks.
From what I understand about what Luke says about the Force in TLJ: the Force doesn’t “belong” to any person or group of people (like the Jedi) - it’s not a power that just lets you move rocks and shit. It’s just everything and all the in between in the cosmos - the energy - and you can feel and perhaps harness it if you reach out deep enough into it.
It’s not too different from “it’s what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.”
What is different, is the idea that it’s always just naturally balanced. The existence of people simply harnessing one side or the other - the light or the dark - doesn’t imbalance it, or the person. Obi-Wan and Yoda believed Vader to be lost to the dark side and evil forever, and that the Jedi and the light side were synonymous. In their eyes, that’s why Luke had to defeat Vader, and restore the Jedi Order. Save the galaxy, bring balance.
But Luke has a “new” understanding of the Force, because of his experiences with himself, his father, and his nephew, that the Force isn’t some kind of constantly tipping scale, internally or externally. It wasn’t “too late” for his father to do good, and the inkling that it might have been “too late” for his nephew is just what solidified Kylo Ren’s rise. The dark side is only a cancer because of the philosophy that it is and can be. It parallels with how he comes to grips with himself and his failure. It isn’t so different from realizing that his failure doesn’t define him. And that you can always come back from it.
It’s not binary, and his arc in this movie just inspires that anyone can be a hero.
Whether or not another director challenges that, of course they can. But TLJ’s reading fits with the OT pretty well.