As such, this trilogy is like that game where you fold a piece of paper and each person takes it in turns to draw a head/torso/legs then unfold the paper and see what weird monster drawing you end up with.
That’s such an accurate description in my view. RJ mostly disregarded every setup of TFA. Take the simple example of Han telling Rey and Finn, that Luke went to look for the first Jedi Temple. Given that setup, and Luke’s emotional response at the end of TFA, you would expect he had gone there in hopes of finding some ancient wisdom to deal with the threat of Snoke and Kylo. The TFA script states:
“Older now, white hair, bearded. He looks at Rey. A kindness in his eyes, but there’s something tortured, too. He doesn’t need to ask her who she is, or what she is doing here. His look says it all.”
So, why did Luke go there? To die. If he wanted to die, and see the Jedi end, why go a place associated with the Jedi in the first place. Seems to me the FO would have found him eventually. Why not go to some random unknown Island? Why not kill yourself, if you’re so convinced it should all end? Why did he wear these elaborate white Jedi robes at the end of TFA? He sure seemed an almost mythical Jedi Master with the wisdom of the ages, waiting for the right person to arrive. That moment and the character of Luke have been completely deflated. It’s twists and shocks for the sake of it, all the while sacrificing the integrity of a classic character to prop up some new ones. Next we’ll learn Han and Leia beat Kylo as a kid. Shocking isn’t it. Bet you didn’t see that one coming.
To be fair Han’s mention of the Jedi Temple was mere speculation from ‘those who knew him best’. I think the point being made in TLJ is that no-one really knew him after all - least of all us!
I actually like RJ’s take on Luke’s exile. I’ve always had issues with the way ROTJ ended in terms of the ethics presented, so I never saw Luke as a master of anything beyond making sure his Nazi father got a quick bedside conversion before the Death Star went boom. TLJ seems to have shaken that almost childish ROTJ notion of ‘good and bad’ and restored the more nuanced version of the Force implied in TESB.
I’m a little confused about the whole ‘map to Skywalker’ thing in TFA though. Why the hell was there a map then? If Luke really didn’t want to be found, why not just erase that chunk of the map entirely (if not the whole map) rather than have it end up on Max Von Sydow’s flash drive?
Also, Luke seemed to be doing something cryptic with R2 in TFA (presumably making R2 power down for a specific timeframe?) but now it seems he was just leaning on the little guy for support.
I’m still very much on the fence with this new series by the way, but it’s all very interesting if nothing else.