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FWIW, that Yoda thing was one of my favorite things in the whole film once I figured it out. I didn’t think it was actually contradictory, just some classic “certain point of view” Jedi Master trolling that got Luke to snap out of his funk and focus on what was important in that moment. Of course Yoda doesn’t actually advocate burning books.
Doesn’t he? If you left the theater before the end of the movie, or have less than superhuman focus like I do, wouldn’t that be exactly what you’d conclude? That scene, to the best of my ability to read, wholeheartedly says it’s time for the old Jedi to end and Yoda vindicates Luke’s desire to burn the books after he hesitates.
What I’d like to know is: does what makes you read that scene differently come from later in the film, or can you support it from that scene (and what came before) alone?
And how does that relate to why Luke does what he does at the end? And honestly, does Luke know Rey has the texts and he is counting on this as he tells Ren he won’t be the last Jedi? Or would he be surprised to learn this and say, “Hey, Yoda destroyed those!”?
If a split second shot toward the end of the movie that I missed when seeing the film twice is supposed to carry such interpretive weight necessary to understand themes intimately connected to Luke’s character and story, that makes me a little irrationally angry. Maybe it’s too far removed from how Star Wars films have always done things, especially after TFA tried so hard to match that style.
You’re missing the nuances of it.
Luke has spent far too much time agonizing over the ways of the Jedi of the past, and ultimately agonizing over why the Jedi should end. Frankly, he gets a little melodramatic about it. Because he believes that the Jedi must end, he resolves himself to burn the tree. But he can’t help himself. He’s still to attached to the history of it all (both the good and the bad) and can’t get over it.
So Yoda basically tells him, well, get over it. There’s more to the Force and the Jedi than mere books. In that scene, that’s the point that matters. Luke is caught in a cloud and doesn’t have his mind on where he is. Burning the tree and giving him his final lesson sets him right.
However, even though it is important that Rey learn the Force in her own way, it is still nice that she’ll be able to read the texts and take what she needs from them (and some of their mistakes too, as that is a great teacher, as Yoda states). The fact that Rey saves the books and Yoda knows does not invalidate the lesson he teaches Luke in the earlier scene.
