But Luke changes his tune after his conversation with Yoda, returns to save his friends, WITHOUT killing Kylo, leaving the door open for his possible redemption, and goes out expressing hope that Rey will get the Jedi going again after all. He strayed for the seven or so years between Kylo’s fall and the start of the ST, but by the end of the movie his faith in the Jedi is restored. The beginning of the movie deconstructs the whole Jedi thing, sure, but I don’t understand how people aren’t seeing that the last act reconstructs it.
Exactly! People seem to take all of Luke’s harsh words on the Jedi early on as if they’re the gospel according to Rian Johnson. Same goes for Kylo Ren and his new motto (“let the past die, kill it if you have to.”).
Just because the characters say things doesn’t mean that that’s what the film itself is saying.
Yes, but that’s an interesting question. What is TLJ saying exactly? The burning of the Jedi tree seems perfectly in line with Kylo’s lines in the film. The movie spends a lot of time deconstructing previously held conceptions and expectations, but at least to some of us doesn’t really seem to fill the void it leaves behind.
Ironically enough I think it’s arguing against extreme opinions. On one side you have Kylo with “kill the past,” on the other you have Luke who’s trapped in a prison of the past. They are both obsessed with it, in their own way (as is Rey, with her parents).
I feel like I’ve said this before but when Luke goes to burn the tree, he’s not killing the past, he’s just furthering his obsession with the Jedi Order and how wrong he thinks they are. But of course he can’t actually go through with it, he can’t let go of the religion and the texts and the dogma and the history and all of it. When Yoda burns the tree, Luke takes that as confirmation: “So it is time for the Jedi to end.” Yoda responds “Time it is… for you to look past a pile of old books.” The message is clear, Yoda isn’t saying that it’s time for the Jedi to end and for the past to die, he’s just saying that it’s time to move on. The fact that Luke says he won’t be the last Jedi and that Rey saves the books just proves this further. Move on from the past, but don’t forget it. That’s the choice Rey makes when she doesn’t go with Kylo, that’s the choice she makes when she returns to the Resistance and her friends.