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.But Luke says it himself in this film. He isn’t a legend. He is a man. And the legend is not who he is. It is not how I ever pictured him. I guess its one reason I never got into the EU.
The Luke as written by RJ says this. You might not have pictured him as a legend, but that doesn’t have to apply to everyone else.
We skip to ST continuity, where the Alliance’s victory did not lead to a lasting peace. Han and Leia who were destined to be together, got a monster kid, and they separated. It’s not that later generations squandered the OT’s victory, it’s the very heroes of the OT who let it slip through their fingers. The OT fairy tale did not have a fairy tale ending.
Show me a true revolution in our history that ended with the winners establishing a lasting peaceful replacement. ROTJ ended on a high note because all we saw was a victory celebration (Endor in the OOT and Endor, Tatooine, Bespin, Coruscant, and Naboo in the SE-OT). Even in the EU it was not a clean victory. In ROTJ the Empire was decapitated, but by abolishing the senate and leaving the regional governors in charge, Palpatine ensured that even if he was defeated that the Republic could not be easily restored. The ST is taking that to a more realistic conclusion by giving us the First Order, something that rose from the ashes of the Empire. The Thrawn Trilogy gave us something interesting, but this has more realistic feel to it.
Yes, but Star Wars is not a true revolution. It is a work of fiction, a myth. The OT at it’s heart is a fairy tale set in space. Fairy tales and myths don’t adhere to real life. Snow White didn’t have an extra-marrital affair, Cinderalla wasn’t addicted to drugs, and sleeping beauty didn’t suffer from narcolepsy. I suppose it would make them more human, but it would take away from the their mythical status.
The ST represents the reality check of Star Wars. Legends and fairy tales are not real, and TLJ Luke Skywalker is an exponent of that. The OT Luke Skywalker is an icon, someone we aspire to be. TLJ Luke is like discovering the father you allways looked up to, is an alcoholic. He’s more human, and stripped from his iconic status. Sure, he went to AA meetings and finally sobered up, but you never quite look at him in the same way you used to.
Again, the Luke in ROTJ was really not that lofty. He was the same old Luke but had gained confidence. That is why he became a Jedi. He had overcome his failings. But as like you mention alcholism, a person’s failings often lie just under the surface, awaiting a failure to bring them out again. So to me Luke in TLJ and his journey from the fateful fall of his school to now is a very realistic portrayal of someone who had reach such heights and has had such a huge failure.
Again Star Wars as written by George Lucas was not meant to be realistic. Luke’s arc in the OT is a hero’s journey. Campbell described the basic narrative pattern as follows:
“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”
The three stages of the hero’s journey are:
- Departure (also Separation),
- Initiation (sometimes subdivided into IIA. Descent and IIB. Initiation) and
- Return.
Luke had reached the final stage of his journey, and a decisive victory was won. There’s no fourth stage, where the hero fails. RJ has added one, and Luke’s story thus no longer fits with the hero myth. He’s become more real, but at the expense of the myth.
The OT is a fairy tale, like Santa Clause, and here’s RJ to tell you Santa Clause does not exist. He’s just some guy in a suit. Christmas is never quite the same to you. Sure, your kids look to this new guy (or girl actually) who’s now wearing the suit, and see Santa Clause, but you know it’s a fake beard, because Star Wars is not a fairytale anymore.
As we have watch Luke’s journey over the three films of the OT, we should all be painfully aware that Luke is a man with failings and that for a time he rose above those failings. That doesn’t mean he can’t fall. Such a huge failure as is described is enough to destroy your average person. Someone with Luke’s known failings in the OT, would do just what we are told he did. Your statements prove that you didn’t see the man Luke was and only saw the hero he became. Anakin was a hero and look at what the fear of losing his wife did to him and then how much further her actual loss ruined him. But his son brought him back.
Star Wars was not about the man, it was about the myth. Anakin had his journey, and he was ultimately redeemed. Let’s for the sake of argument assume Darth Vader didn’t die. A writer could cock up a story, where Vader relapses, and once again joins the dark side. People relapse, it’s realistic. However, it would severely undermine Anakin’s arc in the six film saga.
Also, a big part that people are missing in this discussion on Luke is that he cut himself off from the force. He cut himself off from knowing what was going on. He didn’t know that the First Order had grown so strong. He didn’t know that Snoke had grown so powerful. He didn’t know anything. He didn’t know his best friend had died. Leia knew instantly. Luke had to be told. He completely cut himself off from the force and was just a man living on an island. He had no idea that Leia and the Republic needed him. He may not have even know that Kylo Ren had joined Snoke before he vanished to the island. So saying he would never have gone to the island because Luke would never have left the Galaxy in such a predicament fails to take into account that he has no idea. That was not the situation when he went there. That was not the situation when TFA started and he’s been on that island a lot longer than that.
Sorry, but this is just not true. The entire premise of TLJ is, that Luke has seen the suffering Kylo would cause in his vision. He knew exactly what might happen, but ultimately he did nothing to stop it.
So, realistic portrayal of toppling a despotic regime, realistic portrayal of a fallen hero, and a realistic portrayal of a character based on actual psychology and the given traits of the character (I checked up on that with some people who know these things), and you have a very realistic setting for the ST to take place in.
Again Star Wars is not realistic. The hero’s journey and myths are not realistic. They are not meant to be.
No, it is not the story you wanted, but it is not flawed in the way you describe it. It is flawed from your view because you see Luke as a legendary hero and that the heroes of the OT should not have failed like they have in the years between the OT and ST.
Luke was a legendary hero, as follows from the hero’s journey. It’s not what I wanted, it is the way it was. That was allways the intent. His story was supposed to end in ROTJ. Of course then Lucas decided to sell his company, and there had to be a ST with the classic characters, and so they had to somehow extend the story. The ST has unrevalled the mythology of the OT in order to do this. Some will like this approach, and others won’t. I will allways prefer the myth, but I like the more realistic approach of the ST enough to want to see, how it plays out.