I left TFA’s midnight screening with my brother and I remember we had the same exact argument (he was profoundly upset with TLJ and loved TFA). He was talking about how Luke had gone searching for the Jedi temple to learn,and how amazing that was and how he was being patient and amazing.
I said that I don’t think Luke would ever flee, and that I didn’t like how TFA treated his character. I do realize it’s a bit unfair to say that because he had 0 lines in the movie, but the idea that he simply fled and his friend died and the Republic died and all he did was… nothing didn’t resonate well with me.
My 9 year old liked TLJ, but we watched Star Wars and Empire last week (he’d seen them before but it had been a while), and yesterday in the car, he suddenly says that he had trouble believing the Luke in Star Wars would act like he does in TLJ.