I liked Luke’s vibe in TLJ in theory, but the execution bugged me somewhat. Luke in exile was great. Luke reconsidering past events and pondering (as I have as a fan) the idea of Jedi hubris was great. Luke suggesting that the old Jedi orthodoxy had to die was great. All the stuff about the Force and ‘balance’ and how no-one has a particular claim to it was absolutely great.
What I didn’t like so much was the idea of Luke being on the back foot with all this. Having Yoda come back to give Luke a lecture on ‘failure’ annoyed me. Luke transcended his masters in RoTJ. Yoda and Obi Wan wanted Luke to simply kill the bad guys. Luke chose a more personal, Zen route. I’d prefer he’d been doing the grumpy hobo routine in TLJ as an act - similar to Yoda’s initial test in TESB. This could have been his way of forcing Rey to take her destiny into her own hands, a new and different path away from the usual formalised Jedi training routine. Once Rey had flown off to confront Kylo, Luke could have revealed his cunning duplicity to Yoda and they could’ve burned down the Jedi tree together. Then, after Luke’s great skype-battle with Kylo, Rey could’ve realised what he’d done and be like “you sly devil”.
This way he could’ve played the hobo but still been the Luke we all love and respect without being diminished.
I liked Luke’s vibe in TLJ in theory, but the execution bugged me somewhat. Luke in exile was great. Luke reconsidering past events and pondering (as I have as a fan) the idea of Jedi hubris was great. Luke suggesting that the old Jedi orthodoxy had to die was great. All the stuff about the Force and ‘balance’ and how no-one has a particular claim to it was absolutely great.
What I didn’t like so much was the idea of Luke being on the back foot with all this. Having Yoda come back to give Luke a lecture on ‘failure’ annoyed me. Luke transcended his masters in RoTJ. Yoda and Obi Wan wanted Luke to simply kill the bad guys. Luke chose a more personal, Zen route. I’d prefer he’d been doing the grumpy hobo routine in TLJ as an act - similar to Yoda’s initial test in TESB. This could have been his way of forcing Rey to take her destiny into her own hands, a new and different path away from the usual formalised Jedi training routine. Once Rey had flown off to confront Kylo, Luke could have revealed his cunning duplicity to Yoda and they could’ve burned down the Jedi tree together. Then, after Luke’s great skype-battle with Kylo, Rey could’ve realised what he’d done and be like “you sly devil”.
This way he could’ve played the hobo but still been the Luke we all love and respect without being diminished.
If you didn’t notice, the scene with Yoda doesn’t alter the more Zen route he took in ROTJ. Yoda isn’t advising him on the force, he is advising him how to teach. Advising him as a fellow master. I think because Luke was so pivotal, Rian didn’t just have him fill the master/mentor role immediately. He brought back some of that negativity that characterized Luke in ANH and TESB. It created a nice character journey for Luke to take him where he needed to be to help Rey.
Yes, but that’s my point - that Luke was brought back to ANH/TESB levels to reboot his arc. Yoda says (in TLJ) “young Skywalker, always looking to the horizon” when it was actually this attitude that saved the day in RoTJ, namely that Luke ‘looked to the horizon’ and took an emotional, idealistic path with regard to the bad guys (as opposed to just killing them).
I just think returning the OT characters to pre-RoTJ status, while not so bad in theory, could’ve been handled better. Leia as rebel leader, rather than Jedi kindergarten teacher, was a no-brainer since her Skywalker heritage was a story convenience that added zero to her character. Han going back to smuggling was kind of dumb - he should have been recruiting pilots from the outer rim or something which would have kept him on his post-RoTJ path while still serving the divorce narrative.
But returning Luke to pre-RoTJ status diminishes RoTJ (and this is coming from someone who doesn’t even like RoTJ!). I think the ‘broken recluse’ idea could have been served in a cleverer way without sending Luke backwards. And he didn’t help Rey. She helped him.
Great interpretations, agree fully. Luke accomplished what his masters couldn’t when he saved his father, and he did it in his own way. Reducing him to a bitter old man who made the same mistakes with his own pupil (except worse, seeing as he considered murder a solution to his failings as a teacher) is to ignore what he accomplished in RotJ. It’s sold as a subversive take on Luke’s character, but it’s really just another reboot and ripoff of a story we’ve already been told.
I didn’t mind the idea of the Jedi Order and its orthodoxy dying out because my interpretation of the prequels has always been that the Jedi became too powerful, influential, and frankly cocky (Yoda speaks to this in AotC I believe), inviting the blindness and corruption that was ultimately the downfall of the Order and the Republic.
Luke experienced an awakening in RotJ and TLJ sets him back for the sake of making Rey look good.
I quite disagree. Luke had faith that his father could be saved and he was right. But seeing the way Luke ended ROTJ as something fundamental had changed with him and he could never fall back to his old defeatist attitude is a false interpretation of the character arc of Luke in the OT. Luke found something to believe in and he believed that the correct course was to rebuild the Jedi. But that failed in a miserable way. It was not just the actions of Luke on that night in Kylo’s hut, but that Kylo had been corrupted to start with and it was too late for Luke to reach him. How did evil penetrate his trailing of his nephew? How could that happen again? Was it in the Skywalker blood? Was it a failing of the Jedi teachings? Why had Kylo fallen? Luke went to the source looking for answers and the only thing he found was that the Jedi were flawed and that flaw had left a hole for Kylo’s fall and while Luke had not caused or been able to prevent it, he had hastened it by listening to his instincts (Ben’s first lesson if you recall - to act on instinct). He had failed his nephew. A tradgedy like that would naturally bring out your defeatist side if that was in your nature (as we saw it was indeed in two movies and still hints of it in ROTJ). It is a very realistic portrayal of a hero and a classic archetype of the former hero as mentor, who has to be convinced to teach. Nothing about the Luke shown in TLJ is contrary to the OT Luke. Quite the reverse. In fact you could say that Luke’s journey in TLJ is very much tied to how his character appeared in ROTJ. Luke is a Jedi of strong emotions. Strong faith and strong doubt.
False interpretation? There’s no such thing. I have my take, you have yours.
As I’ve said multiple times now, I don’t have a problem with Hermit Luke, just the poorly told history that led him to such a place and Rey’s lack of need for any real training to exhibit Force powers that rival Yoda’s. As Shopping Maul said, I have a problem with its execution. I’m just not sold on this version of Luke based on what we’ve been given to work with and I’m not going to perform the mental gymnastics required to get there.
You pose lots of interesting questions, by the way—none of which were answered in TFA or TLJ. I doubt they’ll be answered in IX either.
It is a false interpretation because that is not how human beings are. At their core, all heroes are human beings, just with something special to make them a hero. Hercules had his failings. Luke has his failings. Rian used those to round out Luke’s actions as told in TFA. Luke had a very good day at the end of ROTJ, but on the day Kylo turned against him it was a very bad day. Luke has a bad history with very bad days and there is no reason why having a great day means he will never act the same again on a bad day. That is just ridiculous. Your interpretation builds Luke up to something he is not. That is part of what the story of TLJ is about. Leia and Rey wanted that heroic Luke who took on the Empire, so did a lot of fans. That Luke would be unrealistic. What we got was an epic illusion. He appeared to be the Luke desired, but he was never that Luke. His human side was showing through and he saw no way to help the galaxy except by staying away. Right or wrong, that was his take. In the end he realized the galaxy needed the legend and they got it, just not as they expected it. Better in some ways. But the Luke from the end of ROTJ was still just a Tatooine farm boy at heart. People don’t change in such a fundamental way. That was why Anakin could be saved. He was fundamentally a lost slaveboy who wanted to save his family. Where is that fundamental difference in Kylo. I think his redemption will take a different direction.
Sorry, still not there with you on this, and never will be.
Everyone’s favorite scene in TLJ was when Leia gave Rey a medal that said “Best Jedi Ever.” Truly amazing moment.
yeah because that’s exactly what i meant
Well then I guess I have no idea what you meant, like usual.
Are you kidding? Sometimes it’s like you people don’t want to even acknowledge the other side of something despite Collipso being pretty darn clear.
It’s deliberate and it’s annoying. Just shitposting, really.
Thanks?
No, like Frink said, I really didn’t get collipso’s point. I have taken his posts literally before, only to be told they were sarcasm, and I found myself scratching my head wondering which this was.
I was traveling all day, so only now saw this, and figured I better speak my price, lest you think I really was being pointlessly belligerent.
Back on topic, I agree with yotsuya’s post above.
i’m sorry i wasn’t clear dahmage. to explain the post you didn’t understand: i was pretty angry with some IRL stuff and gave a more emotional response than usual, and ended up using a super ultra hyperbole. i said rey’s the “best jedi ever”, but what i really meant was that she’s quite capable jedi-wise two movies in already and she had 0 training so far, so i don’t see why IX’s writers would go out of their ways in the final movie of the trilogy to give her some sort of training, given that it’s been pretty clear that it’s not necessary to her.
again, sorry for coming across as unclear to you quite often. you’re one of the posters i enjoy the most here and i’ll try to improve from now on to avoid complications in the future.
…Rey must reach a point no Jedi before has reached…
He [Luke] became a classic Jedi and it could not help him save his nephew from falling.
see, those are two of the biggest issues i have with TLJ and the ST in general.
Luke in RotJ had reached said point no Jedi had previously reached, and given what happens in the OT, it’s quite a big leap in logic for me to believe that Luke would go from his RotJ self into a classic jedi that couldn’t save his nephew and almost appealed to killing him due to that.
TLJ standing alone is a better movie than as the eigth part of the Star Wars saga: Luke, Rey and Kylo have great arcs, Finn and Poe have good arcs, etc. the problem here is that it’s not standing alone, and therefore Luke’s arc makes no sense (because how he’s gotten to the starting point makes no sense to me), Rey’s force abilities make no sense (given what we already know of the force and how hard it is to master it from previous movies), and that kills a third of the movie already, the A plot, the third of the movie that was supposed to ‘carry’ the other two.
now, some of you may read as if i have a problem with luke failing. i don’t. i have a problem with luke acting the way he did when facing his nephew’s possible turn to the dark side, given that he himself had been tempted before and had also turned one of the darkest and most evil guys ever back to the light side. so it feels weird that that’s Luke’s greatest failure.
How is it a stretch of logic for Luke, now a Jedi Master, to be struck down by remorse and regret and go back to that defeatist attitude that is so much of his character in ANH and TESB. That makes ROTJ the oddball, not TLJ. This Luke is a logical offshoot of where we left him in ROTJ given that he had built a school and then all of his students either turned to the dark side or were killed. That is a heavy loss for a teacher. We know Luke cares and to have half of his students to that to the other half is another blow. I’m not sure what you think Luke is made of, but the arc we are given for his post ROTJ life is consistent with his personality traits in the OT. It is the thought he had somehow became some grand legend at the end of ROTJ that is in error. He was a man who had succeeded. He was on top of the world. When Kylo betrayed him and the school, he was at the lowest he’d ever experienced in his life. That you know so little of human frailty and reaction to tragedy is unfortunate.
As for the scene in the hut with Kylo, We are given 3 versions. I feel the last one is correct. Luke acted on instinct. Kylo responded on instinct. That was the first lesson Ben taught him back in ANH on the Falcon. That would be the first lesson Luke would have taught. Luke would not have carried through with it, but Kylo did. Instinct is all well and good, but sometimes you need to let your head prevail. And it would be in keeping with his character to then reject the Light saber. We see in TLJ that he has dismantled his own.
As for Rey’s force abilities, she is a natural. It happens. Some people are just more adept than others. I read it as she can see how others use the force and imitate it. She needs training, but the skills come easy. It is how she should use them and in wisdom that she needs guidance. That is what she was asking of Luke. Luke had doubts that got in his way. Rey has none, but she seeks and needs purpose. She can do the skills, but she needs a mentor to show her how to take the skills and put them to use. The whole “she learns too easy” isn’t much of an argument. Anakin needed to learn patience. Luke needed to learn faith. Rey needs to learn wisdom. Just because she doesn’t have the same difficulty as Luke does not mean she is a full fledged Jedi in need of no training. Every Jedi to date has learned the same one-sided force ability. Light side only. Rey has no such restriction. To her it is all the force. That is either very dangerous or very beneficial, and only with guidance can she find the right way. Problem is that while Luke was closer than any who came before, even he wasn’t there yet. After Yoda opened his eyes and he died, he just might be the teacher she needs. Your argument is based on what we saw Luke go through. For Rey that part is easy. Luke had an innate sense of rightness that Rey seems to lack. Student learns from master and master learns from student and you arrive at what could be the ideal end result. If they are telling the story I think they are, that is the setup they need.
In saying ‘RoTJ is the oddball’ you’re actually making my point. That’s the problem here. If one was to do a ‘machete order’ viewing of the movies and remove RoTJ entirely (leaving the viewer to extrapolate such details as Leia’s newfound heritage and Anakin’s turn) then the character arcs would actually make perfect sense. Luke, Han, and Leia could continue from their TESB points without much of a hitch.
The problem is that RoTJ did happen, and from Lucas’ own mouth the entire point of that film was Anakin’s redemption - and by extension Luke’s insistence on carrying it out contrary to what he was being taught. Luke was trusting his instincts in RoTJ, absolutely. His entire manifesto, his entire arc, culminated in his valuing family over doctrine. His fumbling the ball over Kylo’s mere potential - when he so doggedly pursued the redemption of seemingly irredeemable father - is inconsistent with what RoTJ went out of its way to establish.
Having a hero ‘fall’ is fine if the writing is good/consistent. Paul Atreides became a bitter old hermit in Dune, but that worked because Frank Herbert was a genius who loaded his stories with incredible nuance regarding power and religion and human nature. Spider-Man constantly quits the hero biz, but Peter Parker is well known for his frailties and ever present guilt complex. Luke’s fumbling the ball with Kylo is jarring because the entire OT - and RoTJ in particular - makes a point of Luke’s arc culminating in the absolute notion of family loyalty/compassion over doctrine.
As for Rey’s powers it seems to me that RJ has simply changed the nature of the Force for his own convenience. The OT (and even the midichlorian-infested PT) establishes the Force as something that requires serious training and incredible mental/emotional discipline - irrespective of the wielders’ natural proclivities. In RJ’s SW universe the Force manifests like X-Men powers (see ‘Broom Boy’).