Well why the hell did Vader deserve redemption?
He didn’t, we tolerated it because Vader was well written and it was easier for us to feel that his love for his son was enough to make him turn back.At least Kylo had layers, some obvious conflict.
Mm, this is an odd one. Vader had many more layers than Kylo. Vader was always in conflict, he was a slave to the dark side. Kylo chose to be the monster he became and I honestly don’t think the movies gave us reasons for him to have let darkness grown inside of him.
But that’s not true according to the OT. Vader was a straight up bad guy in ANH - choking dudes to death, torturing princesses, killing Obi Wan (quite happily I add - “this will be a day long remembered…”), and shooting down X-Wings. In TESB he relentlessly pursues the rebels, kills his subordinates for human error, tortures Han and Leia to get Luke’s attention, and finally gives Luke a ‘join me or die’ ultimatum (“don’t make me destroy you”).
Only in ROTJ is it suggested that Vader had ‘good in him’, and that was purely because Luke (see Lucas) suddenly decided it was so.
I agree Kylo had no backstory whatsoever, but the conflict within him is/was evident from the get-go. Vader had given himself over to darkness and was pretty comfortable with it in the OT. Kylo was not so adept at evil. In fact the way way Adam Driver played Kylo was how I wish Anakin had been played in the prequels, a truly conflicted soul. That “I want to be free of this pain” moment in TFA had more raw emotion in it than all three prequels put together.
By the way I’m not against Vader’s redemption at all, in fact I thought it was a great idea. I just hate Luke’s POV. I do not understand why Luke was suddenly all gushy about Dad in ROTJ, nor do I understand why this took precedence over everything else that was going on. I’d have preferred a darker movie - one where Luke would be disillusioned with the whole Jedi thing (having been lied to by everyone concerned) and Vader’s turnaround would be a nice surprise while Luke was busy doing everything in his power to defeat Palpatine. But that’s just me. I cannot fathom why saving a war-criminal’s soul would make anyone a legend.
I mean, Luke’s primary influence from the moment he joins Ben in ANH - is his father’s legacy. He wants to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like his father. From that, he essentially follows the path his dad took, right down to when he brushes with the dark side in ESB. He ignores Yoda and Ben’s warnings by rushing in to confront Vader, and save his friends.
That’s when he sees an outcome of following that quick and easy path - Darth Vader - and is faced with making different choices than his father. By ROTJ, Luke has empathy for Vader because he finds that by following his father, he is Vader. He’s more or less been where he’s been. Everything he believed about his father had to be true at one point, but then he took a wrong turn somewhere, which Luke after ESB understands now more than anyone.
It definitely has potential to be naivete, but Luke ends up being right. The idealism that it is, is what makes him a legend. The fact that you, and probably many others in the galaxy, would become disillusioned where Luke didn’t is the point. That doesn’t really say anything about how you personally would have preferred the movie to go, but that’s the theme. It makes sense and isn’t “sudden.” ROTJ just contextualizes the previous set-up. Not that it couldn’t have gone in a different direction - that who knows, I might have preferred myself - but pretty much all the heavy lifting for it is done in the prior two films.
I don’t disagree - I mean even though the OT was written on the fly, the character of Vader is fleshed out as you say ie we learn about the noble father and then discover Vader is that guy (with all that implies).
But the OT wasn’t about saving Dad, it was about Luke Skywalker being the last Jedi hope of the galaxy. And Luke did not save the galaxy. All he did was save Vader. Killing Palpatine was a lucky by-product of an entirely different quest - to save Vader. It’d be like me halting a nuclear holocaust because I just so happened to plug in my hairdryer and blow all the fuses in the bad guys’ bunker.
It feels like you’re missing the point here. Obi-Wan and Yoda wanted Luke to save the galaxy by destroying the Sith, but Luke couldn’t bring himself to kill his father. In the end, Luke’s hopefulness pays off. He puts down his weapon and sacrifices himself to Palpatine, resulting in Vader’s redemption and Palpatine’s death. It’s a subversion of the “chosen one” trope. Luke saves the galaxy not by destroying the Sith, but by saving his father.
I just don’t see it. What if Vader hadn’t turned? It’d be a bad thing to make a habit of this. Is this what they teach at Jedi school - always trust a family member no matter what? And Luke never articulates a desire to defeat Palpatine. His only expressed desire is saving Vader. I just don’t see how this is a) moral and b) worthy of legend. If anything Luke should walk away from this saying “well that was lucky but I’m not training another Jedi - they’re way too temperamental”.
People keep saying “Luke destroyed the Sith” but he didn’t. He accidentally destroyed the Sith - the same Sith who were pretty much doomed anyway because the DS was about to explode. Again, at best Luke inadvertently prevented Palpatine’s possible escape. But he can’t claim credit for it - it was just a lucky by-product of his obsession with Vader’s redemption.
I think a huge problem with ROTJ is that it dumbs down the Dark Side to a ludicrous degree. It turns the slow-burn corruption of negative emotions and lust for power into a simple “lose your temper and you’ll turn irreversibly evil” thing. Which means Luke just has to stand there while thousands of his comrades are being incinerated, or that just getting angry will somehow lead to Luke joining the Emperor. By extension this implies that Jedi are more trouble than they’re worth.
I have to agree with you on this one. The “strike me down” speech is dumb, but it’s not like TROS is any better since it features the same speech almost word for word.
I still don’t see why Luke would become a legend for giving a profoundly evil man a bedside conversion while everyone else was fighting a war.
To be fair, that’s more of a sequel trilogy thing. Nothing in ROTJ implies that Luke became a legend for redeeming his father, so that argument is invalid when used against ROTJ.
Yes but Yoda tells Luke to “pass on what he has learned” (which, as I keep arguing, is “do nothing - it’ll work out in the end”!) and Luke tells Leia that she will learn to use the Force as he has. The EU has Luke training new Jedi and the general fan vibe is, as you say, Luke destroyed the Sith and by extension should start a new Jedi Order.
Her temptation by Palpatine is real - she is literally put in the impossible position of having to accept the Dark Side as a way to save her friends, and Kylo helps her. Together they save the galaxy.
That may have been JJ’s intention, but it wasn’t conveyed well at all. Palpatine tells Rey that he wants Rey to kill him so he can possess her. Then he tells Rey that killing him will allow her to save her friends, which blatantly contradicts the thing he said right before. If Rey is possessed by Palpatine, there’s no way she’ll want to save her friends. It’s such a one-sided bargain that any sane person would have refused, and so Rey seems like an idiot for actually going along with Palpatine’s plan until Ben shows up.
Well that’s the gamble, that Palpatine will be true to his word. And the implication is that he’ll spare the rebels’ lives, but then rule them with an iron fist through Dark Rey. It’s a truly impossible situation and Rey opts for sparing their lives (before Kylo intervenes). That has so much more meat to it than “go on, get angry, that’ll make you evil”.
Because of that, Luke’s throne room scene is much better in my opinion. Luke isn’t there to kill Palpatine, and he doesn’t fall for any of Palpatine’s “strike me down” speechifying. He actually seems smart, and his intelligence pays off in the end.
Many sentient beings were ruthlessly killed while Luke stood at the DS window trying not to get mad. Many more died while Luke sat under a staircase trying not to get mad. More and more died while Luke threw aside his weapon and declared that he was now a qualified space-Yoga instructor. I fail to see how this is moral, let alone smart. Smart would have been deliberately doing everything in his power to make sure Palpatine was on the DS when it exploded. If that had been Luke’s expressed intention, the whole thing would make more sense to me.