Harrison was right to want his character dead by the end of ROTJ.
Exactly. Harrison’s ideas of where the character should go have merit. If only Hamill’s ideas had been listened to as as well.
*had been listened to by JJ Abrams, who introduced the Luke abandoning the galaxy in shame plotline.
JJ started it, yes, but it was Rian who took the ball and ran with it. Hamill definitely didn’t want things to go they way they did in TLJ. JJ’s mystery box COULD have been opened in a more appropriate way.
How? By going against everything set up in the prior film? By having a primary hero not grow or develop over 30 years? By sidelining the new characters to have Luke take over the story again?
The only other interesting choice would’ve been for Luke to be revealed the puppet master behind Snoke.
Well Hamill himself said that a more appropriate reason for him going into exile would be the tragic death of his child. There are many other ways as well, such as an accidental death of one of his students, the turn of many of his students to the Dark Side that he could do nothing to prevent, a failure in training Leia which almost led to her death, his wife leaving him due to him prioritizing the Jedi school and refusing to return even after he left it to a next-in-command, Luke losing a battle to Snoke himself…
There are many ways in which Luke could have been on that island which didn’t have him fail at a test which he overcame years earlier. I get that Rian might have been going for the idea that just because someone succeeds once does not mean they will forever and this amplifies his wretchedness, but it comes at the cost of the simplicity of mythic storytelling. I think Rian was trying to say something subtle like this, but for many it ended up being too clever by half.
Then your beef is with Abrams, because he is the one that made Luke go into hiding for his failures with Kylo. Look at that crawl again, and re-watch the conversation between Han, Rey and Finn. That motivation was written by Abrams, Johnson just fleshed it out.
Also, how many issues when it comes to temptation and interpersonal connection get solved by one choice that one time? He overcame that choice in both scenes, but was tempted and challenged by his more base way of thinking- y’know, like a person.