While that’s true, let’s not pretend JJ or Rian cared about that concept either. In fact, no one actually cared about it other than Lucas, since Lucas’ idea of the balance is no Sith. Pretty much everyone who wrote things past ROTJ ignored this, EU or Disney, since no Sith villains make for a less exciting franchise.
Sure, but at least none of the ST movies we got ended with “it turns out the Dark Side IS good after all, and that Gray Jedi, something that deeply go against everything about how the force has been depicted thus far in any canonical media and how it was set down by George, are totally right as a concept, even though using the dark side is genuinely inherently corrosive to the user’s soul and unavoidably corrupts their moral core when people are under its unfluence.”
Because that’s where Treverrow’s script goes. You can have a little corruption, as a treat.
Sure, it would’ve been against the “balance” idea…which is basically a fancy word for “No bad guys.” Which is immediately violated with Snoke, Kylo and then Palpatine. George’s story was that Anakin brought balance by ending Palpatine. Anything after that renders the balance idea…moot.
Grey Jedi would’ve actually flown from the Disney setup, so it goes back to Rian who was trying to REALLY push the franchise away from the Jedi/Sith good/bad ideology. At least then RoS would’ve flown thematically instead of stamping it right back down to ROTJ’s “kill off bad guy for balance.”
Seriously. When I saw TFA, I had figured Luke had been forced into exile to focus on a much larger threat. The tragedy would’ve been he KNEW the First Order was rising and killing his friends, but was forced to see the bigger picture.
This is confusing to me, because TFA straight up tells us exactly why Luke went into exile. When asked, Han says:
He was training a new generation of Jedi. One boy, an apprentice turned against him, destroyed it all. Luke felt responsible… He walked away from everything.
This seems pretty clear to me.
Yes, however, we aren’t told WHY it happened. And Han solo’s 3rd hand report can have inaccuracies, easily.
For example, here’s a take why did “the boy” do it. Note that in the movie they never SPECIFICALLY say it was Kylo. Sure, we know it’s him and they drop many hints, but it wasn’t set in stone yet. Star Wars changes huge plot point directions all the time.
What if something happened where the boy’s force powers suddenly went out of control and killed everyone by accident? What if it was a harbinger of future problems with The Force itself? What if the boy was driven insane, and not only did Luke feel responsible, he also realized it was going to get worse? If Anakin was the vergence in the force, what would the opposite be? Someone who poured force OUTWARD into everything?
or
What if the boy was an unknowing beacon of Force energy. What if his very existence was drawing in a more powerful enemy (similar to the Vong?) that wanted to seek out and eradicate the force itself. What if, in learning that he was destined to destroy not just the Jedi but bring death to the galaxy? The realizing could drive him mad and instead chose to embrace the coming annihilation. Instead of being a Sith, he wanted become something more: the Forceless, destined to erase the Sith and Jedi forever.
Just 2 ideas I just came up with that are beyond just good vs evil/Sith vs Jedi.