Luke immediately throws away the lightsaber and shuts himself in his hut, refusing to help Rey or the Resistance.
Rose, despite her initial fangirl attitude, actively thwarts Finn’s escape attempt in the process and then accuses him of being a traitor.
Holdo immediately gives Poe a dressing-down and refuses to let him in on her plans, to the point that he believes that she is an enemy.
I don’t really agree. Luke’s character arc is sort of the entire point of the movie, I don’t think changing it would be a good idea. And with Holdo, she’s not an antagonistic ally, she’s functionally a straight antagonist until the end of the movie.
Rose is the only character here where this really applies well to, but even then I wouldn’t consider her an antagonistic ally. More of an ally who gets off to a rough start with Finn. Especially because Finn is clearly in the wrong trying to abandon ship.
The short of it is that Rian was so enamored with subverting expectations that he forgot to make the allies of the film likeable from the outset.
It really sucks that “subverting expectations” has been so associated with the Last Jedi. It wasn’t Rian’s governing mindset making the movie, it’s just something he said once behind the scenes and the marketing department plastered that soundbyte everywhere.
Might be more suited for HAL’s thread, but it’s kind of dead so I thought I’d put it here. He mentions in his commentary that in Rey’s duel with Luke, his initial viewing reaction was along the lines of “oh, it’s Rey outdoing my hero again…” - but I’m not crazy, Luke wins the fight, right? He fairly effortlessly blocks every blow and then disarms her. She’s the aggressor, he has no intention of hurting her. She only ‘wins’ after that by drawing a lightsaber on him, and I can hardly hold it against Luke for backing away from that rather than attempting to continue to fight with a stick!
Absolutely. I have no idea what HAL’s opinion is or even if he’s the one you’re talking about, but I see that sort of take a lot on the internet.
While they’re fighting, Luke gives Rey a light tap with his metal pole (?), which shows that Luke’s in total control of the fight. Rey is leaving herself so open, and Luke is so far above her in skill, that he’s able to playfully hit her. If it were a real fight, if Luke actually felt like he was in any sort of danger, he could have made that deadly.
She only gets (what appears to be) the upper hand because she cheats and pulls a lightsaber, but I still doubt that she even has the upper hand. I’m sure Luke would’ve been able to pull something and “win” against her, especially because of how he’s depicted in that moment. But when a weapon as deadly as a lightsaber is involved, one of the two of them probably would’ve ended up dead. Probably Rey, but that’s still not what Luke wants to happen.