TLJ Luke would have been fine if it was an alternate timeline/interpretation of the character, rather than being labelled as the definitive, hard canon Luke. The Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ was very controversial among Christians for its depiction of a flawed, confused, very human Jesus. But the film goes out of its way to make clear to the audience that its an alternate interpretation of Jesus as a way of exploring deeper concepts through the character. The film doesn’t claim to offer the definitive, most Biblically accurate version of Jesus that everyone must accept as canon. It’s just one director’s hypothetical take on the character in a standalone film. The divisive reaction to that movie reminds me a lot of the divisive reaction to Luke in TLJ. But the difference is that TLJ is a sequel, and it leaves no alternative versions available. It’s been set in stone as the official canon fate of Luke Skywalker. That’s a big part of why so many people have rejected that version of Luke.
In theory, many of the Special Edition changes are fine. The problem is just that they are poorly implemented and that the mid 90’s CGI has aged so badly. If there was any time that Lucas should have made and released the Special Editions, it should have been after the prequels were made instead of before, with the original version of the OT ideally being shown in theaters a year or so before TPM as a sort of recap.
Each trilogy is best treated as its own complete story rather than lumping them all together as a Saga that often contradicts itself with very different creative visions. (Even young George Lucas and old George Lucas aren’t really in accord with one another on a lot of things.)
Lucasfilm should loosen its approach to canon, so that the franchise can be treated as more of a loose mythology rather than a definite sequence of hard canon events. In fact, it might be a good idea to bring back the idea of “levels of canon” like we had with the old EU.
I like you Servii and I hope you stick around this place. Did you know that Arthur C. Clarke specifically said that each of his 2001 sequels existed separately from each other in their own universes?
Some of us, including myself, feel that SW77 is really a separate entity from EVERYTHING that followed.