JJ Abrams even wanted the movie to end with Luke surrounded by floating rocks, to wow the audience by showing off how powerful Luke was.
I’m sure this would have been a cool shot. But now I’m really doubting JJ Abrams. This sounds like Luke would still have been connected to the Force when Rey finds him (which, to be fair, is maybe why they scrapped it). So Luke would have been on that island, ready and waiting to join the fight for… what? We know from TESB he can sense when Han and Leia are in pain or danger, so I hate the idea of him being able to sense that but not doing anything about it. He needed to have cut himself off from the Force, so the Force couldn’t influence his resolve as much.
People talk about Luke wanting to remain on the island as a ‘subversion of expectations’. But I always wonder why that wasn’t the expectation. In TFA, Han said that when one Jedi student destroyed Luke’s new Jedi order, “Luke felt responsible”… he just walked away from everything." Luke is on the island for a reason and Rian Johnson just had the task of explaining that as best he could. It’s beginning to sound like JJ and maybe Lawrence Kasdan were ok with Luke’s exile just being a set up for the sake of an interesting story structure, without any explanation or logic.
From what I’ve heard, Rian asked JJ to scrap the rocks. But JJ still wanted to have Luke in Jedi robes in the final shot, so that’s why Luke changes clothes almost immediately in TLJ.
Han saying that about Luke definitely points the story in a certain direction that implies Luke is done with the world and has turned his back on everyone. Which makes it all the more confusing why the film chooses to focus so heavily on “We gotta find Luke.” Arguably, it could make sense for the new heroes to focus on that (though Han and Leia should both know better than to expect Luke to help them), but why would the First Order and Snoke care so specifically about a washed up old Jedi who’s cut himself off from the Force? TFA couldn’t really seem to make up its mind on the role Luke was going to play.
TFA’s whole central plot, the “map to Luke,” really makes more sense from a meta perspective than it does in-universe. One exiled old former Jedi isn’t that big of a deal in the ongoing conflict, but every character fixates on it and trying to figure out where Luke is, because that’s what the writers assumed the audience would be fixating on. So going into TLJ after two years of waiting, with the sudden tonal whiplash of Luke tossing the saber over his shoulder and walking off, it does come off as either differing visions or a deliberate bait-and-switch.