You don’t have to presume I have a viewpoint about the Force that’s any different from yours, it makes it really hard to take any discussion in a new direction. I agree with you. Now take it from there! I appreciate how fair you’ve been to ‘both’ sides of the divide on this while having your own POV, but it often feels like I’m being lumped in with some other nebulous TLJ defender archetype.
But the Sequels show us that Rey kind of just “downloads the Force” after her “mind-meld” with Kylo Ren.
There is absolutely no evidence in the movie itself that this is what happens. It’s way more of a stretch than what I laid out as the mechanics of TFA, where Rey has “seen” Star Wars™. There is absolutely a physical aspect and real training involved in mastering the Force - I would never ever dispute this - but Rey has basically gotten the workout class via her idolization of the story. Through what’s already the fable-istic nature of the Force’s mechanics, and learning about Luke, she’s basically gotten the number of reps and sets of exercises she should do, alongside the philosophy quotes that would help her keep routine. Not to mention she’s an athletic scavenger jumping massive gaps and climbing ropes among dangerous wreckage, fending for herself to begin with. Farmboy Luke is raised by a loving family (attachments), doing chores, dusting crops, flying for leisure. He’s apolitical - ambitious to leave but not for meaning or purpose - not like Rey who already looks up to heroes.
This doesn’t make her a better character, but it feels like we’re bending over backwards to make it all worse and contradictory. It’s just hack-y.
Rian just had this silly Zoroastrian-inspired idea of darkness rising to balance out the light, and vice-versa, perhaps the result of a corrupted interpretation of Lucas’ vague nonsense about balance in the Prequels. It sounds like some ad hoc idea Rian invented to justify Luke giving up on the Jedi.
This take on the Force is rejected by the movie. It’s a [popular] expectation (gray Jedi, anyone?), in the same vein as EU Luke, that is disposed of to reinforce the Original Trilogy. This where it gets so messy in reception, because Rian’s engagement with Star Wars, like everyone’s, is personal and varied and doesn’t fit into a box.
He doesn’t do an idealized, super Luke because like me he saw that Luke literally didn’t beat the Emperor with his powers, he bet on his dad and his friends. The type of guy who literally did take himself out of a picture so that he wouldn’t endanger the mission on Endor. That’s the interpretation. You don’t have to agree with it or how it was done, but it emphasizes Luke for who he was, not as a trained Jedi, but a son. A farmboy in over his head, just a guy, like you or me. That’s why he resonated [to Rian, to me].
That doesn’t mean he was a “lie”, and it all has so so very little to do with the prequels, or the Jedi as an institution or even an idea. This is a trilogy bereft of any of that kind of worldbuilding or connection - we all know it - but all of a sudden that has valence in this particular critique? No, it’s a personal character arc: Luke embracing his flaws and the triumph he is capable of even with them. It’s more analogous to impostor syndrome than it is about history.