It muddles the message and apparently causes some viewers to think that the Jedi telling Luke not to get himself killed in a trap, or to go and fight a necessary spiritual battle, is some kind of moral failing on the Jedi’s part, and not something that is genuinely wise.
Does it muddle the message? I think if someone comes away from the movie thinking Obi-Wan and Yoda don’t want Luke running off to Cloud City because it’s against the Jedi rules to have friends, and not any of the things you mentioned, it’s such a large misreading of the movie they’d have to have been looking at their phone the whole time to think it. I don’t think you can blame the prequels for it. It’s also not what Dagenspear is saying about this scene.
It’s a specific reading of the prequels that a gigantic portion (possibly most) fans have right now, which is that the Jedi forbidding attachment is:
- their major flaw that causes Anakin to fall and screws everything up
- directly connected to when they tell Luke not to go to Cloud City to help Han and Leia, and to when they tell Luke to kill Vader (note they don’t actually tell him to kill Vader but that’s a separate bugaboo I have)
I blame the prequels for changing the Jedi and causing confusion with poor writing.
Still, in order for someone to say that Obi-Wan and Yoda are wrong for telling Luke not to run off and face Vader, I think you really just have to have forgotten the entire movie. Luke disregards their advice, and as a result gets dismembered WITHOUT having saved Han & Leia. He’s extremely lucky to even be alive by the end of the movie.
The idea that Obi-Wan and Yoda are wrong for telling Luke to complete his training is not one I’ve ever been exposed to before this. It’s not a common reading of the movie like your bugaboo with Return of the Jedi is. I found some Screen Rant articles saying it but they don’t connect it back to the prequels and attachment. I don’t think the prequels can be blamed for a reading as bad as this.