DrDre said:
NFBisms said:
I don’t even think it’s the same situation/plot. Maybe you disagree with the decision to have Luke cut himself off from the galaxy in the first place, but that alone is enough to be a different story with different themes. Maybe TFA set up a trajectory like the one you describe, but even Ben’s First Order is now motivated by burning down all the old institutions to begin a new world order, as opposed to the OT Empire just wishing to maintain its hold on the galaxy. It looks the same on a superficial level, I guess, but I do think it is a “different problem that the old solution can’t fix.”
I don’t really see where the FO is that different from the Empire presented in TESB after the destruction of the Death Star. They’re a military power controlling most of the galaxy. I’ve heard very little about a new world order, and how that system is supposed to be so different from the previous dictatorship that ruled the galaxy.
That’s fair, of what we’ve had so far, it has mirrored the Empire. I just think that “evil empire vs rebel group” is informed by different themes this time around, at least in TLJ where Ren has killed Snoke and the Resistance was more focused on survival rather than hitting back. I think it really all depends on where they take this in IX.
Obi-Wan and Yoda were hiding to watch over Luke until he was ready to begin his Jedi training. On the other hand, Old Luke at the start of TLJ has no intention of doing anything for the galaxy anymore. He doesn’t even know Han is dead or even what is happening in the galaxy. That it even needed his help.
I think the entire scenario surrounding Luke’s abandonment of his ideals and values are in part why this trilogy betrays the spirit of the earlier films. In order for the new hero to replace the old one, the old one has to take himself out of commission contrary to everything that character represented for four decades, a cheat of sorts. It sacrifices the old solution to the problem of a galaxy wide dictatorship, namely Luke and the New Republic for the new solution represented by Rey, and whatever might become of those few dozen rebels flying off in the Millenium Falcon at the end of TLJ.
I do think TLJ was more about Luke than it was about Rey. While he literally sacrifices himself at the end for the future of the good guys and the galaxy, I don’t think they gave anything up they could have explored with Luke to give Rey more to do, when maybe they should have.
I guess I just don’t think new additions to the franchise can ruin what came before it for me. The prequels didn’t ruin the original trilogy to me. And while I am welcoming of the ST’s new direction, I don’t even think it takes away from the OT. If anything, it’s just an expansion of it. Just another way to look at it. Doesn’t make what those movies have to say any less important.
I don’t know. If a creator writes a story with certain themes and messages, and then another creator claims to expand on, and eventually finish that story (it’s all supposed to be one nine part saga, no?), but actively undermines those themes and messages (IMO), I think that presents a problem. I think a creator should be true to the material. If RJ wanted to take things in a completely different direction, I think he should have used his own vehicle, the new trilogy, to do it, and even then not all bets are off. If he really wants to do his own thing, he should create his own universe.
Luke still represents the same thing to me that he has since I was a kid. The young farmboy from nothing who became a Jedi Knight. You can call it regression, but I think it plays to the strength of TLJ’s themes to remind us of the simple humanity he came from, and not just as the infallible legend he became to the galaxy (and us, meta-narratively). After all, his human compassion and love for his father is what won for the galaxy at the end of the day in ROTJ. His experiences training as a Jedi opened his mind and matured him, but his humanity made him the hero.
If one of TLJ’s main themes is about there being a hero in all of us despite our shortcomings - and that trying to recreate/forge our own legends isn’t that heroic - I think that’s pretty true to the spirit of the OT, more than the prequels retroactively making Luke and Leia out to be the heirs of some prophesied chosen one Force-Jesus. It’s not anything that the OT tried to say explicitly, but it works with what we had in it. The force isn’t what made Luke special.
So now, Luke thinks he’s failed not just Ben Solo, not just the galaxy, but himself. He expected better, because he was a legend, the galaxy’s hero. But in the end, it isn’t about how powerful, or wise, or infallible, he was/is that made him a hero. We can agree to disagree that Old Luke as a character is one that still needed to learn any lessons at this point, but I don’t think him learning that his failures don’t define him or his capability for good, is something that goes against the OT. It’s not really something they explore about Luke within that trilogy one way or another. What happens when he fails himself and his own ideals? Sure, ROTJ sets up that if he gives into anger and hate he will suffer his father’s fate, but that’s binary. TLJ introduces the gray area of shame and regret, but it’s rooted in that same question. And the answer is still that Luke is a good person in spite of it all.
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So while I think RJ did take the series in a new direction thematically, I don’t think he tried to undermine the old movies and what they had to say. In fact, TLJ only works if we understand the lessons we took from those.