I’ve been thinking a bit about why I think Luke’s character is wrong to me, and why RJ’s explanation is insufficient.
The way I view Luke in this film is:
Luke has done something against his values driven by fear, and his actions have made things worse. He feels ashamed about what he has done. His reaction to this is, that he gives up on all of his values, and everyone who shares most of those same values.
I have problem with the first part, because one of the main values of Jediism is to control your fears. To be a Jedi is to be level headed, to not be impulsive. This also goes back to what Mark Hamill has said: “A Jedi wouldn’t do that”. Luke is a Jedi, that was one of the outcomes of his arc in the OT, and TLJ now wants us to accept, that Luke acted against those values impulsively. Of course we’ve seen Jedi act against their values before, most famously Anakin. However, with Anakin it was a process that was developed over the process over three films, and I think it can actually be argued, that Anakin never really accepted many of the values of the Jedi in the first place. Then there’s Mace Windu, who at the end of ROTS wanted to execute a seemingly defeated Darth Sidious. Here again we’ve seen the buildup of the conflict, and the effect that has had on the Jedi. They’re starting to come apart. What’s happening in ROTS is not a vision of evil, it’s real evil. RJ spents next to no time building up Luke’s sudden impulsive act, an act we may understand from a human perspective, but not from a Jedi’s perspective, and that’s where this movie really drops the ball in my view.
I have an even bigger problem with the second part, namely that Luke’s mistake causes him to give up on all his values instantly. After spending an entire trilogy returning the Jedi values back to the galaxy, he gives up on them completely, and in this film is actively campaigning against them. The Jedi are somehow wrong for attempting to channel the Force in a way, that for a thousand generations has prevented evil from spreading throughout the galaxy. The Jedi made mistakes in the final days of the Galactic Republic, but surely that can’t be attributed to their core values. Those core values are likely reflected in those old books Luke found in the Jedi tree, the books that Yoda jokingly says, aren’t page turners. In my view there’s something really wrong with a film, that argues these books with these core values should go up in flames. It’s reasonable to argue, that they should evolve, but kill the past? I feel this movie and it’s creators really don’t understand the themes and values represented by George Lucas’ original six film saga. They’re desperately shifting around the building blocks of the previous films in hopes of creating something that seems fresh, but in doing so are sacrificing the heart of what makes Star Wars…Star Wars.