Worst Dialogue from The Last Jedi — Page 2

snooker said:

The movie at most makes you Think about the implications of Star Wars’s most basic themes (war is bad!!) but at the end states that “getting hope and learning from the past is good and fine actually.” The closest it actually gets to criticizing star wars itself is the note about bloodlines not being the most important thing in the universe.

The movie pretty clearly conveys the message that the past has little to teach us and we need to look inward to ourselves to move forward. The message is somewhat muddled, but it’s in there. And I’m not talking about Kylo Ren’s famous line “let the past die, etc.”. I’m talking about the fact that Rey learns almost nothing from Luke, and then Yoda belittles the “ancient Jedi texts” before burning down the Jedi library while laughing about it, and saying Rey has all she needs by herself.

This message utterly sucks. The message is somewhat mitigated by the fact that Rey brings one of those “ancient Jedi texts” along with her to learn by herself. But this doesn’t really change the overall message much. Why does Rey need to learn by herself with a book when she had access to a real-life Jedi Master?

NFBisms said:

It’s about how the past has everything to teach us. Specifically, failure. It’s not about discarding the past, Yoda talks about growing “beyond” [it]. That’s the quote. Rey is going to make different choices than Luke, and Luke is not going to let those past choices define his identity. Rey is not going to define herself by her past as an unwanted nobody.

Eh… people always say this, and I think “oh yeah… I guess that makes sense.”

Then later I actually rewatch the movie.

And I see Yoda burn down an ancient library probably filled with priceless artifacts and ancient wisdom while giggling (Yoda isn’t supposed to giggle when not in incognito-mode but whatever). And I see that Rey learns almost nothing from Luke, except maybe one thing in a deleted scene and a basic explanation of what the Force is. Rey swings around a lightsaber by herself because Luke can’t be bothered to teach her some moves. When Rey looks in a mirror she sees nothing but an infinitely recursive reflection of herself. Then Rey leaves, having learned almost nothing, but Yoda assures us she has all she needs.

The overall message conveyed is that the past is almost exclusively something we must move beyond from - not learn from, except, I will grant, inasmuch as the past teaches us what not to do (learning from failures). At the end of the movie, Rey triumphantly lifts some boulders using the Force, calling back to an earlier meta-joke about “lifting rocks”. But where did Rey even learn to do this? She didn’t learn this from absorbing any wisdom of the past. Nobody taught her. Presumably, she looked inward and taught herself, I guess. Even in terms of learning strictly from past failures, there is little Rey absorbs from the past failures of the Jedi or Luke that plays out meaningfully plot-wise.

NFBisms said:

Yeah, I see that too, I just think it’s symptomatic of an unwieldy/messy script more than it is intentional malice or whatever for the series. That’s ridiculous to me, it’s at worst a guy who has different ideas [than you or someone else] about how this all works and who these characters are.

I agree. TLJ may be very flawed and misguided in a lot of ways, but it’s not malicious or nihilistic or anti-Star Wars. At most, you could call it existentialist, since the movie has the heroes question the basic aspects of Star Wars, only to choose to embrace them in the end, anyway.

My problem is mainly that I think the sequel trilogy era is too shallow and flimsy to stand up to that level of scrutiny or questioning, so I ended up disengaging, and felt no investment in what was going on.

Anyway, we were talking about dialogue.

Channel72 said:

NFBisms said:

It’s about how the past has everything to teach us. Specifically, failure. It’s not about discarding the past, Yoda talks about growing “beyond” [it]. That’s the quote. Rey is going to make different choices than Luke, and Luke is not going to let those past choices define his identity. Rey is not going to define herself by her past as an unwanted nobody.

Eh… people always say this, and I think “oh yeah… I guess that makes sense.”

Then later I actually rewatch the movie.

And I see Yoda burn down an ancient library probably filled with priceless artifacts and ancient wisdom while giggling (Yoda isn’t supposed to giggle when not in incognito-mode but whatever). And I see that Rey learns almost nothing from Luke, except maybe one thing in a deleted scene and a basic explanation of what the Force is. Rey swings around a lightsaber by herself because Luke can’t be bothered to teach her some moves. When Rey looks in a mirror she sees nothing but an infinitely recursive reflection of herself. Then Rey leaves, having learned almost nothing, but Yoda assures us she has all she needs.

The overall message conveyed is that the past is almost exclusively something we must move beyond from - not learn from, except, I will grant, inasmuch as the past teaches us what not to do (learning from failures). At the end of the movie, Rey triumphantly lifts some boulders using the Force, calling back to an earlier meta-joke about “lifting rocks”. But where did Rey even learn to do this? She didn’t learn this from absorbing any wisdom of the past. Nobody taught her. Presumably, she looked inward and taught herself, I guess. Even in terms of learning strictly from past failures, there is little Rey absorbs from the past failures of the Jedi or Luke that plays out meaningfully plot-wise.

Exactly

Servii said:

NFBisms said:

Yeah, I see that too, I just think it’s symptomatic of an unwieldy/messy script more than it is intentional malice or whatever for the series. That’s ridiculous to me, it’s at worst a guy who has different ideas [than you or someone else] about how this all works and who these characters are.

I agree. TLJ may be very flawed and misguided in a lot of ways, but it’s not malicious or nihilistic or anti-Star Wars. At most, you could call it existentialist, since the movie has the heroes question the basic aspects of Star Wars, only to choose to embrace them in the end, anyway.

My problem is mainly that I think the sequel trilogy era is too shallow and flimsy to stand up to that level of scrutiny or questioning, so I ended up disengaging, and felt no investment in what was going on.

Anyway, we were talking about dialogue.

By the director’s own words, he wanted to create a movie where half of the people who watch it hate it, and he succeeded. There is a clear dislike of Luke Skywalker and the Jedi. There is no refutation of any of the nihilistic stuff he says throughout the movie at all. In fact, Yoda confirms that everything they did was a failure, their sacred traditions are boring, and commences book burning (he let Rey take the books so she could get the tips and tricks and do it herself because she’s better than Luke, but he was deceiving Luke and wanted him to think he was burning the books. The audience is also supposed to think this is a good idea because Yoda is doing it, before the fakeout.)

Saying that if the Jedi die the light dies is vanity, the Jedi at the height of their power got wiped out by Darth Sidious like they deserved it, etc. None of this stuff is questioned. It also canonizes the misguided fan concept that the light and dark sides are yin and yang and will always equalize (“powerful light, powerful darkness” “darkness rises and light to meet it”) which inherently makes the whole setting pointless and hollow.

The message of Luke appearing in projection form isn’t that “the Jedi are good, actually,” it’s that image is everything. The real Luke doesn’t matter, because the specter of younger, popular Luke is what people like. It’s all about deception and propaganda. The actual Jedi and the actual Luke sucked but they’re a noble lie.

NFBisms said:

Yeah, I see that too, I just think it’s symptomatic of an unwieldy/messy script more than it is intentional malice or whatever for the series. That’s ridiculous to me, it’s at worst a guy who has different ideas [than you or someone else] about how this all works and who these characters are.

The most charitable interpretation I can come up with is Rian Johnson was going for something along the lines of a “Wizard of Oz” type message, where it turns out the Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion had all the brains or courage they needed all along, and just needed to believe in themselves to access it. Something like that. That is sort of compatible with what happens with Rey’s journey of self-discovery, where she sort of self-learns the Force. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a message like that, but it’s not a fit for Star Wars and what was established before, where the Force requires a mentor to learn and is already part of a pre-packaged, venerated mythology.

As for “intentional malice” - I’m not really sure what that would even mean in this case. I don’t believe that like, Rian Johnson sat down one day and started angrily writing the script, saying things like “I’ll show those stupid Star Wars fans… they want to see Luke do they? Oh I’ll give them Luke… I’ll give them Luke all right!!! Bwahaahaahaaa!!!1!!! *starts choking on iced latte*”

I think Rian Johnson just wanted to take Star Wars in a new direction he thought would be interesting, while avoiding accusations of just retreading Empire Strikes Back and working within the story parameters that carried over from Force Awakens, and he ended up writing a very misguided script. At the very least, I found it heartbreaking watching the Mark Hamill interviews about this.

Vladius said:

The message of Luke appearing in projection form isn’t that “the Jedi are good, actually,” it’s that image is everything. The real Luke doesn’t matter, because the specter of younger, popular Luke is what people like. It’s all about deception and propaganda. The actual Jedi and the actual Luke sucked but they’re a noble lie.

I mean, that’s going a bit too far I think. The movie clearly at least tries to end on a positive note, emphasizing that Luke’s heroic actions on Crate (Krait?) served as inspiration for a potential new generation of Jedi, beginning with ordinary people all over the Galaxy, like the famous “Broom Boy”. Clearly, the ending was supposed to be uplifting and positive, promising that the Jedi would rise again - in some form or another.

I think this ending is stupid. It pretty much killed my interest in the Sequel Trilogy. The whole movie is mostly stupid. But I can at least discern that the director at least wanted the ending to be perceived as hopeful and positive, but also bittersweet, like the ending to Empire Strikes Back.

In my research efforts to reconstruct a history behind the writing of The Last Jedi, I’ve found that Rian Johnson’s portrayal of Luke was a direct result of Rian’s attempt to work within the story parameters he inherited from The Force Awakens. We know that J.J. Abrams wanted Luke to be hiding on some island, mostly because the writers initially didn’t want Luke to steal the stoplight from the new characters. So J.J. Abrams decided Luke would be hiding on some island, but Abrams never really worked out much of the backstory details beyond that, except for the broad idea that Luke was on some pilgrimage to find an ancient Jedi Temple. Presumably, Luke was seeking answers after the disaster that befell his Jedi school, but the whole thing is very half-baked. (J.J. Abrams loves half-baked mystery plots that take place on a remote island.)

When writing TLJ, Rian Johnson tried to make sense of Abrams’ half-baked plot point of Luke hiding on the island. Rian apparently decided that the best way to explain Luke on the island was that Luke didn’t want to be found, and purposely cut himself off from the Force. This idea was pure Rian, as Abrams initially had Luke using the Force at the end of Force Awakens, levitating some boulders while meditating. Rian Johnson asked Abrams to remove that scene so TFA would fall in line with TLJ. Everything else follows from there.

Now, Rian’s idea for Luke sucks. But it’s not like Rian was working off a blank slate. Rian inherited this stupid scenario from J.J. Abrams, with Luke hiding on an island for under-explained reasons. In my opinion, Rian’s idea only makes it worse and isn’t even compatible with Force Awakens, because (A) it doesn’t explain why Luke would have left a map and (B) it doesn’t explain why Luke went to an island with an ancient Jedi Temple if he wanted to be cut off from the Force and die. It’s also hilarious how Luke is wearing these pristine white robes like a venerated Jedi Master in J.J. Abrams’ version, but in TLJ, Luke immediately changes into his less dignified bum clothes after Rey arrives. Luke’s change of wardrobe signals that a new director has arrived on the island.

But whatever, the point is, we can retrace the historical steps that led to The Last Jedi turning out the way it did, and it clearly has little to do with some malicious plan to damage Star Wars, and more to do with horrible story-telling decisions that probably seemed like good ideas to the people involved at the time. That said, Rian Johnson at the very least must have been aware that what he was writing would be very controversial. He probably thought it would be worth the gamble and trusted his instincts, not wanting to repeat the same old Jedi training scenes from the Original Trilogy, and believing his script would be vindicated and praised as bold, innovative and original, and most importantly, unpredictable, with many “twists” that defy pre-conceived audience expectations about a Star Wars sequel, much like Empire Strikes Back.

TLDR: J.J. Abrams vomited out a typical low-effort mystery box script that exiled Luke to a remote island for half-baked, under-explained, out-of-Universe reasons, and Rian Johnson just ran with it and added his own personal angle as an auteur, thus turning Luke into the depressed asshole we know and love. It’s not what I would have done if I inherited J.J.'s mess of a story, but then, Disney doesn’t care what I think.

Channel72 said:

Vladius said:

The message of Luke appearing in projection form isn’t that “the Jedi are good, actually,” it’s that image is everything. The real Luke doesn’t matter, because the specter of younger, popular Luke is what people like. It’s all about deception and propaganda. The actual Jedi and the actual Luke sucked but they’re a noble lie.

I mean, that’s going a bit too far I think. The movie clearly at least tries to end on a positive note, emphasizing that Luke’s heroic actions on Crate (Krait?) served as inspiration for a potential new generation of Jedi, beginning with ordinary people all over the Galaxy, like the famous “Broom Boy”. Clearly, the ending was supposed to be uplifting and positive, promising that the Jedi would rise again - in some form or another.

I think this ending is stupid. It pretty much killed my interest in the Sequel Trilogy. The whole movie is mostly stupid. But I can at least discern that the director at least wanted the ending to be perceived as hopeful and positive, but also bittersweet, like the ending to Empire Strikes Back.

I guess I’ll amend what I said. It isn’t necessarily consciously trying to be dour and cynical or make the audience feel bad at the end, but it’s clear that that is the worldview that it’s coming from. It’s saying that the Jedi returning is ultimately a good thing, but for symbolic reasons, not because they are competent or that they were actually good in the past. Like I said, nothing Luke said was refuted in any way, and it was confirmed by Yoda. The legacy of the Jedi was failure. And not just prequel-era failure, failure dating back to the original Jedi temple that should be burned down. Yoda implies that Luke screwed up in some nebulous way because he didn’t “pass on what he learned” to his students, which was failure.

The uplifting, positive part is that Rey could start over because she was taught… something… and that the common ordinary people in the rebellion can use the Jedi as a rallying force, like you said. But if you critically examine that at all, it’s deeply cynical about what heroism is, and about the value of tradition or culture. Again, the Jedi and Luke are a noble lie. That’s not necessarily consciously what the intention was, and maybe that’s a mean way to put it for some people here, but that’s the literal text we have to work with, and the writer chose to write it that way.

The “broom boy” is only “famous” on this website of 15-30 people.

Channel72 said:

In my research efforts to reconstruct a history behind the writing of The Last Jedi, I’ve found that Rian Johnson’s portrayal of Luke was a direct result of Rian’s attempt to work within the story parameters he inherited from The Force Awakens. We know that J.J. Abrams wanted Luke to be hiding on some island, mostly because the writers initially didn’t want Luke to steal the stoplight from the new characters. So J.J. Abrams decided Luke would be hiding on some island, but Abrams never really worked out much of the backstory details beyond that, except for the broad idea that Luke was on some pilgrimage to find an ancient Jedi Temple. Presumably, Luke was seeking answers after the disaster that befell his Jedi school, but the whole thing is very half-baked. (J.J. Abrams loves half-baked mystery plots that take place on a remote island.)

When writing TLJ, Rian Johnson tried to make sense of Abrams’ half-baked plot point of Luke hiding on the island. Rian apparently decided that the best way to explain Luke on the island was that Luke didn’t want to be found, and purposely cut himself off from the Force. This idea was pure Rian, as Abrams initially had Luke using the Force at the end of Force Awakens, levitating some boulders while meditating. Rian Johnson asked Abrams to remove that scene so TFA would fall in line with TLJ. Everything else follows from there.

Now, Rian’s idea for Luke sucks. But it’s not like Rian was working off a blank slate. Rian inherited this stupid scenario from J.J. Abrams, with Luke hiding on an island for under-explained reasons. In my opinion, Rian’s idea only makes it worse and isn’t even compatible with Force Awakens, because (A) it doesn’t explain why Luke would have left a map and (B) it doesn’t explain why Luke went to an island with an ancient Jedi Temple if he wanted to be cut off from the Force and die. It’s also hilarious how Luke is wearing these pristine white robes like a venerated Jedi Master in J.J. Abrams’ version, but in TLJ, Luke immediately changes into his less dignified bum clothes after Rey arrives. Luke’s change of wardrobe signals that a new director has arrived on the island.

But whatever, the point is, we can retrace the historical steps that led to The Last Jedi turning out the way it did, and it clearly has little to do with some malicious plan to damage Star Wars, and more to do with horrible story-telling decisions that probably seemed like good ideas to the people involved at the time. That said, Rian Johnson at the very least must have been aware that what he was writing would be very controversial. He probably thought it would be worth the gamble and trusted his instincts, not wanting to repeat the same old Jedi training scenes from the Original Trilogy, and believing his script would be vindicated and praised as bold, innovative and original, and most importantly, unpredictable, with many “twists” that defy pre-conceived audience expectations about a Star Wars sequel, much like Empire Strikes Back.

TLDR: J.J. Abrams vomited out a typical low-effort mystery box script that exiled Luke to a remote island for half-baked, under-explained, out-of-Universe reasons, and Rian Johnson just ran with it and added his own personal angle as an auteur, thus turning Luke into the depressed asshole we know and love. It’s not what I would have done if I inherited J.J.'s mess of a story, but then, Disney doesn’t care what I think.

Here’s the thing. There are many creative things you could do with that setup. Like you said, you could say Luke is trying to figure out why his academy got destroyed and how he could change things for the better. Hence why he would go to the first Jedi temple, to learn about something the original Jedi knew that was lost over time. Maybe he was researching a way to beat Snoke and he didn’t want anyone else getting in danger while he was working, but it didn’t pan out. The idea I came up with when I first saw TFA was that Luke was afraid of his own level of power - he was at the point where he had so much mastery over the Force that he was tempted to use it in ways that would lead him to the dark side. (A sliver of this idea sort of gets used where he’s afraid of Rey’s power and he was afraid of the power he gave Kylo Ren, but it’s immediately dropped.)

What Rian CHOSE to do with that setup reveals a lot about his own opinions and worldview, especially given, like you said, it doesn’t make any logical sense either.

Channel72 said:

NFBisms said:

Yeah, I see that too, I just think it’s symptomatic of an unwieldy/messy script more than it is intentional malice or whatever for the series. That’s ridiculous to me, it’s at worst a guy who has different ideas [than you or someone else] about how this all works and who these characters are.

The most charitable interpretation I can come up with is Rian Johnson was going for something along the lines of a “Wizard of Oz” type message, where it turns out the Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion had all the brains or courage they needed all along, and just needed to believe in themselves to access it. Something like that. That is sort of compatible with what happens with Rey’s journey of self-discovery, where she sort of self-learns the Force. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a message like that, but it’s not a fit for Star Wars and what was established before, where the Force requires a mentor to learn and is already part of a pre-packaged, venerated mythology.

As for “intentional malice” - I’m not really sure what that would even mean in this case. I don’t believe that like, Rian Johnson sat down one day and started angrily writing the script, saying things like “I’ll show those stupid Star Wars fans… they want to see Luke do they? Oh I’ll give them Luke… I’ll give them Luke all right!!! Bwahaahaahaaa!!!1!!! *starts choking on iced latte*”

I think Rian Johnson just wanted to take Star Wars in a new direction he thought would be interesting, while avoiding accusations of just retreading Empire Strikes Back and working within the story parameters that carried over from Force Awakens, and he ended up writing a very misguided script. At the very least, I found it heartbreaking watching the Mark Hamill interviews about this.

I would compare it to the attitude from this iconic interaction between Blizzard and WoW fans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wrw3c2NjeE

“You think that having a cool Jedi with a lightsaber in your movie would be good, but it wouldn’t. You think that’s what you want, but it isn’t.” That’s basically what Luke tells Rey at the beginning and it sets the tone for the whole thing. Every part of it is like that, even down to a visual gag where you think you’re looking at a cool space ship and it’s really a clothes iron or something. The “subverting expectations” meme. It even starts subverting itself within individual scenes, to the point where it kills off original ideas, like what if Rey actually joined Kylo.

Oh, you think you know what a good movie is? I’ll show you what a good movie is. You like this character? Well, maybe I’ll show you what the “realistic” version of that character is. It’s more like that attitude.

A little on the nose and out place in Star Wars but nice reference to hardware wars. The clothes Iron.

I don’t have a hard time with the dialog all that much in this I did think the Huggs thing was dumb.

And the comedy tone does not fit Star Wars like Finn leaking in a Bacta Suit?

The slow WW2 Bombers in space thing was really out of place in Star Wars though when you have bombers like those small fighters the size of X-wings Y- Wing bomber?

Luke is reluctant to train Rey because she could become the next failure like Kylo, and he is still upset with his pride destroying everything he built. Its not because he knows she is Palpatine, they made that up on the next film great way to write a series.

Vladius said:

Channel72 said:

NFBisms said:

Yeah, I see that too, I just think it’s symptomatic of an unwieldy/messy script more than it is intentional malice or whatever for the series. That’s ridiculous to me, it’s at worst a guy who has different ideas [than you or someone else] about how this all works and who these characters are.

The most charitable interpretation I can come up with is Rian Johnson was going for something along the lines of a “Wizard of Oz” type message, where it turns out the Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion had all the brains or courage they needed all along, and just needed to believe in themselves to access it. Something like that. That is sort of compatible with what happens with Rey’s journey of self-discovery, where she sort of self-learns the Force. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a message like that, but it’s not a fit for Star Wars and what was established before, where the Force requires a mentor to learn and is already part of a pre-packaged, venerated mythology.

As for “intentional malice” - I’m not really sure what that would even mean in this case. I don’t believe that like, Rian Johnson sat down one day and started angrily writing the script, saying things like “I’ll show those stupid Star Wars fans… they want to see Luke do they? Oh I’ll give them Luke… I’ll give them Luke all right!!! Bwahaahaahaaa!!!1!!! *starts choking on iced latte*”

I think Rian Johnson just wanted to take Star Wars in a new direction he thought would be interesting, while avoiding accusations of just retreading Empire Strikes Back and working within the story parameters that carried over from Force Awakens, and he ended up writing a very misguided script. At the very least, I found it heartbreaking watching the Mark Hamill interviews about this.

I would compare it to the attitude from this iconic interaction between Blizzard and WoW fans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wrw3c2NjeE

“You think that having a cool Jedi with a lightsaber in your movie would be good, but it wouldn’t. You think that’s what you want, but it isn’t.” That’s basically what Luke tells Rey at the beginning and it sets the tone for the whole thing. Every part of it is like that, even down to a visual gag where you think you’re looking at a cool space ship and it’s really a clothes iron or something. The “subverting expectations” meme. It even starts subverting itself within individual scenes, to the point where it kills off original ideas, like what if Rey actually joined Kylo.

Oh, you think you know what a good movie is? I’ll show you what a good movie is. You like this character? Well, maybe I’ll show you what the “realistic” version of that character is. It’s more like that attitude.

My conjecture is that Rian’s thought process was something like this: “So the audience is all psyched up to see Luke for the first time in like 40 years. Okay, so what are they most expecting to see? They’re probably expecting Luke to come in like Superman, kick some ass, and save the day. So I think it would be really cool if he did the exact opposite. Kind of like how, in Empire Strikes Back, your entire notion of who Vader is gets turned upside down. I want to do something similar with audience expectations for Luke.”

I also detect some meta-joky snarkiness in Rian’s script, perhaps taking a few light-hearted jabs at the audience for expecting such a cliche outcome for Luke. Of course, I’ll happily admit I would have preferred the cliche version of Luke that just straightforwardly kicks ass. But there has to be some conflict, obviously. Having Luke off soul searching after his Jedi school gets destroyed is a decent premise for a nice character arc. But Rian Johnson just took it WAY too far by making Luke nihilistic to the point of literally being suicidal, writing off the Jedi Order completely, and moping around waiting to die while his sister and best friends are in serious trouble. But to give Rian some credit, he actually does have Luke show up and kick ass at the end - just not in the way we would have expected. The “astral projection” thing could actually be a clever twist under different circumstances.

Also, the logic Luke uses to justify giving up on the Jedi order doesn’t really make sense in context. The Jedi failed to stop a coup one time back in like 20 BBY or something, therefore the entire Jedi Order is eternally condemned and the millennia of peace they presumably helped uphold doesn’t count for some reason. 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.

Vladius said:
By the director’s own words, he wanted to create a movie where half of the people who watch it hate it, and he succeeded.

I’ve never seen a writer/director as frequently and brazenly misquoted as Rian Johnson.

NFBisms said:

Channel72 said:
The most charitable interpretation I can come up with is Rian Johnson was going for something along the lines of a “Wizard of Oz” type message, where it turns out the Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion had all the brains or courage they needed all along, and just needed to believe in themselves to access it. Something like that. That is sort of compatible with what happens with Rey’s journey of self-discovery, where she sort of self-learns the Force. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a message like that, but it’s not a fit for Star Wars and what was established before, where the Force requires a mentor to learn and is already part of a pre-packaged, venerated mythology.

For me, it’s consistent to the OT in that Luke’s power was always himself, his love of his friends, what he would see in his father - not his training. I think the path to the Force clearly has many different forks either way, otherwise what even is “the Dark Side”? and what is Luke even doing through ANH into Empire if not imperfectly wielding the Force with little to no training? He doesn’t have mastery of himself or his emotions when he’s doing backflips on Dagobah. In the arc of his “training”, that movie ends with him failing to complete it.

Well, I mean, the Original Trilogy pretty clearly presents the Force as something that must be learned under the tutelage of a mentor. Ben Kenobi spoke of his “pupil(s)”, and he briefly mentored Luke, who was then trained further by Yoda. All attempts by fans to downplay this aspect (in order to bring the OT more in line with the Sequels) exploit the fact that the script for Empire Strikes Back plays very fast and loose with chronology, such that Luke’s time spent on Dagobah can be interpreted as having been relatively brief - perhaps lasting no longer than a few days.

But this is really wishful thinking. Empire Strikes Back at least wants to make us feel like Luke spent quite some time training on Dagobah. If there was no “B Plot” with Han and Leia, we would assume Luke was there for months or years. But the plot mechanics require the “A Plot” and “B Plot” to converge on Bespin in Act III, which has the unfortunate side effect (for anyone who bothers to think about it) of severely truncating Luke’s training. This has vexed fans for decades, leading to all sorts of “grasping at straws”, like invoking Einstein’s General Relativity to increase Luke’s stay on Dagobah. Obviously, Lawrence Kasdan wasn’t thinking about anything like that. Instead, Kasdan used standard “film language” to convey the impression that Luke spent “some unknown but significant amount of time” training with Yoda on Dagobah. Kasdan also used standard “film language” to briskly propel the audience through an action-filled chase through an asteroid field with Han and Leia, happening concurrently with Luke’s training. The chronology is hand-wavy enough to leave room for interpretation, but it’s pretty hard to come up with a non-contrived way for Luke to have spent months or years training on Dagobah. Nonetheless, this is NOT a thematic issue. It is simply a logistical/pacing issue with the script. Clearly, Kasdan wanted the audience to come away with the impression that becoming a Jedi Knight is a significant mental and physical undertaking that requires serious training under an experienced Jedi Master. Yoda’s dialogue makes this pretty explicitly clear, and the Prequels make this undeniably George Lucas’ most likely intent.

So while it’s technically true that Luke barely even trained at all in the OT, this is more of a structural plot oversight than an intentional thematic element. Indeed, in earlier drafts of Empire Strikes Back, Luke returns to Dagobah at the end to immediately resume training with Yoda.

In contrast, the Sequels show us that Rey sort of just “downloads the Force” after her “mind-meld” with Kylo Ren. She just starts spontaneously developing new Force powers with no guidance from anyone. This is completely different than what happens in the OT, where Luke only starts becoming powerful after training with Yoda. Of course, you can pick this apart by pointing out an instance where Luke spontaneously seems to “self-learn” a new Force power, like when he first uses telekinesis on Hoth in desperation. But isolated incidents like this are clearly supplemental to Luke’s overall journey towards Jedi Knight-hood, which primarily involves training with an experienced Jedi Master. Things like Luke’s devotion to his friends or love for his father are also supplemental traits that help complete his unique journey, but the bulk of his onscreen journey from “farm boy” to Jedi Master happens mostly through mentorship and training. It’s only due to some faulty plot chronology in ESB along with plot constraints in ROTJ that we are forced to conclude that Luke somehow increased his Jedi skills off-screen without Yoda or Ben Kenobi. But this observation doesn’t factor thematically into what the films want to tell us about the Force. ESB pretty unambiguously emphasizes that learning the Force requires a mentor and a serious mental devotion to training.

Rey’s sudden, spontaneous ability to use the Force in Force Awakens was, in fact, such a weird departure from the OT that many fans initially assumed (wrongly) that the movie was hinting that Rey had already been trained by a Jedi Master (perhaps she was even Luke’s daughter), but she had amnesia or whatever, and her spontaneous Force powers were the result of her prior training coming back somehow. Obviously, this idea was abandoned after TLJ came out, solidifying the spontaneous “self-learning” of Force powers as the new, de-facto way the Force works in the Sequels, at least for Rey. (But apparently Kylo still requires training, per Snoke’s dialogue.)

Also, Yoda’s “size matters not” line obviously can’t be taken too literally. Clearly, lifting an X-Wing requires more mental effort (even if it’s just more effort to believe) than lifting a small rock. And if size really doesn’t matter at all, Yoda should just use the Force to fling the Death Star into the nearest black hole and call it a day.