Funny, reading some of the comics, and having some debates here have helped me accept what is, and let go of what might have been. I watched TLJ the other day, and I actually enjoyed it for the most part.
If the 4K UHDs are the special editions, then no sale. But what if they aren’t quite the Originals, but closer to them than the blu rays? I’d probably get them.
Would that mean the end of any hope to ever see them release the fully restored Originals though?
I will get them even if they are just the GL SE. For one with HDR I expect the colors to be massively improved. Secondly >90% of the films are just the OOT, and this will likely be the highest quality these films have ever been with the amount of detail far exceeding the potential of any fan restoration.
“Early on, Kathy [Kennedy] brought J.J. [Abrams] and Michael Arndt up to Northern California to meet with George at his ranch and talk about their ideas for the film,” Iger writes in The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned From 15 Years As CEO Of The Walt Disney Company (via Slashfilm).
“George immediately got upset as they began to describe the plot and it dawned on him that we weren’t using one of the stories he submitted during the negotiations.
“The truth was, Kathy, J.J., Alan [Horn, Disney’s chairman], and I had discussed the direction in which the saga should go, and we all agreed that it wasn’t what George had outlined.
“George knew we weren’t contractually bound to anything, but he thought that our buying the story treatments was a tacit promise that we’d follow them, and he was disappointed that his story was being discarded.”
Things didn’t get much better once he’d seen the movie either.
“Just prior to the global release, Kathy screened The Force Awakens for George,” Iger goes on to say.
“He didn’t hide his disappointment. ‘There’s nothing new,’ he said. In each of the films in the original trilogy, it was important to him to present new worlds, new stories, new characters, and new technologies. In this one, he said, ‘There weren’t enough visual or technical leaps forward.’
“He wasn’t wrong, but he also wasn’t appreciating the pressure we were under to give ardent fans a film that felt quintessentially Star Wars.
“We’d intentionally created a world that was visually and tonally connected to the earlier films, to not stray too far from what people loved and expected, and George was criticizing us for the very thing we were trying to do.”
Alright, I’ll bite.
650m domestic, 875m international. 1.525 billion worldwide.
I’d up the domestic but lower the international. Keep worldwide about the same, maybe lower.
Domestic 540m, international 660m, total 1.2b.
Here’s a direct comparison:
http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/J91MCNNU
Just a little update, after some vacation, and some debugging I’m finally almost ready to start generating LUTs. Here are a couple of 1080p comparisons to show, what you can expect from this color grading.
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Are you actually streaming it in 4k right now? Every other account I’ve read from the Netherlands is that they’re marking things as being available in 4K but none of the content is actually encoded at that level. If you’re getting an actual 4k stream and not a 1080 stream marked as 4K, it means they’re already starting to update/upgrade the files they’re serving since the platform went live.
Also, I’m guessing the Ewok movies and show isn’t up there? I have yet to see anyone say they’ve watched them, and considering people are finding stuff like the '90s X-Men and Gargoyles episodes, Ewoks should have turned up by now.
The quality is a lot better than the streaming version I have on google movies, but the most obvious difference is the colors, which have a much higher dynamic range. The Ewok are not available.
Rogue One looks awesome in 4K. The HDR color grading is a massive improvement over the bluray. 😃
‘Free Disney+ pilot launches in the Netherlands, here’s what it’s like’:-
https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/12/20862167/free-disney-plus-hands-on-pilot-marvel
The article claims that Rogue One is available now in 4K (along with 16 other titles) - impressive…
From Dre’s posted images above this does look to have a good simple UI too (which is always a bonus 😃)
Keep checking to see if they accidentally release ‘The Mandalorian’ before the 12th November, please Dre 😉
Am very much liking that ‘Empire Of Dreams’ is on there - hopefully more Star Wars documentaries and BTS programs will be added over time…
Rogue One in 4K is looking pretty sweet! 😃 I will look for any accidental Mandalorian content. 😉
This is foul sorcery.
There’s so much content, and it’s really fast.
It even has this gem:
For all you Marvel fans it also has many of the old cartoons from the 1980s till today:
As it turns out we here in the Netherlands are extremely fortunate to already have Disney+ available for the next two months for free! Disney will be testing their platform in our country before the worldwide launch, and so here are a few screenshots of the new service:
All the Star Wars films, and series are available, and for those wondering, the versions available at this time are the digital masters, that have been used over the last years, including the extras.
Actually the Luke of TLJ is the one who has finally internalized the lessons of TESB. Rey says herself that Luke is purposefully ignoring his success in ROTJ (which repudiated Yoda and Obi-wan), but he has a reason for doing so - saving Anakin did not destroy the Death Star in the short term, nor the Empire in the long term. On the contrary, Luke sees his victory there and elsewhere as having a direct line to his hubris in training Ben.
And anyway, Luke in ROTJ is very pointedly not able to avoid the emotions affiliated with the dark side. He brings his weapon with him when he goes to see Vader. He gives in to his fear, anger, and hatred. It is only when he is on the verge of killing his father does his rationality come in, and he realizes what he has done - it is an exact mirror of the flashback in TLJ. Of course the argument then is that “he should have known better.” Well fine if you feel that way. But in my mind, the dark side is a constant temptation, and the factors leading to that moment in Ben’s hut were such that Luke was, in his arrogance, unaware of what he was getting into (it was a far more subversive challenge than the explicit manipulation of the Emperor on the Death Star). This arrogance is of course a mirror to the arrogance of the Jedi in the PT not realizing the fear and the anger they were giving into, which caused their downfall. Luke, seeing the cycle of things he’s found himself perpetuating, decides to end the Jedi for good. I don’t see any regression at all.
To me this presents a very narrow point of view, and just like much of Luke’s character development seems to be ignored, reducing him down to his mistakes at some moment in the past, so too the Jedi are reduced to their mistakes at the darkest time in their history. Like Luke there is much more to the Jedi than their mistakes at a specific moment in time. The Jedi guarded the peace in the galaxy for over a thousand generations. That to me is clear proof, that the Jedi code works, and that Luke in TLJ was turned into a fool, not being able to look beyond the flaws of a couple of individual Jedi, who by no means seem to be representative of the Jedi over their millenia long history.
I mean, yeah, Luke is looking at it the wrong way, and he’s ultimately proven to be wrong. But Luke is no fool. All we know about the Jedi is that they were the guardians of peace for a thousands generations, but even that doesn’t mean there were a thousand generations of peace. They were exerting their will of the Force over the galaxy. Luke only cites the rise of Darth Sidious and the creation of Vader (because these are things we can connect to as we’ve seen those films), but the whole point of him being on the island is to study the long history of the Jedi, and this is the conclusion he came to, that the Jedi must end. You can nitpick that they didn’t give you sufficient explanation, but in my opinion the implication is clear, that there are more flaws to the order than just the ones we’ve seen in the films.
Yet, Luke then changes his mind.
He doesn’t change his mind about the Jedi, he changes his mind about helping the Resistance. This is shown very well in the Yoda scene. Yoda tells Luke that the teachings of the Jedi were flawed, and tells Luke to pass on everything he learned, both success and failure. Luke still believes that the old Jedi were flawed, but he decides to create a new order of Jedi, learning from the failures of the old.
I didn’t hear anything about a new order of Jedi. All I saw was Yoda chastising Luke for not living up to his potential as a Jedi.
You obviously weren’t paying attention during that scene. Yoda specifically says:
“Heeded my words not, did you. Pass on what you have learned. Strength, mastery, but weakness, folly, failure also. Yes, failure most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is. Luke, we are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.”
It was Luke who chose to only see the Jedi through the lens of his own failure, and thus couldn’t see the bigger picture.
Yes, but Yoda’s speech allowed Luke to see the bigger picture. Once again, the quote above clearly contradicts the point you’re trying to make.
No it doesn’t. There is nothing in Yoda’s lesson to Luke, that indicates he’s presenting Luke with some new insight, that did not exist when the Jedi were in their prime. In fact Yoda saying “heeded my words not”, suggests the opposite of what you are suggesting. What Yoda is telling Luke is, that he did not do as he was taught. He should not only pass on his successes, but also allow others to learn from his failures, a lesson he probably gave to many Jedi in the past.
Actually the Luke of TLJ is the one who has finally internalized the lessons of TESB. Rey says herself that Luke is purposefully ignoring his success in ROTJ (which repudiated Yoda and Obi-wan), but he has a reason for doing so - saving Anakin did not destroy the Death Star in the short term, nor the Empire in the long term. On the contrary, Luke sees his victory there and elsewhere as having a direct line to his hubris in training Ben.
And anyway, Luke in ROTJ is very pointedly not able to avoid the emotions affiliated with the dark side. He brings his weapon with him when he goes to see Vader. He gives in to his fear, anger, and hatred. It is only when he is on the verge of killing his father does his rationality come in, and he realizes what he has done - it is an exact mirror of the flashback in TLJ. Of course the argument then is that “he should have known better.” Well fine if you feel that way. But in my mind, the dark side is a constant temptation, and the factors leading to that moment in Ben’s hut were such that Luke was, in his arrogance, unaware of what he was getting into (it was a far more subversive challenge than the explicit manipulation of the Emperor on the Death Star). This arrogance is of course a mirror to the arrogance of the Jedi in the PT not realizing the fear and the anger they were giving into, which caused their downfall. Luke, seeing the cycle of things he’s found himself perpetuating, decides to end the Jedi for good. I don’t see any regression at all.
To me this presents a very narrow point of view, and just like much of Luke’s character development seems to be ignored, reducing him down to his mistakes at some moment in the past, so too the Jedi are reduced to their mistakes at the darkest time in their history. Like Luke there is much more to the Jedi than their mistakes at a specific moment in time. The Jedi guarded the peace in the galaxy for over a thousand generations. That to me is clear proof, that the Jedi code works, and that Luke in TLJ was turned into a fool, not being able to look beyond the flaws of a couple of individual Jedi, who by no means seem to be representative of the Jedi over their millenia long history.
I mean, yeah, Luke is looking at it the wrong way, and he’s ultimately proven to be wrong. But Luke is no fool. All we know about the Jedi is that they were the guardians of peace for a thousands generations, but even that doesn’t mean there were a thousand generations of peace. They were exerting their will of the Force over the galaxy. Luke only cites the rise of Darth Sidious and the creation of Vader (because these are things we can connect to as we’ve seen those films), but the whole point of him being on the island is to study the long history of the Jedi, and this is the conclusion he came to, that the Jedi must end. You can nitpick that they didn’t give you sufficient explanation, but in my opinion the implication is clear, that there are more flaws to the order than just the ones we’ve seen in the films.
Yet, Luke then changes his mind.
He doesn’t change his mind about the Jedi, he changes his mind about helping the Resistance. This is shown very well in the Yoda scene. Yoda tells Luke that the teachings of the Jedi were flawed, and tells Luke to pass on everything he learned, both success and failure. Luke still believes that the old Jedi were flawed, but he decides to create a new order of Jedi, learning from the failures of the old.
I didn’t hear anything about a new order of Jedi. All I saw was Yoda chastising Luke for not living up to his potential as a Jedi. Yoda didn’t treat that message as some new insight about the Jedi. It was Luke who chose to only see the Jedi through the lense of his own failure, and thus couldn’t see the bigger picture.
Actually the Luke of TLJ is the one who has finally internalized the lessons of TESB. Rey says herself that Luke is purposefully ignoring his success in ROTJ (which repudiated Yoda and Obi-wan), but he has a reason for doing so - saving Anakin did not destroy the Death Star in the short term, nor the Empire in the long term. On the contrary, Luke sees his victory there and elsewhere as having a direct line to his hubris in training Ben.
And anyway, Luke in ROTJ is very pointedly not able to avoid the emotions affiliated with the dark side. He brings his weapon with him when he goes to see Vader. He gives in to his fear, anger, and hatred. It is only when he is on the verge of killing his father does his rationality come in, and he realizes what he has done - it is an exact mirror of the flashback in TLJ. Of course the argument then is that “he should have known better.” Well fine if you feel that way. But in my mind, the dark side is a constant temptation, and the factors leading to that moment in Ben’s hut were such that Luke was, in his arrogance, unaware of what he was getting into (it was a far more subversive challenge than the explicit manipulation of the Emperor on the Death Star). This arrogance is of course a mirror to the arrogance of the Jedi in the PT not realizing the fear and the anger they were giving into, which caused their downfall. Luke, seeing the cycle of things he’s found himself perpetuating, decides to end the Jedi for good. I don’t see any regression at all.
To me this presents a very narrow point of view, and just like much of Luke’s character development seems to be ignored, reducing him down to his mistakes at some moment in the past, so too the Jedi are reduced to their mistakes at the darkest time in their history. Like Luke there is much more to the Jedi than their mistakes at a specific moment in time. The Jedi guarded the peace in the galaxy for over a thousand generations. That to me is clear proof, that the Jedi code works, and that Luke in TLJ was turned into a fool, not being able to look beyond the flaws of a couple of individual Jedi, who by no means seem to be representative of the Jedi over their millenia long history.
I mean, yeah, Luke is looking at it the wrong way, and he’s ultimately proven to be wrong. But Luke is no fool. All we know about the Jedi is that they were the guardians of peace for a thousands generations, but even that doesn’t mean there were a thousand generations of peace. They were exerting their will of the Force over the galaxy. Luke only cites the rise of Darth Sidious and the creation of Vader (because these are things we can connect to as we’ve seen those films), but the whole point of him being on the island is to study the long history of the Jedi, and this is the conclusion he came to, that the Jedi must end. You can nitpick that they didn’t give you sufficient explanation, but in my opinion the implication is clear, that there are more flaws to the order than just the ones we’ve seen in the films.
Yet, Luke then changes his mind.
Because he is wrong about the Jedi and about himself. Changing his mind means allowing himself to be himself. Luke sees the legacy of the Jedi as failure, and his own legacy as perpetuating that failure. So he tries to move beyond his instincts. But though the Jedi often failed, it was that they kept trying to do the right thing that was important. Their failures are not what define them. Luke sees his solution as a long term play - if the Force were allowed to just be left alone, not controlled but any one order, then it might find balance and these disastrous failures wouldn’t happen. But the short term is important. People are in danger, and he has the power to stop it, so he should and he does.
I added a bit more to my argument above.
Actually the Luke of TLJ is the one who has finally internalized the lessons of TESB. Rey says herself that Luke is purposefully ignoring his success in ROTJ (which repudiated Yoda and Obi-wan), but he has a reason for doing so - saving Anakin did not destroy the Death Star in the short term, nor the Empire in the long term. On the contrary, Luke sees his victory there and elsewhere as having a direct line to his hubris in training Ben.
And anyway, Luke in ROTJ is very pointedly not able to avoid the emotions affiliated with the dark side. He brings his weapon with him when he goes to see Vader. He gives in to his fear, anger, and hatred. It is only when he is on the verge of killing his father does his rationality come in, and he realizes what he has done - it is an exact mirror of the flashback in TLJ. Of course the argument then is that “he should have known better.” Well fine if you feel that way. But in my mind, the dark side is a constant temptation, and the factors leading to that moment in Ben’s hut were such that Luke was, in his arrogance, unaware of what he was getting into (it was a far more subversive challenge than the explicit manipulation of the Emperor on the Death Star). This arrogance is of course a mirror to the arrogance of the Jedi in the PT not realizing the fear and the anger they were giving into, which caused their downfall. Luke, seeing the cycle of things he’s found himself perpetuating, decides to end the Jedi for good. I don’t see any regression at all.
To me this presents a very narrow point of view, and just like much of Luke’s character development seems to be ignored, reducing him down to his mistakes at some moment in the past, so too the Jedi are reduced to their mistakes at the darkest time in their history. Like Luke there is much more to the Jedi than their mistakes at a specific moment in time. The Jedi guarded the peace in the galaxy for over a thousand generations. That to me is clear proof, that the Jedi code works, and that Luke in TLJ was turned into a fool, not being able to look beyond the flaws of a couple of individual Jedi, who by no means seem to be representative of the Jedi over their millenia long history.
I mean, yeah, Luke is looking at it the wrong way, and he’s ultimately proven to be wrong. But Luke is no fool. All we know about the Jedi is that they were the guardians of peace for a thousands generations, but even that doesn’t mean there were a thousand generations of peace. They were exerting their will of the Force over the galaxy. Luke only cites the rise of Darth Sidious and the creation of Vader (because these are things we can connect to as we’ve seen those films), but the whole point of him being on the island is to study the long history of the Jedi, and this is the conclusion he came to, that the Jedi must end. You can nitpick that they didn’t give you sufficient explanation, but in my opinion the implication is clear, that there are more flaws to the order than just the ones we’ve seen in the films.
But why allude to some unknown flaws, deflating the Jedi as a whole, only to then go back to business as usual? That seems pretty pointless, to just use it as a plot device to keep Luke in one place up till, and for the duration of the story, have him repeating how he has good reasons for wanting the Jedi to end, only to have him recant, when it’s convenient for the writer of the story. That’s my issue with this kind of storytelling. There appears to be more to the story, but we are never shown. I just read a comic about Kylo Ren and Snoke, and there’s more development of both characters in those 20 pages then there ever was in the movies. Such character development would go a long way in providing some much needed emotional resonance to Kylo’s betrayal in TLJ.
Actually the Luke of TLJ is the one who has finally internalized the lessons of TESB. Rey says herself that Luke is purposefully ignoring his success in ROTJ (which repudiated Yoda and Obi-wan), but he has a reason for doing so - saving Anakin did not destroy the Death Star in the short term, nor the Empire in the long term. On the contrary, Luke sees his victory there and elsewhere as having a direct line to his hubris in training Ben.
And anyway, Luke in ROTJ is very pointedly not able to avoid the emotions affiliated with the dark side. He brings his weapon with him when he goes to see Vader. He gives in to his fear, anger, and hatred. It is only when he is on the verge of killing his father does his rationality come in, and he realizes what he has done - it is an exact mirror of the flashback in TLJ. Of course the argument then is that “he should have known better.” Well fine if you feel that way. But in my mind, the dark side is a constant temptation, and the factors leading to that moment in Ben’s hut were such that Luke was, in his arrogance, unaware of what he was getting into (it was a far more subversive challenge than the explicit manipulation of the Emperor on the Death Star). This arrogance is of course a mirror to the arrogance of the Jedi in the PT not realizing the fear and the anger they were giving into, which caused their downfall. Luke, seeing the cycle of things he’s found himself perpetuating, decides to end the Jedi for good. I don’t see any regression at all.
To me this presents a very narrow point of view, and just like much of Luke’s character development seems to be ignored, reducing him down to his mistakes at some moment in the past, so too the Jedi are reduced to their mistakes at the darkest time in their history. Like Luke there is much more to the Jedi than their mistakes at a specific moment in time. The Jedi guarded the peace in the galaxy for over a thousand generations. That to me is clear proof, that the Jedi code works, and that Luke in TLJ was turned into a fool, for not being able to look beyond the flaws of a couple of individual Jedi, and by no means seem to be representative of the Jedi over their millenia long history.
[yotsuya said:]
If you don’t think he would act that way or be discouraged then I think you have missed something about the entire saga. Try watching TESB and TLJ back to back. Then tell me that TLJ isn’t in character. Yes, in ROTJ, he is more confident, but confidence can be shattered easily. Luke has shown that to be the case. Insisting that he maintain the confidence that he has for most of ROTJ is unrealistic. The unsure Luke we see in ANH and TESB is just hiding under the surface in ROTJ and only needed a sufficiently horrible event to bring it out.
In my view you missed something in the saga, because you keep going back to TESB to argue Luke in TLJ is consistent with his portrayal in the OT. The problem is you view Luke as this flawed static character. Luke in ROTJ is just the same character as in TESB with a little more confidence. Take that confidence away, and add a few years and you have Luke from TLJ. However, you ignore much of Luke’s character development in the OT. The Luke that let himself fall to his death rather than accept Vader’s offer, is not the same character as the one who left Yoda and Obi-Wan on Dagobah, and that’s without considering the time he’s had to reflect on the consequences of his actions. Then there’s his development in ROTJ, where after being goaded by Palpatine, and Vader to release his anger, at that seminal moment he realizes he will follow in his father’s footsteps, if he doesn’t let go of his fear, and anger. So, he throws away his weapon, and declares himself a Jedi. These are scenes of critical character development, that you just seem to ignore. The Luke at the end of ROTJ is not the impetuous naive, youth we met in ANH, nor is he the impatient hothead from TESB, nor is he the overconfident Jedi wannabe at the start of ROTJ. He is a fullfledged Jedi, in tune with the Force, and able to avoid emotions affiliated with the dark side of the, such as fear, anger and hatred. That is his arc in the OT, his hero’s journey. You say:
“Try watching TESB and TLJ back to back. Then tell me that TLJ isn’t in character.”
What you’re really saying for the Luke of TLJ to be in character, he has to regress back to the character he was, when he first entered the cave on Dagobah. To me that’s one of the running themes in the ST: regression. Han regressed back to smuggler, Leia regressed back to the leader of a fledgeling rebellion, the galaxy regressed back to the Galactic Civil War, and Luke regressed back to his younger stupid self.
I don’t entirely agree this is the case. To some sure, but to many others the disrespect is not in the humiliation, or punitive act against the hero, it is in the fact that they feel it has not been properly motivated or set up. To them it’s like the story telling them, Luke’s different now, deal with it, and if you can’t, that’s your problem.
While harsher than I’d phrase it… that’s basically it. Either you can make that leap, or you can’t.
There’s nothing wrong with you as a viewer or a consumer of entertainment if you can’t, it’s not a personal failing or anything like that. But Luke is different now. He HAS to be different, and maybe he’s now different in a way you don’t like CONCEPTUALLY. And at that point, if you’re already firmly disagreeing with the very notion that he HAS to be different, and even more strongly disagreeing with HOW he’s become different - it’s going to be very hard for any story to keep hold of you, because you’re going to need convincing this idea is justified, and you’re automatically disinclined to buy it. It’s a relationship between movie and viewer that is instantly confrontational. The movie wants you to accept this is how he’s different, and this is why he’s different, and there’s only so much time (even with two and a half hours) to get into how that happened. And you want the movie to convince you that the premise isn’t mean-spirited, or stupid, or capriciously punitive. You want reassurance from the filmmakers that they’re not just doing it to do it, to be disrespectful to this character as a means to make these other characters (that you don’t really like much anyway) stronger. It’s seen as a transaction, not a story. “Oh, so you make my guy (note the possessive) into a big loser so these other people get to be winners at his expense. No thanks.”
There are limits for many viewers as to what “Luke Skywalker” can be, and should represent, and those limits are broken from jump the second The Force Awakens says Luke has disappeared for ten years. Because he’s not around in that movie it’s easy to not wrestle with the idea too much, but The Last Jedi has to dig into why those limits have been transgressed. Viewers willing to accept the idea that “Luke Skywalker” is a vessel for ideas and concepts that don’t line up precisely with what we’d seen in prior movies seem to be enjoying The Last Jedi more than those who essentially reject the notion out of hand.
“Luke wouldn’t do that” is a very strong statement, and definitely a valid one. I think he would, because I think Luke is capable of doing a lot of things depending on what ideas need to be expressed by the writers and creators in charge of the stories he’s in. I get why people would balk at his whole situation in this movie. But I don’t balk at it, and I in fact love what happened because it made him a richer, more interesting, more empathetic, and more lovable character. His failures didn’t ruin him. They eventually made him even greater. That’s inspiring to me. Even good people fall down. That doesn’t make them bad people. It just means they need to work harder at remembering who they can be, and moving back towards that light.
Yes, this sums it all up pretty pretty well. 😃
Broom Kid said:
The idea that Luke Skywalker became a depressive old hermit who checked out for a decade because he was so ashamed of himself and angry at losing touch with what made him “a legend” in the first place? That’s not blasphemy to me. That’s interesting. And the way it was done was not just sad, but charming, too. To a lesser extent, a similar thing was done with Thor in Endgame. And to a lesser extent, some of his fans reacted much the same as Luke’s fans have reacted: The decision to do it was, in and of itself, unforgiveable, and so anything built upon that (to them) broken foundation isn’t worth giving over to. All they see is the humiliation and the “disrespect” to such a strong character. They see that as a punitive act against their hero, and they basically just… stop there.
I don’t entirely agree this is the case. To some sure, but to many others the disrespect is not in the humiliation, or punitive act against the hero, it is in the fact that they feel, it has not been properly motivated or set up. To them it’s like the story telling them, Luke’s different now, deal with it, and if you can’t, that’s your problem. For me it is similar to having the PT end with Anakin the hero, and then introduce him as Darth Vader in the next movie, and then show a tiny ambiguous flashback to explain how Anakin is suddenly an evil mass murderer.
Broom Kid said:
I’d say he probably makes a bunch of little ones on the way to that big one, much like many relationships don’t fail because of the one big act-out, but the tiny trail of screw-ups that led to it.
Sure, but it is the story, that has to sell this to the viewer. If these little mistakes are important in understanding Luke’s state of mind, when he enters Ben’s room, then show this to the viewer. It’s not the viewers responsibility to make sense of it all. It’s too easy to say, this story is not about Luke, but about the new generation, because it quite obviously is about Luke, and his redemption, only a few chapters have been ripped out of the book, that deal with his failure, and we are only there to witness the consequences.
And by the end of the movie, Luke comes around. But many of his fans can’t. They’re still focused on the failure, and the unfairness of it having happened AT ALL, and that focus prevents them from going on Luke’s journey. The whole thing is forgone because it’s flat out illegitimate, to them. In a way, they never got off Ahch-To island. Their resentment and disgust with Luke is keeping them there, just like it kept HIM there. It prevents them from joining him as he projects his way to Crait for the most impressive single act of Force mastery in all the films.
The problem is not, that the disgust is keeping “them” there, the problem is, that the story wasn’t able to provide the proper motivations for getting on that island with Luke in the first place. “They” are still with Luke on the Death Star, when he fulfills his destiny, and becomes a Jedi. It is the writer’s responsibility to write a story that compels “them” to understand Luke’s point of view, that makes “them” understand, that despite all he has learned, and experienced, this situation was so distressful, and extreme, that even “they”, if they were Jedi, would be tempted to just cut the boy in half. “They” should be made to understand Luke’s decision to run, and hide, rather than fix the problem, he helped create. Evidently, the writer wasn’t completely up to the task, considering the controversy surrounding this part of the story. It’s very difficult to laugh at the punchline of a joke, if you don’t buy the setup.
The Last Jedi is a great empathy test, honestly. It asks the audience how willing they are to forgive people, to look for the good in people despite their biggest flaws. Can you recognize the potential in people, greater and lesser, accomplished and inexeprienced? Can you give part of yourself to those people despite all that, because you know there’s more to them than their failings? It’s not really a bad thing if you can’t do it for all the characters, either. Or that you’re willing to offer more of that empathy and sympathy to Poe, or Rose, than you are to Kylo, or Luke. But the movie takes great care to explain why these people are all acting like this, even if you don’t agree with the actions themselves.
It’s one of the more stubborn contradictions in the myriad responses to The Last Jedi that the people least willing to go where the film wants to go are fans of the man who best embodies the full emotional/mythological journey the film takes.
As stated above, I disagree with the notion, that the movie takes great care to explain why these people are all acting like this. We have no idea, why Ben Solo would be tempted by the dark side in the first place. The boy was raised by two loving parents, and he had the great Luke Skywalker there to mentor him. What happened? We have no idea, why Luke would be so afraid of a Force vision, that he would draw his weapon on his own blood. What caused him to be in this state of mind? We have no idea, why Luke would consider leaving two dark side users to wreak havoc on the galaxy a solution to his predicament. Not only did he abandon Ben, he also abandoned the other students, that Ben took with him, and left them at the mercy of Snoke. Why? This is the same guy, that came back after learning his entire life was a lie, and his father was space Hitler, the same father that mutilated him, and cut off his hand. This was not the first major crisis he faced, and it never caused him to flee to an island to die. So what changed?
Well, I’m not the one saying that TLJ is deconstructing things. I’m not the one taking the middle of the film as the definitive take on its meaning. Normally you look at how a film ends to determine that. And thanks to Rogueleader’s comment above, I found a an endless string of articles on Star Wars being postmodern (the older films, not the ST). And really, there are as many interpretations of Star Wars as there are philosophies out there. There is no right answer because philosophy is really about what something means to you. What I see in all these claims of postmodernism is evidently very different. I found the term pre-modern to be most applicable. Lucas built it on a collection of old things set in bygone days. He added on the layers of internal myths and legends to create a layered and textured world that he threw us into. The list of his sources seems varied and endless. It is Casabalanca, Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo, Damn Busters, Flash Gordon, and so so many others. To know what all went into it would require a time machine to catch all the films and books that influenced him prior to when the film started shooting. As far as I can see, JJ and RJ have followed that eclectic inspiration as they have worked on these films. RJ even posted three films that he was watching for inspiration - Twelve O’clock High, To Catch A Thief, and Three Outlaw Samurai. Very much the type of films that Lucas would have watched (and he actually did watch Twelve O’clock High). I felt he ended up with a film that is closer to the original trilogy in feel than the others. While JJ tried to go back visually, RJ went back to the roots. And if his take is postmodern, then we really need to think about what it was Lucas did because he really created a new mythos for the modern world by basing it in a galaxy far away. If The Santa Clause and TLJ are postmodern, than the entire saga is a postmodern creation.
Like I said, the difference between Lucas and RJ is, that in Lucas’ work the hero works to become the legend, where the hero ultimately overcomes his or her flaws to reach a state of enlightenment, while in TLJ the legend is presented as having symbolic value, but ultimately unattainable in reality, because in the end the best we can hope for is to own our failures, and be at peace with our flawed human nature.
Luke is not the hero in TLJ so I don’t know what you are talking about. Rey is the hero.
That doesn’t really matter, since we’ve been made aware of the fact, that despite becoming a Jedi at the end of the last trilogy, Luke was not able to overcome his flawed human nature, and thus the state of enlightenment has been proven to be unattainable, not only to the hero of the OT, but of any trilogy that follows.
And how many times does that happen in mythology… the old hero is disillusioned and won’t help the new hero. You make it sound like this is an epic fail in Luke’s story when it is a classic mythological journey and very valid.
I disagree. The hero and mentor archetypes are generally separate, and rarely does the hero become the mentor, except at the end of the story, when their journey is complete. Generally the mentor’s role is to provide aid, and when a mentor refuses to help, it is usually, because the mentor feels the hero does not meet the standards, that the mentor requires. So, the type of disillusioned mentor that Luke represents is rare, and it is even more rare for the mentor to pretty much refuse to help the hero right through to end of the story. In fact here the hero becomes so disillusioned with the mentor, that she tells him to stuff it, and takes the sacred texts to help herself.
One might say, that Luke provides an important lesson to Rey, through his failure. “The greatest teacher failure is!” However, I would point to this article, that through the perspective of several people, who are knowledgeable about the craft of storytelling, explains why TLJ’s use of failure is flawed:
https://medium.com/@matthewkadish/why-the-last-jedi-is-a-failure-storycraft-ba27d0b7aea7
"When it comes to having characters fail in their tasks within a narrative, both of these concepts of creating audience identification come into play. Audiences WANT to see the main characters of a story succeed, and thus are rooting for them to do so. And in failure, it’s possible for audiences to relate to the characters by either acknowledging the threat that lead to the defeat, or by acknowledging the relatable flaws of the character that allowed said defeat to happen.
However, from a storycraft perspective, Michael Hauge makes an important distinction when it comes to allowing your characters to fail, and that is:
If a character is going to fail, that character must do so despite their best efforts.
In other words, a character must do everything right, and STILL fail, in order for that failure to successfully allow the audience to identify with that character. Otherwise, if a character fails because they are stupid, lazy, incompetent, or dictated to do so by the plot, audiences will end up REJECTING the character and actively dislike him."
The problem with Luke’s failure is not, that he fails, but that he doesn’t fail despite his best efforts. Luke makes one mistake with Ben Solo, a mistake unbecoming of a Jedi, and then just gives up, rather than to take responsibility for his mistake, and try to fix it, and then fail. Luke is thus shown to be incompetent, and a coward. Two traits that generally don’t sit well with many viewers.
And if you want a real world discussion about the ongoing fight against tyranny, we have only to look to the 20th century to see how that played out over and over again. Without even getting into all the back story, WWI led to WWII, which led to war after war around the globe. It is even coming back to haunt us today with the Nazi flag on public display. Of course in Star Wars those trials are more personal and also galaxy wide, but I personally feel the frustration of an enemy we defeated in 1945 rising again today. The ST and it’s depiction of the continuing struggle to defeat tyranny should be resonating with a lot of people. Seeing what you have spent a life-time building crumbling in front of you should resonate with many. Stories are not supposed to end in the perfect success all the time. In the serial nature of Star Wars, the next chapter after ROTJ (if it had occurred 2-5 years after ROTJ) Would have been about the struggle to finally defeat the Empire, Leia’s struggles to help forge the new Republic (with her adversaries having valid concerns). But we skipped over all that to get to the next generation and their struggle.
If you want to make comparisons to the real world, you know very well that all the wars you mention had a very different dynamic, and the motivations for each of the parties were very different as well. WWI was very different from WWII. The Cold War and its proxy wars were very different as well. Compare this to the Star Wars universe, where we got another war with pretty much the same participants, hoping to achieve the same goals, in a similar setting, and you should know that your argument is flawed.
Just because you don’t like it does not negate Luke’s OT Hero’s journey, but that journey is over and Luke is now the Mentor and Rey is the Hero. And the state of enlightenment is precarious and can be lost. Because it can be lost does not mean it is unattainable. Your analysis is flawed.
The state of enlightenment should not be lost so easily, otherwise you risk deflating the value of enlightenment. Over the course of multiple movies we’ve been told and shown, what that state of enlightenment represents. It means becoming a Jedi. Being a Jedi means attaining a state of inner tranquility through calmness and meditation while avoiding emotions affiliated with the dark side of the Force, such as fear, anger and hatred. Does this mean Jedi are flawless? No, but because of their training they are not easily seduced to give in to negative emotions. So, we can expect a Jedi not to falter, except under extreme duress. One such example is Mace Windu, who when faced with the real possibility of the Jedi’s destruction, after having been manipulated by a Sith Lord to participate in a war, that severely depleted their ranks, and left much of the galaxy in ruins, gave into fear, and attempted to assasinate the Chancellor. Luke, who was not a Jedi yet, and after having faced the real possibility of the destruction of the Rebel Alliance, also gave into fear, and anger, when his father threatened to go after his sister. BUT and this is a big but, after he realized what he might become, he let go of his fear, and anger, and threw away his weapon in the face of one of the greatest evils the galaxy has ever seen. In that moment he reached that state of enlightenment, and became a Jedi. Now, does that mean it is impossible for Luke to falter in the future? No, but it would have to be under extreme duress. Does the situation with Ben Solo represent extreme duress for a Jedi, who has been through the experiences Luke has been through? I don’t think so. Luke is confronted with a possible future, a future he knows through his teachings, is always in motion. Ben hasn’t hurt anyone, and if the novice Rey can sense good in him in the present time, surely Luke, who felt good in his father, when no one else could, should have been able to sense the good still present in the conflicted young Ben Solo. Additionally, unlike the situations with Mace Windu, and young Luke, there is no immediate crisis, or war going on. The New Republic is still in full control of the galaxy. There thus seems to be no rational explanation, why a Jedi Master like Luke would falter under such relatively favourable conditions, and ignite his lightsaber in fear of a hypothetical future. The fact that this is his own blood, should be all the more reason not to reach for his lightsaber in this situation. An average person may be tempted, but to have a Jedi Master fall so easily, and after one setback just give up? That deflates the value of enlightenment to such a degree, that it loses much of its meaning for me. Mark Hamill understood this:
“You see in the story why that is, but I had a real problem, because I don’t believe a Jedi would ever give up. You see, if he makes a mistake, he doubles down and does the right thing, regardless of the magnitude of his mistake — choosing Ben Solo and being so wrong and giving rise to the possible Darth Vader.”
That to me is the essence of enlightenment in the context of the Star Wars saga, and I’m personally not willing to give up on that so easily, and with such little context, and explanation, just to have the story continue, and to have Luke display a cool new Force power, and learn a lesson about, what it means to be a Jedi. A lesson he learned long ago when he faced his father, and the Emperor under much less favourable conditions.
I disagree. To me watching Luke rise above himself only to be kicked back in the dirt, or watching the rebels beating the Empire only to have it all destroyed with a blast from a super weapon to have to do it all over again, or watch Han become a responsible leader, only to then abandon his friends and family, and become a smuggler again, is not all that satisfying. It may be satisfying in the moment, but in the long run it seems pretty pointless.
I don’t think the presentation of perserverance and goodness in the face of oppression and hardship is pointless. Wins don’t lose value simply because losses might follow. Championships still count even if the team ends up sucking 15 years later. All the good things a person did in their life don’t suddenly disappear when they die. But again, that’s kind of the philosophical divide I think we keep butting up against here: There’s a sense of score-keeping being applied to the OT characters in the ST, that certain things just shouldn’t have happened because look at this record! Look at X, Y, and Z, now you’re telling me all that grinding and leveling up doesn’t matter - and now this person over here that only JUST started playing gets a fully loaded sheet? There’s almost a gamification being applied to the story and I just don’t look at character or story in that way, and I don’t think characters in fiction are best served by keeping them boxed in.
If you only focus on the fact a failure happened at all, and not on the way everyone rose above that failure, then it feels to me like you’re willfully missing the point. If you refuse to accept that a failure could have happened in the first place, you’re not meeting the story on its own level. And of course a failure could have happened. It’s not out of bounds, it’s not out of the question. I believe that stories work because they have the freedom to examine those sorts of scenarios. “What if a hero never truly reckoned with his own insecurities and succumbed to depression after a preventable tragedy?” I understand the knee-jerk response of “That would suck and I wouldn’t like that” but that’s a starting point, not the final answer. You can do things with fictional characters that you’d never want to see in real life, and the inspiration comes in showing ways out of that darkness. I understand the impulse to say “but they should never go into the darkness in the first place” and you’re right to feel that way, but I don’t think that makes for affecting drama or potent myth, either.
I might agree to some extend, if the new challenges weren’t so similar to the old. That to me is what makes it pointless, or perhaps pointless is too strong a word. Let’s say it is a case of diminished returns. We all make mistakes, and face challenges, that we hope to overcome, but to make the same mistakes, and to have to overcome the same challenges over and over again? After four decades I expected the story to be in a different place, and not to have this constant sense of deja vu.
edit: completely off topic, but I want to say I’m a big fan of your color grading work on the fan preservations and I seriously cannot wait for you to finish that work and see it applied to the OT. It’s amazing stuff and I’m very appreciative. Thank you for dedicating so much time and energy to it.
Thanks! It’s much appreciated! 😃
Broom Kid said:
And my counter to “I don’t want Luke to fail anymore” is that Luke Skywalker’s victories are as satisfying as they are BECAUSE he fails at first. And fails again! The best he’s ever been as a character is when he’s struggling to overcome his own self-doubts about what is possible, and whether or not he can do it. Luke is at his best as a character, and as a key component of Star Wars storytelling, when he’s in a low place, and through his goodness, his will, and his sense of right and wrong, he not only gets out of that low place, he finds himself standing in a much higher one, and he brought his friends with him, too.
I disagree. To me watching Luke rise above himself only to be kicked back in the dirt, or watching the rebels beat the Empire only to have it all destroyed just to have to do it all over again, or watch Han become a responsible leader, only to then abandon his friends and family, and become a smuggler again, is not all that satisfying. It may be satisfying in the moment, when they have their moment in the movie, but in the long run it seems pretty pointless, because they are running in circles. Yoda even has to give Luke the same lesson about looking to the horizon in TLJ, because apparently he didn’t get it the first time. I just feel the OT characters had their arc in the OT. This trilogy should have been about the new characters failing, and then overcoming new challenges. Now it seems the old guard had to fail, such that the new generation can step into their shoes, and do it better.
Luke’s story in ROTJ is not one of becoming successful in spite of his flaws. It’s overcoming those flaws, losing self doubt, and insecurity that make him successful, that make him a Jedi.
And people don’t just overcome things once and then they’re never a problem again, either. If a story has to continue, then drama must ensue. And Luke is a focal point of that drama. Nobody becomes a perfect person at age 30, no matter how fantastical the story is. There’s still a lot of learning and overcoming to be done, backsliding and correcting that has to be accounted for. Our heroes are still people, and people are inherently flawed. That they triumph over their flaws is inspiring. But triumph doesn’t erase everything. But that speaks to your next point:
To me that’s kind of the point of myths, and fantasies, that it isn’t reality. That we do not find out our hero is secretly a drunk, beats up on his loved ones, neglects his or her children, is afraid of hights, suffers from all sorts of compulsions, etc, etc. I don’t get the idea, that making the Star Wars characters more realistic automatically makes them better.
It doesn’t “automatically” make them better, but it does make them more sympathetic and more relatable IF the execution is done well.
Well, I might be more sympathetic, if I didn’t have issues with the execution as well. I feel TLJ failed to really sell Luke’s point of view. That even if you accept Luke letting his fear of a possible outcome get the better of him (despite being a Jedi, who are trained to not let fear control them, and know that the future isn’t set), I don’t see how abandoning everything, and leaving the galaxy at the mercy of two dark siders is in any way a solution to the problem. I feel given our history with the character we deserved a proper setup to his character arc in TLJ. In stead the movie gives us one flashback, where Luke seemingly forgets everything he learned, and then runs from the consequences. This to me makes Luke less relatable, and less sympathetic. In the end Luke needs to be convinced to do the right thing by Yoda, even after he learns of his best friend’s death.
That’s what I meant by rejection, that he rejects it at all is confusing. You cite a criticism from Yoda in Empire to explain his lack of resolve, as if the following film didn’t go to great lengths to demonstrate that Luke had grown beyond that. He became less of a doubter than the master who once called him the same, when he thought he could redeem a murderer through love for his father alone, and succeeded in doing so. For what reason would he have to doubt himself at that point? For what reason is there to parse from the remainder of that film that he’d remain a doubter? It’s less a character assassination than it is a character regression; that you have to compare TLJ Luke to ESB Luke is telling of exactly what’s wrong with the writing.
People don’t just magically lose self doubt and insecurity when they become successful though. In many successful people, their fears of their own failures only get amplified. They don’t see it as having won, or having bettered themselves. They see it as having a harder fall when they inevitably screw it all up again. Sometimes our heroes don’t think of themselves as heroes, and their struggles with insecurity and self-doubt are doing things to them we’d never suspect looking from the outside.
Luke’s story in ROTJ is not one of becoming successful in spite of his flaws. It’s overcoming those flaws, losing self doubt, and insecurity that make him successful, that make him a Jedi.
Granted, the characterization of Luke in the sequel trilogy is, on a behind-the-scenes level separate from the larger storytelling, prompted by the fact they needed a reason to keep him out of The Force Awakens. But when it came time to personalize that reason, to make it make sense, Rian Johnson and Mark Hamill worked together to come up with a version that not only makes sense, but is very emotionally resonant. I don’t think it’s confusing at all that a person as innately good as Luke would react with self-doubt, insecurity, and hesitancy in response to having the mantle of Legend placed upon him, and he’d definitely be mad at himself for allowing himself to believe he was one, even for a second, especially when, in that second, it led to his losing Ben.
Well given Mark Hamill’s repeated statements, I would say Mark Hamill has his reservations about the way his character developed, but worked together with RJ to present RJ’s vision the best way he could.
The reason “happily ever after” works so well in fantasies is because you don’t have to go into the parts after THE END where nothing ever ends, and the people, despite the things they learned and the change they’ve affected, still wrestle with who they are, and why they do the things they do. Politicians are like this. Teachers are like this. Athletes, artists - any sort of role model you can think of, all you have to do is check out a biography from the library and read the parts that come after any other story would have stopped and “Happily ever after’d” and see similar struggles.
To me that’s kind of the point of myths, and fantasies, that it isn’t reality. That we do not find out our hero is secretly a drunk, beats up on his loved ones, neglects his or her children, is afraid of hights, suffers from all sorts of compulsions, etc, etc. I don’t get the idea, that making the Star Wars characters more realistic automatically makes them better.