Just tell me if you’d rather not discuss this any further and detract from the other great stuff you’ve got going on here (love that ESB duel btw), I’ve just never had an opportunity to discuss the sequels under this lense on this forum before lol.
Rey’s arc throughout the trilogy is anchored in her feelings of inadequacy, much like Kylo Ren. She grows up her whole life thinking her parents abandoned her, and even though she finds out this isn’t true, she then thinks Luke, Leia, and all of her friends will abandon her because of her dark heritage/tendencies because that’s what she subconsciously expects. This is quite similar to how you can be offered salvation, but believe that you are unworthy of it because of your past transgressions or who you feel that you naturally are. Oftentimes, this is indeed because of a biological parent who is an awful person and you just don’t want to turn out like them. Rey accepting the name of Skywalker at the end of the movie makes sense because she spends a good chunk of it convincing herself that she doesn’t deserve to belong with anyone because she’s a monster - thus why she tried to abandon herself on Ahch-To. She is finally accepting her salvation/redemption in the end by declaring herself a Skywalker.
The serpent cave scene in TROS is actually a metaphor and foreshadowing of this. Rey represents the injured serpent - spawn of Palpatine (the deceiving serpent) and traumatized by her past. While appearing to be evil on the outside, once the serpent is healed from its trauma, it is kind and helpful to our main characters and helps them escape from the tunnels. Kylo Ren holds a similar belief to Rey: his parents shipped him off to his uncle because they didn’t know how to deal with his dark tendencies, only for his uncle proceeding to (from his perspective) nearly kill him. He sees himself as a monster because of his family being scared of him from the jump, and admits this to Rey in TLJ. So he leans further and further into this persona because nobody ever expected anything different out of him, despite the fact that being evil isn’t fulfilling to him. His water baptism back into Ben Solo occurs on the Death Star II wreckage because his mother wanted to let him know she still loved him even at the cost of her own life (another sacrificial archetype).
Rian Johnson didn’t actually burn the Jedi texts - if you have a keen eye you’ll notice Finn opening a drawer on the Falcon with them at the end of TLJ. Rey studies them in TROS to learn about the Sith way finders and Force healing. Yoda was simply instructing Luke to not be such a fundamentalist Jedi. There is great wisdom in the sacred texts, but if you get so hung up on understanding every single little detail (and why they might not make sense given modern understanding), you’ll forget how to actually put your faith into practice in your life. Yoda reminds him to focus on the here and now, “the need in front of your nose”. That need is to pass on what he has learned to the next generation, including his failures, so that they might live a more peaceful life than he did. This is actually a really beautiful scene that I’ll give TLJ credit for.
I’m not sure Maz is supposed to represent anything significant, but Snoke is actually a pretty good representation of the “principalities and powers” concept. There are rich and powerful people who believe that they are in complete control of everything, and so they will do terrible things for their own gain - little do they know that they are merely a puppet for a dark force that will cast them aside as soon as they are no longer useful for an even more sinister takeover. The power Snoke had in life was never his, it was given unto him by Palpatine. In real life we might say these people “sold their soul to the devil”.
No man, you’re good! Theological Editing is still editing, lol! I’m planning on doing a episode wayyyyy down the road on how to edit/design theological narratives because Harry Potter, Dune, STAR WARS, Lord of the Rings, and a bunch of the Ghibli films all use Theological Editing techniques, and I’m not aware of any courses out there teaching how to do that. Frankly, until now I didn’t think anyone would be interested, haha! The only thing I’m trying to avoid is discussions of Theology by itself (discussions I love to have BTW just not on this specific post).
To your sequel trilogy point, based on that breakdown, I’d watch the snot out of a Sequel Trilogy written by you haha!, but to be honest I think you’ve put 500 times more thought into the theological editing than Rian and JJ did.
I’m also gonna be honest, and say I haven’t given the Sequels a whole ton of thought, because I have no intention of recutting them. But I’d sum up my impression of why I don’t think they theologically jive with George’s six by quoting one of Jesus’ two pronged questions from the gospels: “What is the law? And how do you read it?” I think Disney often gets the “law” right, but “reads” it wrong. That Jesus quote is in reference to a Teacher of the Law who wants to be good with God, but stay a racist. Jesus’ point is made by telling the parable of the good Samaritan where the law fulfills it’s purpose by making the Good Samaritan love his neighbor regardless of his race. The Teacher of the law knew the law said he needed to “love his neighbor”, but he didn’t want to define Samaritans as his neighbors so he could still hate them. Jesus’ two-pronged question is calling him on his BS. The law is fine. It’s the “reading” that’s whack. (BTW I’m not calling Disney STAR WARS racist, I’m just explaining the principle of “law” vs. “reading” LOL!)
Basically, I think Disney threw together a lot of references (law) to the Original Trilogy and the Prequels without understanding the original purposes of those references, and because of that break down, I don’t know how I’d be able to fix it, because the purpose of the setup is deleted by the payoff. Just like how the Teacher of the law redefined “neighbor” to justify his racism when the law’s purpose was to end racism. An example would be the book burning you mentioned. If you pay attention to the Prequels. Qui-Gon is the only one who explains the religious side Force to Anakin. Obi-Wan never really does, and frankly the Jedi are so preoccupied with the political machinations of the Senate, they don’t really seem interested in becoming “one with the Force”. When Anakin finally goes to Yoda for advice in Revenge of the Sith, Yoda can’t help him, because all of Anakin’s religious training has been coming from Palpatine (this is Obi-Wan’s great failure. He never taught Anakin how to “read” the “law”). Fast forward to the OT, and Obi-Wan’s first instruction of Luke involves explaining what the Force is, followed by Yoda’s expansion on that explanation in Empire Strikes Back. Suddenly Yoda and Obi-Wan are preoccupied with the Mystical Side of the Force, which means their repentance has been genuine. The way Lucas was setting up the his version of the sequels, Luke was going to renew the Jedi Order with the worship of the Force (not power and politics) at it’s center. I can see how Yoda burning “most” of the books can serve as a reminder for Luke to keep the main thing the main thing, but that is not where the story was leading. George was setting up his version of the Book of Acts, where Paul is brought in to explain how the New Covenant aligns with the purpose of the Old Law, by “reading” it correctly. If the purpose of the law was to end racism and discrimination in all of it’s forms, then to quote Paul “There is neither Jew nor Greek, Slave nor Free, Male nor Female,” all humans are made in the image of God and are of infinite value. Paul is a master “reader” and because of that he is a master “liver”, his reading leads to a well lived life. Lucas was setting up Luke to be that kind of character, because he is also a master “reader”. He sees through the Emperor’s trap, and refuses to kill his father, because the will of the Force is not that Luke kill Vader and continue the cycle of violence, it is that he redeem him, and give birth to a new world of balance. When I saw the Last Jedi for the first time, I have to admit I was furious. The idea that Luke would be able to see through Palpatine and confront the darkness in himself in order to stay his hand, but then revert back to worse than his starting point, made no sense to me. Luke’s role was going to be like Paul’s. He was going to be tasked with building the New Temple. In short, I think Disney got the key “laws” that were present in the other STAR WARS films, but they couldn’t “read” it well enough to continue the compelling parable George was telling.
In short the concept of “Law” vs. “Reading” doesn’t just apply to interpreting scripture. It’s also a key concept whenever you’re editing someone else’s writing. Whenever I edit someone else’s story, I spend most of my time trying to figure out not “what did they write?” but rather “what are they trying to say, and is there a way for me to make that point clearer to the audience?” If I’ve done my job well, my edit of George’s six films should be as true to his ideas as possible. At least that was my aim when I recut them.
