yotsuya

DominicCobb said:

They’re not in line with rules that people have established based on the previous 6, sure. But there isn’t anything that directly contradicts with what’s actually in the films. It’s only rewriting our perceptions of the universe, not the films themselves.

I think you nailed it. A lot of what I hear (not just here) is that it breaks the rules. And when the rules are spelled out, they aren’t actually rules that the movies dictate. Complaints about how Rey learns the force skills don’t make sense to me. One easy lesson on the Falcon (without Ben demonstrating) and Luke can deflect blaster bolts while blind. Without any lessons or examples, Luke grabs his lightsaber in the Wampa cave. That is the first time we saw any Jedi levitate an object. While it is true that we don’t see the entirely of how Yoda trains Luke, we see Luke levitate small things, up to R2, and then fail to levitate his X-wing. Yoda says it is because he doesn’t believe he can because it is too big. With Rey, we see her exposed to mind reading, force suggestions, levitation, fighting with a lightsaber and then she does them (not all without some failure). From what I see, she learned them as easily as Luke did. She just learned more in a shorter time. Nothing different about how she did it. Implying that there is means you are going off of something that isn’t actually in the OT. (we never see anyone learn new force skills in the PT so any comparison to Anakin is pointless - all his training took place between the movies)

So both Luke and Rey seem to pick up force skills with little training. We never see Luke learn the skills he uses after the Wampa cave. He force jumps out of the carbon freeze chamber. He calls to Leia mentally. He force chokes Jabba’s guards. He uses force suggestion on Bib Fortuna (and tries to on Jabba). His ability with a lightsaber has grown to where he is a match for Vader. And when you look at the films. Luke only has a short time with two masters. The short trip from Tatooine to Alderaan with Ben and the time on Dagobah with Yoda (which was during the time that the Falcon was traveling from Hoth to Bespin - either sublight or a slow backup hyperdrive depending on who you ask). That is far less than the 10 years Anakin spent training. So obviously the Jedi spent a lot of time training on things besides force powers. Yoda spent a lot of the time we see on philosophy rather than skills in what we see with Luke.

So I really have to ask how Rey learns these things faster than Luke did? She learns more skills in a shorter time, but on a skill by skill comparison, she learns just as fast, not faster. That is what the movies show. Where does the idea that she is learning too easily come from? She at least has an example for each of her new skills. Luke doesn’t. Luke learns levitation from desperation, not because he has seen it before. Deflecting blaster bolts (which he doesn’t use until ROTJ) is the only force skill we actually see him learn directly from someone else (and Ben doesn’t demonstrate). In that light, Luke is the super Jedi, not Rey. The biggest difference between them is that Luke has doubts and Rey doesn’t. She sees these things and does them (“do or do not, there is no try” comes to mind).

The answer to this is that Rey learns too much too fast and that seems wrong to some. It isn’t and doesn’t violate a single movie established rule of the Star Wars universe. She goes through a process we have never actually seen before - the learning of force skills by example. We don’t know what is normal except for what little we have seen with Luke. Luke learned somethings completely on his own (there is no evidence that Ben was trying to train him between ANH and TESB so we can’t assume Luke’s attempt to levitate his lightsaber was using anything more than Ben’s vague “Use the force, Luke,” instructions). And Kylo doesn’t seem surprised that she picks up things so fast. Snoke even gets a laugh out of it. No surprise from them or Luke. So it is fan surprise that she learns the way she does at the speed she does that is out of place. If it jerks you out of the movie it means you have build up an idea in your head that isn’t supported by what we have seen in the first two trilogies.

Hardcore Legend said:

Chewielewis said:

Hardcore Legend said:
What evidence? It isn’t that she knew about Luke because he was a Jedi, it was that she knew the stories of the Rebel Alliance. She was just as much a fangirl of Han Solo. Can we deduce she knew how to fix/fly the Falcon bc she knew everything about Han Solo, back to front? If so, no wonder Owen never told Luke stories about his father. He’d have become the best star pilot in the galaxy and a cunning warrior right there on the ground in the desert.

She knew Luke skywalker and she knew about the Jedi. This exchange from TFA.

          HAN
      There're a lot of rumors. Stories.
      The people who knew him the best
      think he went looking for the first
      Jedi temple.

                     REY
      The Jedi were real?

                     HAN
      I used to wonder that myself. Thought
      it was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo --
      magical power holding together good,
      evil, the dark side and the light.

                     (BEAT)
      'Crazy thing is, it's true. The
      Force, the Jedi, all of it. It's
      all true.

So it’s implied that Rey has heard these crazy stories too. Which we can safely assume would include Jedi using Mind tricks. In her world the Jedi are a myth, magical wizards who can move rocks and fuck with peoples minds.

But I never said thats How she could do the mind trick. She was able to do the mind trick because she gained that knowlege thorugh that Kylo mind meld. How does that work? The same way throwing a child into the deep end teaches them how to swim. You could say THE FORCE AWAKENED in her.

Rey knows how to fly because shes been around ships all her life, she knows the falcon because Unkar Putt owns it and shes probably been in it many times. In Star Wars, knowing how to fly is basically knowing how to drive.

Wait, are we saying Rey now gains her power in the Force through the linking of minds with Kylo? I just made that up in my previous post. Is there any explanation of that in the films or any other materials?

This ST might have been better served if when Snoke revealed he had linked Kylo and Rey’s minds, he also revealed that HE had been the one using the Force through Rey and all the things she had done in her escape in TFA were him manipulating her mind to embarrass his pupil (Kylo) and to draw out Skywalker. Then her fear that she was “nobody” and she had no part in this story was true. Kylo still kills Snoke but Rey, now broken much like Luke was at the end of ESB, must actually learn to use the Force to defeat Kylo.

Instead, she’s done everything she’s wanted to in the Force within 5 minutes of trying it the first time…without anyone prompting her on how to do it.

And we are assuming she’s heard enough stories about the Jedi on the desert planet she lives on with no parents, mentors or guardians to have taught herself to be a Jedi without even knowing it.

I just find it hard to believe no one in the story group or the LFL team working on the films told Rian if he’s going to go the route of her being a nobody with no ties to the PT/OT, you’re going to have to explain some of this on-screen or in EU.

You seem to think this is an incredulous idea. You do know that there are people out there who can do things after seeing it done once? People who can memorize songs with just one listen. Others who have photographic memories? Rey is one of those with the Force. The moment she is exposed to the Force, her potential ignites and everything she sees Kylo do, she tries to do. Luke doesn’t actually do anything so they only thing new she does is lift a bunch of rocks. It is silly to keep running on about how Rey learned the force powers when this thread is supposed to be TLJ specific and that complaint belongs in a TFA specific topic.

Shopping Maul said:

Chewielewis said:

Hardcore Legend said:

Rey knows how to fly because shes been around ships all her life, she knows the falcon because Unkar Putt owns it and shes probably been in it many times. In Star Wars, knowing how to fly is basically knowing how to drive.

She knows the Falcon inside out, yet claims that it’s ‘garbage’ before later teaching Han about compressors inhibiting the hyperdrive and auxiliary fuel pumps etc etc. It’s odd that someone with such intimate mechanical knowledge of the galaxy’s most famous hot rod would be so disparaging of it before boarding.

It hasn’t flown in years and it has the compressor that Rey doesn’t seem to want to deal with. I think that is why she called it garbage. She wanted the small, fast ship (which she may have flown before) over the old, unmoving hulk with questionable engineering.

And don’t forget that one of our OT members made an audio recording of a 70 mm showing. Few of the audio changes claimed are actually from the 70 mm version.

Where I am coming from is the idea that anyone can do anything, but some just require more training. Some things come naturally to people without them having to be trained. Sometimes training in one area actually prepares you for something completely different. Early in the days of computers, they were looking for people with musical talent because they found a connection between understanding music and understanding programming.

So let’s look at how this impacts our Jedi characters.

Classic Republic Jedi are trained from a very young age. They are indoctrinated into the Jedi philosophy and trained in the Jedi arts. They are basically raised in a monastic order - never supposed to develop attachments and remain aloof.

Anakin is found at the age of 9 and is already strong in the force. He has tapped into the force to become one of the best Pod Racers (at 9) in the galaxy. That translated to flying a fighter. In the decade he is trained by Obi-wan, he is school in the Jedi way and the Jedi arts. We have no inkling how easy or hard it was for him to master any of the Jedi arts, but it is made very plain that he chafes at the Jedi way. It is clear that the Jedi training that they rely on to keep Jedi from being tempted by the dark side did not work. Obi-wan feels he failed Anakin, but we see that Anakin had issues and was being mentored by Palpatine which contributed to the Jedi teachings not being effective. But even though they were not effective, he was still one of the most powerful Jedi of the period. Obi-wan felt that if he applied himself more to his training he would rival Master Yoda. Anakin appears to have been conceived by the Force as part of a prophecy of balancing the Force.

Luke starts his training at 19. He has also tapped into the force for flying, becoming the best bush pilot on the outer rim, according to Biggs. He grew up in a very practical home, but he mastered deflecting blaster bolts from a remote in one lesson. Yet he had so many doubts that he could not lift an X-wing. Yoda said his lack of belief is why he failed. We never see Yoda train him with a light saber at all. We don’t see Yoda teach him any skills except communing with the Force and lots of physical activity. Yet in Return of the Jedi he has mastered them all. The amount of training he had depends on the hyperspace travel time from Tatooine to Aleraan and the non-hyperspace (or by backup hyperdrive) travel time from Hoth to Bespin. That is day or months, not years. So Luke did not receive long and extensive training. According to the official timeline, it was 4 years between ANH and ROTJ. But however long or short, Luke was able to resist the dark side far better than his father who had a decade of far more intense training. Of course he didn’t have a Sith Lord whispering in his ear for that same amount of time. Luke was the biological son of one of the most powerful Force users of the old Republic. He seemed to have inherited some of that. He had no known training in levitating objects before he grabbed his lightsaber to cut himself down in the Wampa cave. He hadn’t even seen anyone do that. So he exhibited a self taught skill.

Rey is of unknown age (Daisy was 22 when she filmed TFA). She has been living on Jakku since she was a kid. She has been working for an unknown time. She is a scavenger so she has crawled all over the wrecked ships of Jakku (we see a couple of Star Destroyers, a Super Star Destoyer, an AT-AT, and an unknown number of fighters) retrieving useful items. She is obviously a skilled climber. We don’t know who her parents are. They appear not to have been anyone of significance. She helps Finn escape and comes to Kylo’s attention. Through his contact with her she is exposed to the Force and she is able to pick up the skills that she sees Kylo use. Not without some difficulty. Luke helps her refine her ability to tap into the Force and she is able to life a bunch of rocks to free the survivors on Crait.

There are others, such as Chirrut Imwe, Ezra Bridger, but they aren’t in the Saga movies and seem to have a more difficult time picking things up than Luke. Plus there are ones we don’t know the training of like Ben Solo/Kylo Ren.

What is clear that amount of time training does not equal ability in the Force. If so, Obi-Wan would have been far more powerful and from the dialog it is clear that he knows his padawan is more powerful than he is. Luke, with so little training in comparison, is able to defeat his father in lightsaber combat. He is immune to the temptations of the Emperor (to join him - he is not immune to the threat to his friends). So we get to Rey. Rey doesn’t spontaneously learn skills she has not seen (like Luke levitating his saber). She is very powerful, but she is observing (not just with her 5 senses - with the force as well) another very powerful Force user and copying. We see her learning these skills in TFA and she is a natural. How does she master them? The force awakened in her. Why it chose her we don’t know. I think it was that it was dormant because no one around her had any trace of ability and it came to life in the proximity of Kylo Ren. She lacks the self-doubt and whininess that Luke exhibited in the OT. What she needs is a teacher to show her what she can do and a guide to help her use these newfound powers the right way.

Anakin’s journey was never about if he could learn these powers, it was about him trying to fit in to the Jedi while being lead astray by Palpatine. His journey is one of temptation and fall. Luke was a white knight when it comes to that. His one temptation was when Vader threatened Leia. Other than that he was as solidly in the light and his journey was to find the faith that he could do what he needed to do. Rey’s journey, although incomplete at the moment, has nothing to do with struggling to learn, but to find the path. She has chosen the light, but not the one sided light that young Luke had taken. She has the skills, but she has no future. What is she doing? What path is she on? Where will she take these newfound powers. Her journey is to find her destination, her purpose. Her force ability isn’t the issue in her journey, just like it wasn’t for Anakin. It was for Luke, but he had a clear purpose.

So worrying about how easy it is for Rey to pick up these skills and saying she isn’t a rounded character ignores her struggles and how they compare to Anakin and Luke. All three have a different facet of the journey to being a Jedi that they are struggling with. But all three have very similar journeys with obstacles to overcome.

Chewielewis said:

DrDre said:

Yes, except for the fact that Anakin went through a decade of Jedi training, and still failed to become the Jedi, he was supposed to be. The prequels put the entire concept of believing in prophesies in doubt, and reinforce the idea, that allways in motion is the future.

Sure, but like Rey he was pretty gifted when we first met him.

I think there is a question that people aren’t asking, which is “What exactly is Jedi training”. I don’t think Jedi training is about moving rocks or lightsaber technique. I think Jedi training is more about indoctrination. The Jedi are a religion, and like most religions, you have to start them young so they understand the world they way you need them to, because Jedi in the Jedi Order are basically celebate monks. Thats why the council rejected Anakin, too old to indoctrinate, and they were right. The jedi don’t spend 10 years learning how to fight and move rocks. Their lessons are basically learning about the force and how to understand it better, but understand it the way the Jedi want them to.

You could also say that things like moving rocks or deflecting laser bolts are pretty much the Jedi traning 101, in EpII we see kids deflecting blaster bolts, they probably can lift brooms as well with not much traning. Anakin didn’t need training to use his force powers to Fly Pods. Luke didn’t get much training to learn how to grab his saber and to use the force to blow up the death star.

Lukes training in Degoba wasn’t about lifting rocks, he could do that without much of an issue, but to understand why he could lift rocks. What he needed to learn about the force and how it connects to the universe.

Is Rey faster and more powerful than Luke and Anakin? sure, but I don’t see this being without precident.

Rey gets her trainig the same way you teach a child to swim, throw them in the deep end. Kylo’s probing of her mind taught her how to fight back, which taught her how to influence that storm troopers mind. She’s as powerful as the narrative needs her to be. It would have been nice for her to stay longer on the island, sure but I think she gets everything she needs to know for the narrative.

Which is why I find the Rey’s traning argument to be kind of petty and shortsited.

I totally agree with you. Jedi training isn’t about using the force. It is about training the mind. It is about taking a doubter and making them believe. It is about disipline. It is about following the Jedi code. Sure, they teach force skills along the way, probably a prescribed times. They teach a skill and then teach them how to use it responsibly before teaching the next. There is nothing in the PT or OT to indicate that any of these skills are hard. The dialog between Yoda and Luke during the X-wing scene explains it all. Luke can lift an X-wing if he believes he can. The dialog in the PT indicates that Anakin is more powerful than Yoda, even though Yoda is a master and 870 years older. Strength in the force is not dependent on the length of your training, but on your natural ability and your belief that you can do it.

Chewielewis said:

I don’t see any conumdum here. I don’t accept the theory that Palpatine created Anakin, the idea that the force created Anakin in response to Palpatine makes a lot more sense. You could say the same thing about Rey, created by the force in response to Kylo/Snoke. the movie basically tells us this.

Very good point.

NeverarGreat said:

yotsuya said:

NeverarGreat said:

yotsuya said:

Jay said:

darthrush said:

NeverarGreat is bringing up some great points. I think the very fact that so many people (at least that I have talked to) thought that Rose crashing into Finn made no sense proves this. Because they felt (as well as I) that the movie set them up for Finn making a successful sacrifice.

That’s just how they interpreted the scene, as well as how I did. Doesn’t make it more right than an alternate interpretation, but that is kind of how movies work. They are meant to provoke different opinions from people and readings of the same material.

The Last Jedi in my opinion, for that scene, presented it in a manner that set us up to be angry and puzzled with Rose’s decision. Just my reading of the scene.

I think most disagreements over TLJ originate from people presenting their interpretations of certain scenes as the only valid—and therefore obvious—interpretations, with any interpretations running counter to theirs being completely wrongheaded.

I’m not trying to say every scene has only one proper interpretation, but rather that your preconceptions of how the story should go color how you interpret a scene. Knowing this is Star Wars and the heroes don’t die, Finn’s life is never at risk and there is not chance of him destroying the weapon because he has to live for the next film. That is a Star Wars Trope.

Someone seems to be conveniently forgetting The Phantom Menace.

Who dies in that one? The only main character to die in their own trilogy was Padme. Each trilogy has a trio of characters with some side characters. Obi-wan, Anakin, and Padme in the PT. Luke, Leia, and Han in the OT, Finn, Rey, and Poe in the ST. The Jedi mentor has died in each trilogy (Qui-gon, Obi-wan, Luke). Other characters die (Darth Maul, Mace and most of the Jedi, Jango Fett, most of the fighter pilots in ANH, Boba Fett, Jabba). But many others live. But the main trio will live to the end of the trilogy. And R2 and 3PO are around to the very end. People die when it is important to the story that they die.

Sure we don’t think Finn will die (though I thought we were judging the movie on its own terms, not in terms of the broader Star Wars saga). But is Finn’s plot armor the reason Rose saves him? Besides, you’re conflating the idea of whether he could sacrifice himself to destroy the weapon with whether he will. We know he doesn’t, but this has no bearing on whether or not he could physically have accomplished the task had he not been diverted.

I think we are shown that he cannot damage the weapon enough to stop it. His craft is slowing down, it is crumpling. If the cockpit canopy goes, Finn is dead. If it gets the engine, he is stopped in his tracks. I think we are shown in many many small ways that his sacrifice would be in vain so we are supposed to be glad Rose saved him from dying without purpose. And when Rose’s craft hits Finn’s, we see how flimsy they are. Not enough mass or structure to do any damage. A fully functioning speeder might have been able to do some damage at full speed if the weapon was not active, but with it active, it has slowed down Finn’s speeder, it is crumbling it, pieces are coming off, and Finn has no chance. When I first watched that scene I saw the weapons crumple and I knew it was hopeless and I routed for him to get out of there. So when Rose made him by crashing into him, it made sense. I really don’t know how you could see it any other way. But this is Star Wars, not Game of Thrones. In GoT I would have expected him to die, but in Star Wars I don’t. So both in terms of the movie on its own and as a Star Wars film, I didn’t think Finn had any chance or would die.

And the score most suspect is Rotten Tomatoes. Not only is it so far off, but we know that there was a concerted effort to bring down the score with a lot of bad reviews.

Jay said:

yotsuya said:

Jay said:

darthrush said:

NeverarGreat is bringing up some great points. I think the very fact that so many people (at least that I have talked to) thought that Rose crashing into Finn made no sense proves this. Because they felt (as well as I) that the movie set them up for Finn making a successful sacrifice.

That’s just how they interpreted the scene, as well as how I did. Doesn’t make it more right than an alternate interpretation, but that is kind of how movies work. They are meant to provoke different opinions from people and readings of the same material.

The Last Jedi in my opinion, for that scene, presented it in a manner that set us up to be angry and puzzled with Rose’s decision. Just my reading of the scene.

I think most disagreements over TLJ originate from people presenting their interpretations of certain scenes as the only valid—and therefore obvious—interpretations, with any interpretations running counter to theirs being completely wrongheaded.

I’m not trying to say every scene has only one proper interpretation, but rather that your preconceptions of how the story should go color how you interpret a scene. Knowing this is Star Wars and the heroes don’t die, Finn’s life is never at risk and there is not chance of him destroying the weapon because he has to live for the next film. That is a Star Wars Trope. So watching that scene and expecting to see Finn die is not a reasonable expectation of the scene. The purpose of that scene was to show that during the course of this film, Finn went from trying to save Rey to trying to save the Resistance. He has gone from a runaway Stormtrooper to a full on Rebel. That was his character arc. Rose helped him on the arc and then rescued him when the arc was complete. The details in the movie back this up. A speeder needs speed to do damage. One of the things to notice is that his speeder is moving slower in the growing force of the beam. Finn is on a pointless suicide mission because he wants to save the day. When you look at all the things in the movie that indicate it is pointless, Rose saving him becomes very natural. It isn’t the only interpretation, but it is the one that fits what we see, his story arc, and what is normal for Star Wars.

Others have already explained why the opposite interpretation is also valid, so I won’t rehash that. If it were as clear as you suggest, viewers would be more uniform in their interpretation.

As far as Star Wars tropes and “what is normal for Star Wars”, the director doesn’t get to subvert expectations in one scene and then fall back on tropes in the next. In New Star Wars, vessels can hyperjump into other vessels to destroy them and characters can develop Force sensitivity into Yoda powers within weeks. Why should I expect anything I’ve seen before to hold up in this new universe?

These two complaints are ridiculous. First, a vessel hyperjumping into another vessel (or planet) was established in ANH. “That will end your trip real quick”. Second, Rey’s force powers were developed in TFA. Every single one she picked up after “seeing” Kylo Ren do it. She really didn’t pick up anything new in TLJ. So neither complaint is accurate for TLJ.

And this is juicy… found it just now - https://movieweb.com/star-wars-9-richard-e-grant-grand-admiral-thrawn/

As for speculation - I think the story is going to revolve around a group of planets/systems who are resisting the First Order. The force part will revolve around some sort of coming together of Rey and Kylo. Some sort of revelation that the old way of Jedi and Sith was too polarized and that the light and dark are supposed to work together rather than be at odds. I don’t see any romance between the two, but more of a team feeling in how they work it out. I see Poe taking Leia’s role in the Resistance while Leia, in a much reduced part, will be trying to build alliances. If there is a big ending, I expect her there. The new characters are interesting. Two new female characters and a one male. One seems to be very much a Leia replacement and probably is someone over Poe. The other seems to be another one of the team. I have no idea who Richard E Grant is playing. But not all the characters should be on the good side and he makes a delicious villain.

Well, there aren’t a lot of rumors and spoilers around here yet, so here goes. Read this link - https://movieweb.com/star-wars-9-rumors-george-lucas-rey-new-look-luke-lightsaber/

NeverarGreat said:

yotsuya said:

Jay said:

darthrush said:

NeverarGreat is bringing up some great points. I think the very fact that so many people (at least that I have talked to) thought that Rose crashing into Finn made no sense proves this. Because they felt (as well as I) that the movie set them up for Finn making a successful sacrifice.

That’s just how they interpreted the scene, as well as how I did. Doesn’t make it more right than an alternate interpretation, but that is kind of how movies work. They are meant to provoke different opinions from people and readings of the same material.

The Last Jedi in my opinion, for that scene, presented it in a manner that set us up to be angry and puzzled with Rose’s decision. Just my reading of the scene.

I think most disagreements over TLJ originate from people presenting their interpretations of certain scenes as the only valid—and therefore obvious—interpretations, with any interpretations running counter to theirs being completely wrongheaded.

I’m not trying to say every scene has only one proper interpretation, but rather that your preconceptions of how the story should go color how you interpret a scene. Knowing this is Star Wars and the heroes don’t die, Finn’s life is never at risk and there is not chance of him destroying the weapon because he has to live for the next film. That is a Star Wars Trope.

Someone seems to be conveniently forgetting The Phantom Menace.

Who dies in that one? The only main character to die in their own trilogy was Padme. Each trilogy has a trio of characters with some side characters. Obi-wan, Anakin, and Padme in the PT. Luke, Leia, and Han in the OT, Finn, Rey, and Poe in the ST. The Jedi mentor has died in each trilogy (Qui-gon, Obi-wan, Luke). Other characters die (Darth Maul, Mace and most of the Jedi, Jango Fett, most of the fighter pilots in ANH, Boba Fett, Jabba). But many others live. But the main trio will live to the end of the trilogy. And R2 and 3PO are around to the very end. People die when it is important to the story that they die.

Jay said:

Chewielewis said:

Jay said:
The RT audience score stands at 46%. If it only succeeds as a film with people who watch films for a living, it failed.

A self selecting poll heavily brigaded by angry fans. (Just for comparison, TPM has 55% audience rating). Yeah, no that has no basis in reality.

I’ll take something like Cinemascore over that, which is based on actual market research. They give it an A, so its definitely succeeding with the general public.

The debate over the validity of different scores was done to death in the official TLJ review thread, I believe. TLJ fans like to point to the RT critic score while insisting the audience score is gamed. The CinemaScore sampling method is also flawed because it’s mostly conducted close to the premiere and immediately after the audience leaves the theater, which means an audience with a higher number of hardcore fans and lack of time for reflection over what they saw can skew the results.

You can count me among those who enjoy TPM more than TLJ, by the way.

DominicCobb said:

Many (if not most) films feature protagonists that have to learn hard lessons. TLJ is not alone in this regard, even among Star Wars films.

Execution aside, the idea that making a hero learn a lesson will alienate the audience isn’t one that really makes sense.

That’s not what NeverarGreat said. Luke learned plenty of lessons in the OT and he’s universally loved because of that arc. What some of us aren’t buying is his need to learn this particular lesson and that Rey was the one to teach it. Same thing with our other heroes.

The validity of a score that invites people to leave their opinion is only as valid as the source of the opinions. If a group engages in the process of loading such a score with bad reviews then it will be falsely low. It can just as easily be falsely high. In the case of TLJ, we know that there was an effort to bring down the score of the film. But in any case, the accuracy is in question. Rotten Tomatoes is only a vague indicator of quality. It is not a random poll of people who viewed the movie and so should not be considered in any way accurate.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the critic reviews are 90%. The audience reviews are at 46%. 73% of Google users liked it. The Roger Ebert site gave it 4 of 4. Amazon reviewers gave it 3 1/2 stars out of 5. It has 5.5k up votes on YouTube out of 7.5k votes. It has 4 out of 5 stars on Google Play. And it has a 85 on Metacritic. To me that says the 46% on Rotten Tomatoes is a false outlier. A proper audience appreciation score would be between 70% and 80%.

Shopping Maul said:

yotsuya said:

But here is where and why ROTJ is the oddball. Luke has faced Vader and lived. He starts out the story by rescuing Han. Jabba and his main henchmen and hangers on are all dead. Luke has mastered the powers and skills that Yoda taught. Luke is at the top of his game. He is the last Jedi (save Yoda on Dagobah). He turns himself in to Vader rather than risk his friends. He starts of determined not to fight. Why does he fight? The Emperor taps into his failings. The ones we’ve spent two movies dealing with. He incites Luke to draw and fight. That and Vader doing the same thing a little while later prove that Luke is not the poised Jedi Knight he is pretending to be. ROTJ shows that Luke is not perfect, but the overall impression is that he is now a full Jedi Knight. But he has a lot to learn yet. But now he has no teacher. The cracks showed on the Death Star. So when years later he establishes a Jedi school and half his students turn and kill the other half, Luke’s wave of success crumbles and his failings show for all to see. Just because they are nicely hidden in ROTJ does not mean they are not there. Many fans have speculated that he almost turned to the dark side - that he actually drew on the dark side to defeat his father. He has his father at his mercy and he hears the Emperor urge him to finish him and listens to something else that makes him stop and throw down his light saber (something he evidently did in a more permanent way after the fall of his school).

But to say that ROTJ clearly shows a changed Luke ignores all the flaws that the movie shows are clearly still there. The Luke of ROTJ is riding a wave of success and has matured, but those old tendencies to defeatism and recklessness are still there. Rian tapped into all the complexities of Luke from the OT when crafting the story for TLJ. If you gloss over the flaws that ROTJ shows are still there, or just ignore those parts of the movie, you get Luke the epic Hero. Luke the Legendary Jedi Knight. When you dig you find Luke the person and that person would do exactly what JJ and Rian have said he did. Even Mark Hamill has fallen for Luke the Hero. But once he got past the surface and realized what the story did, he agreed with it.

ROTJ is the aberration in Luke’s journey because it was his greatest success. His flaws were under control.

Well this is where it gets really interesting for me, because I actually think Luke’s actions in RoTJ are morally bankrupt. The essence is fine - Luke realises that he is a liability and turns himself in so that the mission can proceed. That stuff is great.

But the details ruin it for me. Luke says to Leia “if I don’t make it back, you’re the only hope for the Alliance”. This is arrogant nonsense. As I mentioned earlier, Luke is nothing but a liability. Furthermore his showdown with Vader/Palpatine has no bearing on the mission or the war.

Then he states that his mission is to try and turn Vader back to the ‘good side’. This is selfish in the extreme. Vader is a war criminal, a profoundly evil man. While it might be a nice idea for Luke personally, Luke’s primary focus should have been a) getting out of the way (which he stated) and b) taking down the Emperor even if it’s by way of making sure Palps is on the Death Star when it goes boom. That would be a noble mission and a very worthy one. Instead Luke’s spoken stance is “while you guys fight for the galaxy’s freedom I’m gonna go save my war-mongering dad”.

I will never understand the ethics of what goes down on the Death Star. Luke, a man who has killed countless enemy numbers and to great applause, suddenly decides that total pacifism is the key here - and only because he selfishly wants daddy to turn good. While people are fighting and dying all around him for the cause of freedom against a brutal dictatorship, Luke is hiding under a stairwell refusing to fight. After losing his temper and (rightfully IMO) beating Vader to a pulp, Luke throws his weapon aside and proudly declares his own enlightenment. Again, an actual war is being waged outside, and Luke is busy congratulating himself on his personal spiritual victory. He doesn’t challenge the Emperor. He doesn’t attempt to address the carnage being wrought by the Death Star or at least get Palpatine in a headlock and force him to recall his forces. No, he just stands there and boasts “I am Jedi”. Great. Meanwhile the actual galaxy is being saved by Chewbacca who has had the foresight to hijack a Scout Walker. Give that Wookiee a medal please!

So Luke gets fried and Vader, seeing his own flesh and blood in danger, kills the Emperor. Suddenly killing the bad guy becomes a viable path to enlightenment. Uh, okay. Vader and Luke hold hands and all is wonderful.

At best you could argue that Luke inadvertently prevented Palpatine’s possible escape from the Death Star. But that was just a lucky consequence of Vader’s sudden sense of paternity. Luke’s actions had no bearing on the war. For all the build-up, for all the ‘that boy is our last hope’, Luke was pointless (outside of recruiting the Ewoks). If anything the idea of training a new Jedi Order - ie a bunch of guys who aren’t allowed to fight and could turn irreversibly evil at the drop of a hat - is ludicrous. The idea of Luke even becoming a legend for his actions on Death Star II is laughable.

The only thing Luke has going for him at this point is his unwavering dedication to family over doctrine. Remove that and you’re not left with much.

Well, I disagree with you strongly about all this.

First, Luke saves the strike team. By linking with the Ewoks, it leads to the eventual success. Without the Ewoks, the mission would have been a failure. Palpatine had planned for a strike team and had countered it, but he failed to counter for the Ewoks. Second, Luke confronting the Emperor ensured he remained on the Death Star. And if he killed the Emperor, the war was virtually over. And his insistence on not fighting was mostly against his father. In the end he threw down his light saber because he had tapped into the dark side, seen how tempting it was, and rejected fighting and anger as a way to win the day. And while Palpatine’s focus was on Luke, he wasn’t paying attention that the strike team had planted explosives and the only thing protecting him from the Rebel plan was about to go poof. While Palpatine was focused on Luke, his death was approaching. Luke took the Jedi path of non-violence to face Palpatine. Palpatine tries to kill him and it is the one thing that could trigger Vader to turn back to Anakin. This is one place where I think the PT made the OT more powerful. We know he lost Padme (something that could have always been guessed at with Luke and Leia being orphans from a young age) and he does not stand by to watch his son die.

And the entire redemption is that at the core, a person can find good even after horrible actions. In Star Wars we get the Dark Side which entices and temps, but in reality, power can corrupt. You call Vader a war criminal, and a profoundly evil man, but is that true? He is Palpatine’s lackey. He acts on his masters orders. He is a slave of Palpatine as much as he was a slave to Watto. Not that he is innocent by any means, or that he would not have been held accountable for his actions, but the point was his soul/spirit/force energy. Luke was able to redeem his father. Had he lived he would have been executed by the Rebels, but his sacrifice was heroic. Luke’s actions were heroic. It is an epic end to that part of the story. Luke saves his father who at the end killed the Emperor. And all the bad guys die. Ultimately Luke’s efforts are the key to the Rebel victory. They had hoped to catch the Emperor on the station and for him to die there, but Luke proved how easy it would have been for him to escape. That he did not was all on Luke. I’m sure the legend in universe got spun a bit. But the result is the Luke’s actions resulted in the Emperor’s death. Without Luke the strike team would not have succeeded and the Emperor would not have died. Luke’s journey then was not about the war.

Interesting how you have pointed out that even in ROTJ, Luke wasn’t as concerned with the Galaxy as the he was with the Jedi. That idea is echoed in why he is in self exile on Ach-To. In ROTJ, Luke goes to do what Yoda and Ben want him to do. None of them said anything about the Empire/Rebellion conflict. He doesn’t do it quite the way they think he should, but he goes all the same. He wants to save his father, they want him to destroy the Emperor. Nothing about helping the Galaxy. His attitude remains unchanged in TLJ. He has put down the saber after the fall of Kylo and his instructions to Rey (including in the deleted scenes) echoes the teachings of Yoda. Not to interfere. Luke is intent on letting the Jedi die. Yoda influences him to see otherwise. Rey has already taken the sacred texts. Yoda makes him see that she will be a Jedi and that if he thinks there are failures, he’d better go to her and fix it. For the first time since TESB, Luke acts to save his friends rather than follow the old Jedi teachings. Your point leads to interesting ideas.

Jay said:

darthrush said:

NeverarGreat is bringing up some great points. I think the very fact that so many people (at least that I have talked to) thought that Rose crashing into Finn made no sense proves this. Because they felt (as well as I) that the movie set them up for Finn making a successful sacrifice.

That’s just how they interpreted the scene, as well as how I did. Doesn’t make it more right than an alternate interpretation, but that is kind of how movies work. They are meant to provoke different opinions from people and readings of the same material.

The Last Jedi in my opinion, for that scene, presented it in a manner that set us up to be angry and puzzled with Rose’s decision. Just my reading of the scene.

I think most disagreements over TLJ originate from people presenting their interpretations of certain scenes as the only valid—and therefore obvious—interpretations, with any interpretations running counter to theirs being completely wrongheaded.

I’m not trying to say every scene has only one proper interpretation, but rather that your preconceptions of how the story should go color how you interpret a scene. Knowing this is Star Wars and the heroes don’t die, Finn’s life is never at risk and there is not chance of him destroying the weapon because he has to live for the next film. That is a Star Wars Trope. So watching that scene and expecting to see Finn die is not a reasonable expectation of the scene. The purpose of that scene was to show that during the course of this film, Finn went from trying to save Rey to trying to save the Resistance. He has gone from a runaway Stormtrooper to a full on Rebel. That was his character arc. Rose helped him on the arc and then rescued him when the arc was complete. The details in the movie back this up. A speeder needs speed to do damage. One of the things to notice is that his speeder is moving slower in the growing force of the beam. Finn is on a pointless suicide mission because he wants to save the day. When you look at all the things in the movie that indicate it is pointless, Rose saving him becomes very natural. It isn’t the only interpretation, but it is the one that fits what we see, his story arc, and what is normal for Star Wars.

But here is where and why ROTJ is the oddball. Luke has faced Vader and lived. He starts out the story by rescuing Han. Jabba and his main henchmen and hangers on are all dead. Luke has mastered the powers and skills that Yoda taught. Luke is at the top of his game. He is the last Jedi (save Yoda on Dagobah). He turns himself in to Vader rather than risk his friends. He starts of determined not to fight. Why does he fight? The Emperor taps into his failings. The ones we’ve spent two movies dealing with. He incites Luke to draw and fight. That and Vader doing the same thing a little while later prove that Luke is not the poised Jedi Knight he is pretending to be. ROTJ shows that Luke is not perfect, but the overall impression is that he is now a full Jedi Knight. But he has a lot to learn yet. But now he has no teacher. The cracks showed on the Death Star. So when years later he establishes a Jedi school and half his students turn and kill the other half, Luke’s wave of success crumbles and his failings show for all to see. Just because they are nicely hidden in ROTJ does not mean they are not there. Many fans have speculated that he almost turned to the dark side - that he actually drew on the dark side to defeat his father. He has his father at his mercy and he hears the Emperor urge him to finish him and listens to something else that makes him stop and throw down his light saber (something he evidently did in a more permanent way after the fall of his school).

But to say that ROTJ clearly shows a changed Luke ignores all the flaws that the movie shows are clearly still there. The Luke of ROTJ is riding a wave of success and has matured, but those old tendencies to defeatism and recklessness are still there. Rian tapped into all the complexities of Luke from the OT when crafting the story for TLJ. If you gloss over the flaws that ROTJ shows are still there, or just ignore those parts of the movie, you get Luke the epic Hero. Luke the Legendary Jedi Knight. When you dig you find Luke the person and that person would do exactly what JJ and Rian have said he did. Even Mark Hamill has fallen for Luke the Hero. But once he got past the surface and realized what the story did, he agreed with it.

ROTJ is the aberration in Luke’s journey because it was his greatest success. His flaws were under control.

As for Rey’s powers it seems to me that RJ has simply changed the nature of the Force for his own convenience. The OT (and even the midichlorian-infested PT) establishes the Force as something that requires serious training and incredible mental/emotional discipline - irrespective of the wielders’ natural proclivities. In RJ’s SW universe the Force manifests like X-Men powers (see ‘Broom Boy’).

I’ll correct you here as that would be JJ Abrams. And as I’ve said, she can pick up powers, but has no guidance as to how to use them. Luke had serious doubts. Ben and Yoda had to overcome his doubts. That is one of my biggest problems with the complaints about TLJ. So much of what Rian did was based directly on JJ’s setup. Blaming these things on Rian is nonsense. Luke’s self exile after Kylo turned and destroyed the school, Rey’s ability to pick up powers as soon as she sees them, the First Order being like the Empire, the Resistance being like the Rebellion, all these things come straight from TFA and Abrams.

captainsolo said:

So in essence what we have here is a precursor to the revised ESB prints after the 70mm premiere.
Wow, the stuff you learn here every day…the differing shots were a revelation to me but this flow of events is not surprising at all given how rushed the last weeks of post production were.
It’d be funny to see if anyone today even remembers doing any of these shots last minute…then again very few remember there were three audio mixes.

I tend to think of it as 2 audio mixes. The mono and the 4 channel. The 4 channel had LFE channels for the 70 mm, was encoded in Dolby Stereo for 35 mm, and Puggo Grand 16 mm has a mono down mix of it.

Collipso said:

i just saw a comparison drawn by the official star wars twitter between ezra and rey, and while they’re “both alone, both searching for belonging”, ezra still has to work really hard to improve his force abilities, and he IS a natural. rey, on the other hand…

Snoke answers part of that. Anakin, Luke, and Rey are not Ezra. Ezra has a more realistic journey. Anakin, Luke, and Rey are part of the story of the force. Snoke thought Luke would be the great good rising to meet Kylo, but it turned out to be Rey. Rey has the ability, but needs guidance. Ezra is a street smart kid who needs a lot of things. HE needs to be taught on many levels. Rey is a young adult and has learned a lot of those lessons the hard way on Jakku. As she said, something awakened inside her. If you watch the movies closely, Rey never does anything she hasn’t already seen. She doesn’t use the force compelling voice until Kylo tries it on her. She doesn’t know how to tap the force to better wield the lightsaber until Kylo unwittingly advises here. She seems to have an innate ability to read what others do with the force and copy it. It makes her a fast student, but she needs guidance. Think about it. What would happen if she picked up the darker skills? She needs guidance to find balance.

NeverarGreat said:

yotsuya said:

NeverarGreat said:

I think a lot of the disagreements over this movie have to do with situations in which a subtle shift in one’s interpretation lead to dramatically different readings of the movie at large. For example, when Finn is making his sacrificial run at the laser weapon and Rose saves him, there are two main ways to interpret the scene:

1. Finn had a shot at destroying the weapon, but Rose valued Finn’s life over the destruction of the weapon. Because of this, Rose’s actions were misguided and would have doomed the Resistance were it not for Luke’s intervention.

2. Finn had no chance of destroying the weapon, and his sacrifice, while a culmination of his character arc in the film, would have ultimately been a senseless waste. Rose acted rightly.

The trouble with these two interpretations is that they’re both equally valid in terms of what we see on screen. If Poe had said something along the lines of ‘Retreat, nothing can stop it now!’, then it would have been clear that Finn was acting out of pure unthinking hatred for the First Order. But he instead implied that it would take a suicide run to destroy the weapon, making Finn’s action heroic from the first interpretation.

This is just one example. This and others (such as Holdo’s leadership, Luke’s murderous moment, etc) rest on the shakiest ground for the audience to interpret in the way the filmmakers intend.

I would disagree. I think the the film has everything you need to interpret it the way it was intended. The problem is that sometimes it takes multiple viewings to get everything. On first viewing you might ignore the crumpling of Finn’s craft’s weapons, but on additional viewings it becomes clear that Finn stands no chance, at least not the way he is doing it. He is trying to fly down the barrel of the weapon, at the heart of the growing beam, and it will destroy him before he can damage it. To come to another conclusion requires ignoring information in the film. Most of the scenes being argued about have a lot of information if you pay attention and look. And I know many who didn’t like the film haven’t viewed it many times. Perhaps not enough to see the things that are quite clear to me and others. I get that TLJ was not to everyone’s taste, but some of the arguments put forth are really a stretch.

I assumed that since his weapons were rendered useless, he would have to ram the speeder into the barrel of the weapon to disable it, sacrificing himself in the process. This seems to be Finn’s thought process (who is actually the expert here), and it’s backed up by Poe who calls it a suicide mission. I don’t know where we’re supposed to get that it’s impossible for him to complete the mission.

If he is flying down the barrel of an active weapon and it has already started to crumple his craft - a craft already established a flimsy. Put the pieces together and there is no way this craft is massive enough to do any damage to the weapon before it is destroyed itself. He is flying down the beam so as he gets closer and the beam gets stronger the craft will be destroyed and never reach the target. Finn will die for nothing. Like I said, the pieces are there if you care to look. Saying it isn’t obvious is denying the pieces that are there in the images and dialog of the film. It was obvious to me on the first viewing that Finn didn’t stand a chance. The gun was too big and his little craft was too insignificant. And without weapons he won’t be able to do any damage. If he was in an X-wing or a TESB speeder, I’d say he had a chance, but the pathetic craft he finds himself in doesn’t stand a chance. It is all there on screen.

Collipso said:

yotsuya said:

Collipso said:

dahmage said:

Jay said:

yotsuya said:

Jay said:

yotsuya said:

Jay said:

Shopping Maul said:

I liked Luke’s vibe in TLJ in theory, but the execution bugged me somewhat. Luke in exile was great. Luke reconsidering past events and pondering (as I have as a fan) the idea of Jedi hubris was great. Luke suggesting that the old Jedi orthodoxy had to die was great. All the stuff about the Force and ‘balance’ and how no-one has a particular claim to it was absolutely great.

What I didn’t like so much was the idea of Luke being on the back foot with all this. Having Yoda come back to give Luke a lecture on ‘failure’ annoyed me. Luke transcended his masters in RoTJ. Yoda and Obi Wan wanted Luke to simply kill the bad guys. Luke chose a more personal, Zen route. I’d prefer he’d been doing the grumpy hobo routine in TLJ as an act - similar to Yoda’s initial test in TESB. This could have been his way of forcing Rey to take her destiny into her own hands, a new and different path away from the usual formalised Jedi training routine. Once Rey had flown off to confront Kylo, Luke could have revealed his cunning duplicity to Yoda and they could’ve burned down the Jedi tree together. Then, after Luke’s great skype-battle with Kylo, Rey could’ve realised what he’d done and be like “you sly devil”.

This way he could’ve played the hobo but still been the Luke we all love and respect without being diminished.

Shopping Maul said:

yotsuya said:

Shopping Maul said:

I liked Luke’s vibe in TLJ in theory, but the execution bugged me somewhat. Luke in exile was great. Luke reconsidering past events and pondering (as I have as a fan) the idea of Jedi hubris was great. Luke suggesting that the old Jedi orthodoxy had to die was great. All the stuff about the Force and ‘balance’ and how no-one has a particular claim to it was absolutely great.

What I didn’t like so much was the idea of Luke being on the back foot with all this. Having Yoda come back to give Luke a lecture on ‘failure’ annoyed me. Luke transcended his masters in RoTJ. Yoda and Obi Wan wanted Luke to simply kill the bad guys. Luke chose a more personal, Zen route. I’d prefer he’d been doing the grumpy hobo routine in TLJ as an act - similar to Yoda’s initial test in TESB. This could have been his way of forcing Rey to take her destiny into her own hands, a new and different path away from the usual formalised Jedi training routine. Once Rey had flown off to confront Kylo, Luke could have revealed his cunning duplicity to Yoda and they could’ve burned down the Jedi tree together. Then, after Luke’s great skype-battle with Kylo, Rey could’ve realised what he’d done and be like “you sly devil”.

This way he could’ve played the hobo but still been the Luke we all love and respect without being diminished.

If you didn’t notice, the scene with Yoda doesn’t alter the more Zen route he took in ROTJ. Yoda isn’t advising him on the force, he is advising him how to teach. Advising him as a fellow master. I think because Luke was so pivotal, Rian didn’t just have him fill the master/mentor role immediately. He brought back some of that negativity that characterized Luke in ANH and TESB. It created a nice character journey for Luke to take him where he needed to be to help Rey.

Yes, but that’s my point - that Luke was brought back to ANH/TESB levels to reboot his arc. Yoda says (in TLJ) “young Skywalker, always looking to the horizon” when it was actually this attitude that saved the day in RoTJ, namely that Luke ‘looked to the horizon’ and took an emotional, idealistic path with regard to the bad guys (as opposed to just killing them).

I just think returning the OT characters to pre-RoTJ status, while not so bad in theory, could’ve been handled better. Leia as rebel leader, rather than Jedi kindergarten teacher, was a no-brainer since her Skywalker heritage was a story convenience that added zero to her character. Han going back to smuggling was kind of dumb - he should have been recruiting pilots from the outer rim or something which would have kept him on his post-RoTJ path while still serving the divorce narrative.

But returning Luke to pre-RoTJ status diminishes RoTJ (and this is coming from someone who doesn’t even like RoTJ!). I think the ‘broken recluse’ idea could have been served in a cleverer way without sending Luke backwards. And he didn’t help Rey. She helped him.

Great interpretations, agree fully. Luke accomplished what his masters couldn’t when he saved his father, and he did it in his own way. Reducing him to a bitter old man who made the same mistakes with his own pupil (except worse, seeing as he considered murder a solution to his failings as a teacher) is to ignore what he accomplished in RotJ. It’s sold as a subversive take on Luke’s character, but it’s really just another reboot and ripoff of a story we’ve already been told.

I didn’t mind the idea of the Jedi Order and its orthodoxy dying out because my interpretation of the prequels has always been that the Jedi became too powerful, influential, and frankly cocky (Yoda speaks to this in AotC I believe), inviting the blindness and corruption that was ultimately the downfall of the Order and the Republic.

Luke experienced an awakening in RotJ and TLJ sets him back for the sake of making Rey look good.

I quite disagree. Luke had faith that his father could be saved and he was right. But seeing the way Luke ended ROTJ as something fundamental had changed with him and he could never fall back to his old defeatist attitude is a false interpretation of the character arc of Luke in the OT. Luke found something to believe in and he believed that the correct course was to rebuild the Jedi. But that failed in a miserable way. It was not just the actions of Luke on that night in Kylo’s hut, but that Kylo had been corrupted to start with and it was too late for Luke to reach him. How did evil penetrate his trailing of his nephew? How could that happen again? Was it in the Skywalker blood? Was it a failing of the Jedi teachings? Why had Kylo fallen? Luke went to the source looking for answers and the only thing he found was that the Jedi were flawed and that flaw had left a hole for Kylo’s fall and while Luke had not caused or been able to prevent it, he had hastened it by listening to his instincts (Ben’s first lesson if you recall - to act on instinct). He had failed his nephew. A tradgedy like that would naturally bring out your defeatist side if that was in your nature (as we saw it was indeed in two movies and still hints of it in ROTJ). It is a very realistic portrayal of a hero and a classic archetype of the former hero as mentor, who has to be convinced to teach. Nothing about the Luke shown in TLJ is contrary to the OT Luke. Quite the reverse. In fact you could say that Luke’s journey in TLJ is very much tied to how his character appeared in ROTJ. Luke is a Jedi of strong emotions. Strong faith and strong doubt.

False interpretation? There’s no such thing. I have my take, you have yours.

As I’ve said multiple times now, I don’t have a problem with Hermit Luke, just the poorly told history that led him to such a place and Rey’s lack of need for any real training to exhibit Force powers that rival Yoda’s. As Shopping Maul said, I have a problem with its execution. I’m just not sold on this version of Luke based on what we’ve been given to work with and I’m not going to perform the mental gymnastics required to get there.

You pose lots of interesting questions, by the way—none of which were answered in TFA or TLJ. I doubt they’ll be answered in IX either.

It is a false interpretation because that is not how human beings are. At their core, all heroes are human beings, just with something special to make them a hero. Hercules had his failings. Luke has his failings. Rian used those to round out Luke’s actions as told in TFA. Luke had a very good day at the end of ROTJ, but on the day Kylo turned against him it was a very bad day. Luke has a bad history with very bad days and there is no reason why having a great day means he will never act the same again on a bad day. That is just ridiculous. Your interpretation builds Luke up to something he is not. That is part of what the story of TLJ is about. Leia and Rey wanted that heroic Luke who took on the Empire, so did a lot of fans. That Luke would be unrealistic. What we got was an epic illusion. He appeared to be the Luke desired, but he was never that Luke. His human side was showing through and he saw no way to help the galaxy except by staying away. Right or wrong, that was his take. In the end he realized the galaxy needed the legend and they got it, just not as they expected it. Better in some ways. But the Luke from the end of ROTJ was still just a Tatooine farm boy at heart. People don’t change in such a fundamental way. That was why Anakin could be saved. He was fundamentally a lost slaveboy who wanted to save his family. Where is that fundamental difference in Kylo. I think his redemption will take a different direction.

Sorry, still not there with you on this, and never will be.

darthrush said:

dahmage said:

Collipso said:

DominicCobb said:

Everyone’s favorite scene in TLJ was when Leia gave Rey a medal that said “Best Jedi Ever.” Truly amazing moment.

yeah because that’s exactly what i meant

Well then I guess I have no idea what you meant, like usual.

Are you kidding? Sometimes it’s like you people don’t want to even acknowledge the other side of something despite Collipso being pretty darn clear.

It’s deliberate and it’s annoying. Just shitposting, really.

Thanks?

No, like Frink said, I really didn’t get collipso’s point. I have taken his posts literally before, only to be told they were sarcasm, and I found myself scratching my head wondering which this was.

I was traveling all day, so only now saw this, and figured I better speak my price, lest you think I really was being pointlessly belligerent.

Back on topic, I agree with yotsuya’s post above.

i’m sorry i wasn’t clear dahmage. to explain the post you didn’t understand: i was pretty angry with some IRL stuff and gave a more emotional response than usual, and ended up using a super ultra hyperbole. i said rey’s the “best jedi ever”, but what i really meant was that she’s quite capable jedi-wise two movies in already and she had 0 training so far, so i don’t see why IX’s writers would go out of their ways in the final movie of the trilogy to give her some sort of training, given that it’s been pretty clear that it’s not necessary to her.

again, sorry for coming across as unclear to you quite often. you’re one of the posters i enjoy the most here and i’ll try to improve from now on to avoid complications in the future.

…Rey must reach a point no Jedi before has reached…

He [Luke] became a classic Jedi and it could not help him save his nephew from falling.

see, those are two of the biggest issues i have with TLJ and the ST in general.

Luke in RotJ had reached said point no Jedi had previously reached, and given what happens in the OT, it’s quite a big leap in logic for me to believe that Luke would go from his RotJ self into a classic jedi that couldn’t save his nephew and almost appealed to killing him due to that.

TLJ standing alone is a better movie than as the eigth part of the Star Wars saga: Luke, Rey and Kylo have great arcs, Finn and Poe have good arcs, etc. the problem here is that it’s not standing alone, and therefore Luke’s arc makes no sense (because how he’s gotten to the starting point makes no sense to me), Rey’s force abilities make no sense (given what we already know of the force and how hard it is to master it from previous movies), and that kills a third of the movie already, the A plot, the third of the movie that was supposed to ‘carry’ the other two.

now, some of you may read as if i have a problem with luke failing. i don’t. i have a problem with luke acting the way he did when facing his nephew’s possible turn to the dark side, given that he himself had been tempted before and had also turned one of the darkest and most evil guys ever back to the light side. so it feels weird that that’s Luke’s greatest failure.

How is it a stretch of logic for Luke, now a Jedi Master, to be struck down by remorse and regret and go back to that defeatist attitude that is so much of his character in ANH and TESB. That makes ROTJ the oddball, not TLJ. This Luke is a logical offshoot of where we left him in ROTJ given that he had built a school and then all of his students either turned to the dark side or were killed. That is a heavy loss for a teacher. We know Luke cares and to have half of his students to that to the other half is another blow. I’m not sure what you think Luke is made of, but the arc we are given for his post ROTJ life is consistent with his personality traits in the OT. It is the thought he had somehow became some grand legend at the end of ROTJ that is in error. He was a man who had succeeded. He was on top of the world. When Kylo betrayed him and the school, he was at the lowest he’d ever experienced in his life. That you know so little of human frailty and reaction to tragedy is unfortunate.

As for the scene in the hut with Kylo, We are given 3 versions. I feel the last one is correct. Luke acted on instinct. Kylo responded on instinct. That was the first lesson Ben taught him back in ANH on the Falcon. That would be the first lesson Luke would have taught. Luke would not have carried through with it, but Kylo did. Instinct is all well and good, but sometimes you need to let your head prevail. And it would be in keeping with his character to then reject the Light saber. We see in TLJ that he has dismantled his own.

As for Rey’s force abilities, she is a natural. It happens. Some people are just more adept than others. I read it as she can see how others use the force and imitate it. She needs training, but the skills come easy. It is how she should use them and in wisdom that she needs guidance. That is what she was asking of Luke. Luke had doubts that got in his way. Rey has none, but she seeks and needs purpose. She can do the skills, but she needs a mentor to show her how to take the skills and put them to use. The whole “she learns too easy” isn’t much of an argument. Anakin needed to learn patience. Luke needed to learn faith. Rey needs to learn wisdom. Just because she doesn’t have the same difficulty as Luke does not mean she is a full fledged Jedi in need of no training. Every Jedi to date has learned the same one-sided force ability. Light side only. Rey has no such restriction. To her it is all the force. That is either very dangerous or very beneficial, and only with guidance can she find the right way. Problem is that while Luke was closer than any who came before, even he wasn’t there yet. After Yoda opened his eyes and he died, he just might be the teacher she needs. Your argument is based on what we saw Luke go through. For Rey that part is easy. Luke had an innate sense of rightness that Rey seems to lack. Student learns from master and master learns from student and you arrive at what could be the ideal end result. If they are telling the story I think they are, that is the setup they need.

NeverarGreat said:

I think a lot of the disagreements over this movie have to do with situations in which a subtle shift in one’s interpretation lead to dramatically different readings of the movie at large. For example, when Finn is making his sacrificial run at the laser weapon and Rose saves him, there are two main ways to interpret the scene:

1. Finn had a shot at destroying the weapon, but Rose valued Finn’s life over the destruction of the weapon. Because of this, Rose’s actions were misguided and would have doomed the Resistance were it not for Luke’s intervention.

2. Finn had no chance of destroying the weapon, and his sacrifice, while a culmination of his character arc in the film, would have ultimately been a senseless waste. Rose acted rightly.

The trouble with these two interpretations is that they’re both equally valid in terms of what we see on screen. If Poe had said something along the lines of ‘Retreat, nothing can stop it now!’, then it would have been clear that Finn was acting out of pure unthinking hatred for the First Order. But he instead implied that it would take a suicide run to destroy the weapon, making Finn’s action heroic from the first interpretation.

This is just one example. This and others (such as Holdo’s leadership, Luke’s murderous moment, etc) rest on the shakiest ground for the audience to interpret in the way the filmmakers intend.

I would disagree. I think the the film has everything you need to interpret it the way it was intended. The problem is that sometimes it takes multiple viewings to get everything. On first viewing you might ignore the crumpling of Finn’s craft’s weapons, but on additional viewings it becomes clear that Finn stands no chance, at least not the way he is doing it. He is trying to fly down the barrel of the weapon, at the heart of the growing beam, and it will destroy him before he can damage it. To come to another conclusion requires ignoring information in the film. Most of the scenes being argued about have a lot of information if you pay attention and look. And I know many who didn’t like the film haven’t viewed it many times. Perhaps not enough to see the things that are quite clear to me and others. I get that TLJ was not to everyone’s taste, but some of the arguments put forth are really a stretch.

SilverWook said:

DrDre said:

Possessed said:

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

Shopping Maul said:

I liked Luke’s vibe in TLJ in theory, but the execution bugged me somewhat. Luke in exile was great. Luke reconsidering past events and pondering (as I have as a fan) the idea of Jedi hubris was great. Luke suggesting that the old Jedi orthodoxy had to die was great. All the stuff about the Force and ‘balance’ and how no-one has a particular claim to it was absolutely great.

What I didn’t like so much was the idea of Luke being on the back foot with all this. Having Yoda come back to give Luke a lecture on ‘failure’ annoyed me. Luke transcended his masters in RoTJ. Yoda and Obi Wan wanted Luke to simply kill the bad guys. Luke chose a more personal, Zen route. I’d prefer he’d been doing the grumpy hobo routine in TLJ as an act - similar to Yoda’s initial test in TESB. This could have been his way of forcing Rey to take her destiny into her own hands, a new and different path away from the usual formalised Jedi training routine. Once Rey had flown off to confront Kylo, Luke could have revealed his cunning duplicity to Yoda and they could’ve burned down the Jedi tree together. Then, after Luke’s great skype-battle with Kylo, Rey could’ve realised what he’d done and be like “you sly devil”.

This way he could’ve played the hobo but still been the Luke we all love and respect without being diminished.

If you didn’t notice, the scene with Yoda doesn’t alter the more Zen route he took in ROTJ. Yoda isn’t advising him on the force, he is advising him how to teach. Advising him as a fellow master. I think because Luke was so pivotal, Rian didn’t just have him fill the master/mentor role immediately. He brought back some of that negativity that characterized Luke in ANH and TESB. It created a nice character journey for Luke to take him where he needed to be to help Rey.

The problem of course is, that he didn’t really help Rey, and that she still succeeded despite this. She helped herself to some books, when she was fed up with him, after which Luke sort of rediscovered himself, and was able to create a diversion for the rebels. Ultimately though he wasn’t much of a mentor in this film, except to be an example of how not to be. Yoda told Luke how to be a better teacher, he got to stage an illusion, and then he died before he could pass on what he had learned.

This is Star Wars. Since when is dying a barrier to being a teacher and mentor?

Ehm, since ANH. Force Ghosts can provide guidance, but up until TLJ they couldn’t physically interact with their environment.

False. Obi Wan sat on a log in return of the jedi. 😛

Well, I for one feel that scene in ROTJ is one of the weakest in the OT. It includes a pretty contrived reveal, Leia being Luke’s sister, and has a Force ghost sitting on a log having a relaxed conversation with a living person. If things were that easy, why didn’t Obi-Wan train Luke between ANH, and TESB? Luke seemed genuinly surprised to see Obi-Wan on Hoth. It seems to me there are limitations to what extend Force ghost can interact with the real world. In TESB Obi-Wan states he cannot intervere should Luke decide to confront Vader. In TLJ Yoda can suddenly conjure up a storm cloud, and lightning, and he can hit Luke on the head with his cane. This makes Obi-Wan’s statement in TESB seem ridiculous. Why not summon lightning and blast Vader, Palpatine, Kylo, and Snoke into oblivion? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Force ghost for me are sort of like reflections of the original person. They fade in and out of reality, and in my view are only able to sustain this for short periods of time. They cannot intervere with reality, and are thus not able to summon lightning from the sky or touch a living person. If Luke trains Rey in episode IX, it will feel like a cheat to me. Not only is the mystery of Force ghosts ruined, but it essentially makes a Force ghost a living person with a fresh coat of reflective paint, and with the added bonus of being invincible.

I would argue Dagobah is saturated with the Force. (Same for Ahch-To, only dialed up to 11.) Yoda did not pick a slimy mudhole planet to hide out on at random. We know the cave/ruin where Luke fights a phantom Vader is chock full of Dark Side. Contrast with Hoth, where Luke can barely see Obi-Wan and is delirious to boot.

Obi-Wan only manifests as a voice Luke isn’t even sure he’s hearing in the Death Star battle, so Cloud City would also be difficult for a ghost to show up.

I would say that the whole Force Ghost ability is new and they are learning what they can do. Ben is at first only a voice. Then he learns to show himself. Then he fully interacts. He can teach Yoda and so Yoda can appear at the end of ROTJ. And, well, Anakin is supposed to be the Chosen One and Qui-gon might have whispered a secret or two to him, so his appearance in ROTJ is a bit questionable, but can be explained. And in TLJ we have an added 30 years for them to figure out what they can do as force ghosts. So either Endor is a moon full of the force or it is more tied to their abilities and what they have figured out they can do than the intensity of the force at a given location.