There’s a lot going on, sure, but I don’t see how it’s that complicated.
It’s not. The Resistance flees their base and almost gets wiped out despite their best efforts while Rey goes to find Luke Skywalker and answers and only ends up with some ancient texts before returning in time to save the survivors of the new Rebellion.
At first I didn’t understand why TLJ left so little story threads for future entries, feeling more like the final act of a story, than the middle one. In the context of what I wrote above it makes perfect sense. Future Star Wars movies won’t have these connective tissues like in the past, because it prevents the general audience from connecting with it, or worse even go and see it, since they need to have seen the previous entries to fully appreciate the new film. TLJ has eliminated that problem.
TLJ is the penultimate story if the Saga. It had to tie up a lot so that 9 could complete things. I can see how it was aiming to do that. Your theory about it resetting/rebooting things would make sense if they were going to continue the story, but with news that RJ will be doing an unconnected trilogy, it makes no sense. You have argued above that we need to know the filmmaker’s intent an RJ is a huge Star Wars fan so I don’t see how that equals deconstructing what came before. If the correct interpretation must incorporate the original intent, then you are quite mistaken in your deconstruction/reboot theory.
I’ve been thinking a bit more about the broad stroke differences between TLJ and the rest of the saga, particulary the OT, and why some find TLJ refreshing, while others reject it. So, for a change I’m not going to talk about Rey’s Force powers, or Luke’s characterization, but more about in-universe history, and how that affects the story.
I think it is fair to say the OT is steeped in melancholy, and powerful connections to the past. The entire premise of ANH is to defeat the evil Empire, and to return the galaxy to a previous state, the fabled Old Republic. Luke is largely driven by the legend of his father, who’s friend Obi-Wan promises to teach him about an all but forgotten religion that both he and Luke’s father were a part of. The rest of the trilogy is largly set up such that Luke needs to vanguish the enemies of old, Darth Vader, and the Emperor, and avoid the pitfalls, that caused Vader, later revealed to be his father, to turn on his friend, and join the dark side.
To a large degree TFA operates in the same way. It treats Luke Skywalker as a legend of old, that both the heroes and villains are looking for. Luke went looking for the first Jedi temple, a place presumably steeped in Jedi history. It’s hinted, that Rey has a strong connection to the past, and Kylo Ren, who’s directly related to two other legends of the past, Han and Leia, was seduced to the dark side by some mysterious larger than life old anti-Yoda figure. Both Rey and Kylo Ren are struggling with their past, and the film ends with Kylo severing one of the links to his past by killing a past legend, while Rey connects with it by finding a past legend.
TLJ completely breaks with this Star Wars tradition. It actively deflates the past by telling us the history and legends we cherish are not as great as we want to believe. It actively cuts almost all ties to the past by killing off the remaining classic heroes (Leia technically not in the film), and even the links to the past TFA introduced. The mysterious Snoke is unceremoniously cast aside, and the secret of Rey’s past is, that she has no past, at least not one that’s relevant to her future. The family connection between good and evil that drove the OT and TFA is all but ignored, and then finally killed for good, when Leia gives up on her son, and Luke dies. What remains is a conflict between new heroes and new villains, that either killed their past, or don’t really have one.
It’s a bold move, which is sadly undercut by a strict adherence to the OT aesthetic and the OT’s basic premise of an Empire versus a small band of rebels. The question is why did the creators and by extension Disney decide to reboot the franchise, whilst also severing most connections to the past? My theory is, that it was done to make Star Wars more accessible to the general audience. Most of us hardcore fans will see the movies anyway. I know I probably will, despite my lack of enthousiasm. Anyone without much knowledge of Star Wars history will be able to see and enjoy episode IX. It’s starting point is similar to episode IV. There’s an evil Empire led by an evil maniac, a struggling rebellion led by an aspiring Jedi, and it looks like it’s part of the Star Wars brand. You need not know more.
It IS a bold move and one in which I think needed to happen for SW to evolve.
I might agree, if the bold move was used to create a new story, and new Star Wars lore but it wasn’t. It’s a reboot, and one that strips Star Wars from much of the deeper layers and themes, that made it stand out from the average blockbuster, in my opinion of course.
I think the themes and layers of TLJ are deeper and a little more meaningful than anything in both the OT and PT, especially in how the philosophical ideas tackled are all about our understanding of those previously established themes. It may be more of a meta-deconstruction of the themes, rather than a continuing re-affirmation of them, but they are still there and are still needed to be understood.
Well to me deconstructing and understanding are two very different things. IMO TLJ deconstructs the themes of the previous films not to provide understanding, but to devalue them. It’s thesis is not just that these themes are far less relevant going forward, but weren’t all that important in the first place, punctuated by Yoda’s page turner remark. The fact that the legends of old are used (or abused depending on your point of view) to transmit this message is also in of itself a clear attempt at devaluation, since evdn they are made to adhere to the new order.
I think it’s disingenuous to say TLJ is an average blockbuster or that anything it has to say is on that level of Transformers, or Geostorm, or Avengers. If anything, it’s a little too heady for its own good. I definitely think it has pacing and tonal issues, as well as one too many plot threads that clearly have muddled what it was trying to say in the end, but its intentions and fundamental ideas have more depth than just “insert SW brand here.” It can’t be that, as well as trying to burn down Star Wars traditions, at the same time. It’s trying to be so much more, and whether or not it succeeds is just a matter of opinion.
And while something can be said about how it uses an evil Empire and plucky rebellion, as well as TIEs, X-Wings, and lightsabers, that’s all superficial when what informs and drives those things are clearly different enough to not be “Star Wars” to many people thematically.
Yes, but the whole point is, that the general audience doesn’t care about the themes that drove Star Wars in the past. In my view the current owners of the franchise feel Star Wars’ themes and connections to the past is a stumbling block for the general audience to connect with the material.
Ever try to read some of those Old Testament books? Also real page Turners. Yoda’s comment was on the dryness of the texts that Rey had already taken.
The Luke we have in TLJ is a classic archetype. An old warrior who doesn’t want to help the hero. The fallen hero. Based on the previously seen character traits, his present mental state makes perfect sense. The events given are in character as is the reaction to those events. You can even see a glimmer of hope in his action - seeking out the first Jedi lore. Luke was not as grown up as some think in ROTJ. And he’d had so little training compared to the Republic Era Jedi. And he needed it because he didn’t gave the right mental outlook. In TLJ, Yoda even reminds him of one of his old warnings/teachings. And when Rey finds him, he us not connected to the force. He doesn’t know Han is dead, so when Rey fights him, she isn’t fighting a Jedi Master at o e with the force, she is fighting a man cut off from the force while she daws on it. Of course she bested him. The clues are all in the movies. Watch 4, 5, 6, and 7 again and see if I am not right. Then watch TLJ again and see if things don’t make more sense.
In real life there are two ways to acquire skills. First you find a teacher study work hard and grow your skills. The second way which is not uncommon, is that life gives you lessons and teaches you and forges your skills. In Star Wars the typical Jedi fashion is to find a teacher and learn and study. This is the root Luke takes. And then the quality of teaching is dependent on the quality of your teacher. We all know that Kenobi feels he was a bad teacher which is why Anakin fell. But in The Force Awakens we were introduced to Ray who’d grown up on the desert planet of Jakku. It was a hard life and she learned many lessons from it and gained many skills. This is a contrast to where we find Luke on Tatooine at his uncle’s Farm. He doesn’t appear to have learned many lessons and is woefully unprepared to be a Jedi. So in the course of the movies he has to be retrained. As Yoda said he has to unlearn what he has learned. This means the lessons he grew up with or the opposite of what he needed. That means the skills he learned in life or not what he needed to be a Jedi. But Rey on the other hand did learn the lessons she needed to become a Jedi from her life on Jakku. So the difference in training between the two goes back to the difference and backgrounds and the different skills that they acquired growing up and living their lives. Yoda had to correct things that Luke had wrong and consequently he could lift the X-Wing out of the swamp. He could barely lift stones. But Ray has no such doubts no such bad training. Instead she grew up with the right skills to tap into the force. I don’t know how you find her story inconsistent with the previous movies. It is there in the original trilogy. Luke had to be retrained. Ever tried to do that? That is 10 times harder than learning it in the first place.
And as I posted before, Ray does not pick up Force powers out of the blue. Everything she does she learns from Kylo Ren. She was already a skilled warrior with a staff when we meet her. She’s able to pick up a lightsaber and hold her own before kylo gives her the small lesson to tap into the force and a moment to do it. Andrea’s able to defeat him because of that moment Kylo Ren is not his full potential. Then in the Last Jedi when they face the praetorian guards you see the power difference between the two. Rey struggles to fight one on one but Kylo is fighting two or three at the same time and does much better. There’s a clear skill difference between the two and Kylo comes out on top.
I’ve only seen the movie twice so far but I have picked up on quite a few things. First off, Rey’s portrayal exactly matches her portrayal in The Force Awakens so any complaints about that have to be leveled at Abrams. I find that all the characters are very consistent with how Abrams treated them. For me Leia was the big Improvement by becoming a much stronger leader than we saw before. And given the backstory of Luke from The Force Awakens the Luke we are presented in this movie is right on target. Abrams made several critical mistakes and his movie by using his typical storytelling I’m leaving huge holes for someone else to fill. I think some of the difference in the way people take this movie is whether or not then like to Abrams did and wanted to see it answered, or didn’t like what he did and didn’t mind that it got thrown out the window. I don’t think Abrams is a good storyteller so I really didn’t care that all these things that he’s so carefully set up or thrown out. And really it was more the fans that hyped Rey’s parentage then the movie did. Her parents were left a mystery but Abraham said himself that her parents were not in the movie. So she was never going to be a Skywalker. And Kenobi was in the movie so she was never going to be a Kenobi. He really set it up that she was a nobody and just didn’t reveal that fact. And he’s the one who failed to reveal who Snoke was. Why was that even left a mystery? He’s the one who didn’t answer that question. He’s a bad Storyteller you don’t leave those questions to him to another Storyteller to answer, you answer them yourself. Was there any reason for Snoke to be a big mystery? No none. So the expectations that people have that weren’t met it’s Abrams fault. And now Abrams gets to come back and deal with the story is and come up with an ending. Something he sucks at. The only hope I see you for the next installment is a glimmer of hope that Lucas head outlined what the first side of the story was supposed to be and that Abrams follows it and has an ending.
To have two arguments that are going on are Abraham’s fault. If Rey is inconsistent with the original trilogy it’s his fault. If we don’t like where we find Luke in the story, it’s his fault. Well that one’s actually Lucas’s fault according to what I’m reading. Lucas said he was going to be an exile, Abrams went with that and establish the destruction of the Jedi Order and the fall of Ben Solo to Kylo Ren. So all almost all these arguments go back to the stupid things that Abraham’s did and we’re not paying the price because they were stupid. But everyone’s now blaming Rian Johnson because he’s trying to recover a good story from the junk that Abrams left behind. I found his slow chase to be much more interesting than the stupid Starkiller base. I found what he did to be much more intriguing I liked where he went with the characters and I like how he subverted what Abrams had started and did something that I felt was far more in keeping with the characters. So the quality of Rian Johnson story lies in he was true to the characters he was given. You may disagree about Luke and that’s fine, but I think he went in a great direction I felt like the Luke I saw was a direct offshoot of the Luke I grew up with. This whole Rey/Mary Sue argument really belongs in The Force Awakens thread because that’s where it started.
So, a couple of things about Rey. One, TLJ just continues the way her character started in TFA. If you watch both closely, you will find that everything she does she picks up from Kylo Ren. Everything she does, he does around her first. And as for her raw power, we got a very good answer for that from Snoke. When Kylo brought Rey before him he said that he’d told Kylo that as he grew stronger his opposite in the light would rise, but Snoke thought it would be Skywalker. So we have a third generation Skywalker who has turned to darkness and to balance that out, his equal in the light has appeared. That is the answer to why things seem to come so easy for her. But while the force seems to come easy for her, she needs a mentor to guide her. Han is dead. Luke refused. Her parents were drunks and are dead. Rey is completely different from Luke. Unlike him who was pretty whiny to start out with, she doesn’t complain much and her life on Jakku taught her the disciple that Yoda tried to teach Luke. But when you look at the duration of Luke’s training, he was with Ben for a few hours in hyperspace. Three years later he could pull a light saber to him and hit targets with incredible accuracy. After he trains with Yoda, we do not have proof that he can lift an X-wing yet, but he flies off with his training incomplete to helps his friends and gets his hand cut off. A year later, with no additional training, he frees Han, turns himself over to the Empire, faces Vader, taps into the raw power of the force (seemingly the dark side from how he was goaded into an emotional response by Vader) and defeats Vader - with no additional formal training than he had the last time they faced.
So, no, the Star Wars universe does not demand formal training to use the force. Anakin could pod-race at 9 using skills normally found in trained Jedi. It was raw talent. Luke always doubted and he had trouble learning. Rey had the discipline of a hard life and the guidance of Kylo Ren (remember that nice lesson he gave her during their lightsaber duel on Starkiller Base?). So TLJ is not doing anything different with Rey than Abrams did. Her journey remains the same. Huge raw power and no guidance and she is on a quest for guidance. And the explanation for her power was provided. And her parentage is not very different from Anakin’s. His mother was a slave and his father a mystery (or the force itself). Rey was sold by her parents for drinking money and they died in the Jakku desert. She is the force’s answer to Kylo Ren. The question is what is their purpose, she and Kylo. Their stories are entwined and both have a struggle, just not with the force.
I think the need to tell vs. show comes down to what matters to the story. Which matters more, what came before or what is happening now? The dialog satisfied me. Luke saw a darkness that scared him and instinctively drew and ignited his lightsaber. The fear passed, reason returned, but the damaged had been done it was the final straw that broke Ben Solo and turned him into Kylo Ren. Leia and Han sending Ben off to what amounts to boarding school with his uncle didn’t turn out well. The reasons for the past actions are not as important as how the characters react and develop in the current story. Luke is now a supporting role, not a starring role. How this relates to Rey and Kylo is the story at hand and we are given enough to justify the current state of affairs. Luke was always a bit petulant and his reaction to the events at his new Jedi temple are just an older version of the whiny farm boy who complained about not getting to go to Toche Station. Yes he has grown, but the trait remains, as it does with most people.
Rey has her own journey and that is what the story was focused on. She is trying to find her role and Luke did not help her at all, except for giving her access to the Jedi texts (which she stole… or scavanged?). Luke is now in the Ben Kenobi role.
I find it funny that we got so much more from Luke on how Kylo Ren fell than we got from Ben Kenobi back in 77. Have we asked the question of why Ben was in the Tatooine desert? He was a powerful Jedi Knight. What is he doing there? He tells us a great deal, but didn’t show us anything. And it turns out, as the story developed, that what he told Luke was a pack of lies. A carefully orchestrated story to get Luke involved and start his training. Why didn’t Ben fight to the death to try to defeat Vader and Palpatine. Luke is facing a much larger foe. Rather than 2 sith it is a whole band of dark knights and Snoke. The combination of scope of his failure plus the might of those massed against him and it makes sense. We don’t need more than what we were told.
The difference is that we grew to know and love the character of Luke in the OT before seeing him being this broken douchebag in TLJ. Add to this, that Obi-Wan is a far more sympathetic character in ANH than Luke is in TLJ.
The fact that so many people were turned off by Luke’s characterization to me is a good indication we needed more than we were told. I know, I did.
I think the question is why you were turned off. And from what you describe your image of Luke being, I think the movie had an answer for you. Luke is a man not a legend. He really answers the question of why he didn’t fight when Rey asks him to return. He’s not a Legend with a laser sword.
Part of the issue, for me at least, is I never envisioned Luke as a “Legend.” I don’t see Dre making that claim either. The few lines in that direction in the new films fell flat for me. The view I see being expressed, that I share, concerns Luke as the person in the OT.
Exactly! We witnessed Luke the person in the OT, and not some legend. Our expectations are based in how Luke grew as a character in the OT, and how that character reacted to setbacks, challenges, and disappointment.
The legend line in TLJ feels like a wesk excuse for explaining the lack of development of the transition in his character. It treats the viewer like idiots, as if we didn’t understand the character, but RJ does.
But clearly some of us are on the same page as RJ and got what he was doing and found it fit with the character. Even Mark Hamill did after seeing the completed film.
I think the need to tell vs. show comes down to what matters to the story. Which matters more, what came before or what is happening now? The dialog satisfied me. Luke saw a darkness that scared him and instinctively drew and ignited his lightsaber. The fear passed, reason returned, but the damaged had been done it was the final straw that broke Ben Solo and turned him into Kylo Ren. Leia and Han sending Ben off to what amounts to boarding school with his uncle didn’t turn out well. The reasons for the past actions are not as important as how the characters react and develop in the current story. Luke is now a supporting role, not a starring role. How this relates to Rey and Kylo is the story at hand and we are given enough to justify the current state of affairs. Luke was always a bit petulant and his reaction to the events at his new Jedi temple are just an older version of the whiny farm boy who complained about not getting to go to Toche Station. Yes he has grown, but the trait remains, as it does with most people.
Rey has her own journey and that is what the story was focused on. She is trying to find her role and Luke did not help her at all, except for giving her access to the Jedi texts (which she stole… or scavanged?). Luke is now in the Ben Kenobi role.
I find it funny that we got so much more from Luke on how Kylo Ren fell than we got from Ben Kenobi back in 77. Have we asked the question of why Ben was in the Tatooine desert? He was a powerful Jedi Knight. What is he doing there? He tells us a great deal, but didn’t show us anything. And it turns out, as the story developed, that what he told Luke was a pack of lies. A carefully orchestrated story to get Luke involved and start his training. Why didn’t Ben fight to the death to try to defeat Vader and Palpatine. Luke is facing a much larger foe. Rather than 2 sith it is a whole band of dark knights and Snoke. The combination of scope of his failure plus the might of those massed against him and it makes sense. We don’t need more than what we were told.
The difference is that we grew to know and love the character of Luke in the OT before seeing him being this broken douchebag in TLJ. Add to this, that Obi-Wan is a far more sympathetic character in ANH than Luke is in TLJ.
The fact that so many people were turned off by Luke’s characterization to me is a good indication we needed more than we were told. I know, I did.
I think the question is why you were turned off. And from what you describe your image of Luke being, I think the movie had an answer for you. Luke is a man not a legend. He really answers the question of why he didn’t fight when Rey asks him to return. He’s not a Legend with a laser sword.
Part of the issue, for me at least, is I never envisioned Luke as a “Legend.” I don’t see Dre making that claim either. The few lines in that direction in the new films fell flat for me. The view I see being expressed, that I share, concerns Luke as the person in the OT.
People often react bad to epic tragedies. That Luke reacted bad to what happened at the Jedi Temple he had founded is completely natural and the seeds of that reaction are in the OT. Just because he was acting all grown up and like a Jedi in ROTJ does not mean his petulant self was not still lurking underneath.
I think the need to tell vs. show comes down to what matters to the story. Which matters more, what came before or what is happening now? The dialog satisfied me. Luke saw a darkness that scared him and instinctively drew and ignited his lightsaber. The fear passed, reason returned, but the damaged had been done it was the final straw that broke Ben Solo and turned him into Kylo Ren. Leia and Han sending Ben off to what amounts to boarding school with his uncle didn’t turn out well. The reasons for the past actions are not as important as how the characters react and develop in the current story. Luke is now a supporting role, not a starring role. How this relates to Rey and Kylo is the story at hand and we are given enough to justify the current state of affairs. Luke was always a bit petulant and his reaction to the events at his new Jedi temple are just an older version of the whiny farm boy who complained about not getting to go to Toche Station. Yes he has grown, but the trait remains, as it does with most people.
Rey has her own journey and that is what the story was focused on. She is trying to find her role and Luke did not help her at all, except for giving her access to the Jedi texts (which she stole… or scavanged?). Luke is now in the Ben Kenobi role.
I find it funny that we got so much more from Luke on how Kylo Ren fell than we got from Ben Kenobi back in 77. Have we asked the question of why Ben was in the Tatooine desert? He was a powerful Jedi Knight. What is he doing there? He tells us a great deal, but didn’t show us anything. And it turns out, as the story developed, that what he told Luke was a pack of lies. A carefully orchestrated story to get Luke involved and start his training. Why didn’t Ben fight to the death to try to defeat Vader and Palpatine. Luke is facing a much larger foe. Rather than 2 sith it is a whole band of dark knights and Snoke. The combination of scope of his failure plus the might of those massed against him and it makes sense. We don’t need more than what we were told.
The difference is that we grew to know and love the character of Luke in the OT before seeing him being this broken douchebag in TLJ. Add to this, that Obi-Wan is a far more sympathetic character in ANH than Luke is in TLJ.
The fact that so many people were turned off by Luke’s characterization to me is a good indication we needed more than we were told. I know, I did.
I think the question is why you were turned off. And from what you describe your image of Luke being, I think the movie had an answer for you. Luke is a man not a legend. He really answers the question of why he didn’t fight when Rey asks him to return. He’s not a Legend with a laser sword.
I think the need to tell vs. show comes down to what matters to the story. Which matters more, what came before or what is happening now? The dialog satisfied me. Luke saw a darkness that scared him and instinctively drew and ignited his lightsaber. The fear passed, reason returned, but the damaged had been done it was the final straw that broke Ben Solo and turned him into Kylo Ren. Leia and Han sending Ben off to what amounts to boarding school with his uncle didn’t turn out well. The reasons for the past actions are not as important as how the characters react and develop in the current story. Luke is now a supporting role, not a starring role. How this relates to Rey and Kylo is the story at hand and we are given enough to justify the current state of affairs. Luke was always a bit petulant and his reaction to the events at his new Jedi temple are just an older version of the whiny farm boy who complained about not getting to go to Toche Station. Yes he has grown, but the trait remains, as it does with most people.
Rey has her own journey and that is what the story was focused on. She is trying to find her role and Luke did not help her at all, except for giving her access to the Jedi texts (which she stole… or scavanged?). Luke is now in the Ben Kenobi role.
I find it funny that we got so much more from Luke on how Kylo Ren fell than we got from Ben Kenobi back in 77. Have we asked the question of why Ben was in the Tatooine desert? He was a powerful Jedi Knight. What is he doing there? He tells us a great deal, but didn’t show us anything. And it turns out, as the story developed, that what he told Luke was a pack of lies. A carefully orchestrated story to get Luke involved and start his training. Why didn’t Ben fight to the death to try to defeat Vader and Palpatine. Luke is facing a much larger foe. Rather than 2 sith it is a whole band of dark knights and Snoke. The combination of scope of his failure plus the might of those massed against him and it makes sense. We don’t need more than what we were told.
You do make a good point.
I disagree.
What happened to Obi-Wan and Yoda:
- Jedi purge aided by Obi-Wan’s former apprentice now Darth Vader
- Galactic Empire takes over the galaxy
- Yoda and Obi-Wan face off against Sidious and Vader despite terrible odds
- Yoda fights Sidious to a stalemate and is forced to flee, as troops arrive
- Obi-Wan defeats Vader, leaving him for dead
- Obi-Wan and Yoda are now hunted by the Empire, branded traitors with the approval of the Senate, and are forced into hiding
- Obi-Wan and Yoda hide Luke and Leia
- It takes twenty years for the Rebel Alliance to become a significant threat to the Empire’s powerbase
- Leia asks Obi-Wan for help in their most desparate hour, Obi-Wan answers their call
What happened to Luke:
- Luke’s Jedi Academy is destroyed by his former apprentice partly caused by Luke’s unfortunate mistake
- New Republic controls most of the galaxy
- FO is growing in power, but at this point still a fringe government
- Despite the fact that there’s still plenty of opportunity to stop the FO with the help of the Resistance and the Republic fleet, Luke doesn’t even try, and goes into exile, leaving everything behind
- In Luke’s absence the FO grows in power to the point, that it is able to destroy the Republic capital and take over the galaxy
- Luke refuses to help even after his sister Leia through Rey informs him of their situation, and his best friend has been murdered
Except let’s look at what is going on in each instance. In the PT (or even the OT backstory prior to the PT), the Empire has taken over, the Jedi have been hunted down. Ben and Yoda are in hiding. Waiting for something. They have hope that something will change.
Luke has just had his entire new order of Jedi wiped out (either killed or turned to the dark side). We don’t really know how many, but it wasn’t a lot. The facility is wiped out and the leader is none other than his own nephew. He fears that if he trains anyone else, the same thing will happen again. And Snoke and the Knights of Ren make a force that he does not have the power to combat. He would not kill his father in ROTJ so I’m sure he would not kill his nephew.
So the situations are vastly different in terms of what is at stake personally. Also remember, that Ben and Yoda were fully trained Jedi masters. They had learned to put their emotions behind them. When did Luke learn that lesson. We see in ROTJ that he is still prone to letting his emotions take control. He uses that to defeat Vader. As Johnson writes the lines for Luke to speak, he is also addressing fans who have idolized Luke and made him into something that the movies don’t show. The movies never show him attaining true Jedi mastery of his emotions and feelings. And the events that led to his self imposed exile in the ST are ones that, given the character traits shown and mentioned in the OT, would lead him to do exactly what he did. Luke was never perfect, only very determined. He used the Jedi training he had been taught and it failed his padawans. The same way it failed Kenobi in training Anakin. Luke sees that failing but does not know how to correct it. I saw it quite clearly in the PT that Lucas was showing that it wasn’t Kenobi or Yoda who failed, but the Jedi teachings. We are back to that. The Old Republic Jedi order had a major flaw - they didn’t teach their padawan how to avoid the temptation of the dark side. They just said don’t start down that path. They had gotten to a point where they denied attachments because it might lead that way instead of teaching how to avoid and resist the temptation. It is like teaching abstinence instead contraception to avoid teen pregnancies. It doesn’t work. Both Ben Solo and Anakin needed teachings that the Jedi didn’t have and that Luke doesn’t have.
Luke had three choices after Kylo turned. He could go after Kylo Ren and defeat him and the other dark ones. He could build a new order of Jedi to combat them - but the conflict would come eventually and there was no certainty that the new students wouldn’t be cut down or turned like the previous batch. Or he could decide not to kill and go into hiding. Staying and helping Leia really wasn’t an option because Snoke was already there and he would be expected to train new Jedi. And that is what he now fears. Luke rightly sees the Jedi order as flawed. He has given up instead of finding a way to fix it. And if you go back and watch the original, what he did is exactly in keeping with his character traits as established in the OT.
Sorry this really makes no sense to me. Luke refuses to train more Jedi, because he might fail. In stead he allows Snoke to take Ben Solo and to create any number of dark Force users. So, rather than take a risk, which may lead to a victory for the good guys, he opts for certain doom by doing nothing.
If Luke does nothing, the galaxy will be plunged into a second darkness, as there’s nobody to stand in Snoke’s way. If Luke tries to stop Snoke and Kylo, he might prevail, and then retire the Jedi Order, or he might be killed resulting in the end of the Jedi. Doing nothing obvioysly is the worst choice. Luke would be stupid for not being able to deduce this.
This is absolutely not in keeping with Luke’s character, who went on a suicide mission to destroy the Death Star even without significant knowledge of the Force.
Really? Remember in TESB, “I can’t, its too big” of trying to lift his X-wing out of the swamp? And Luke didn’t lead a suicide mission on the death Star. He was one of 30 pilots. And Luke’s failure was huge. He failed Han and Leia, not just Ben and the other students. And with retreat after failure already in him, such a huge setback could easily bring that out again. It is very in keeping with is personality as the OT presented it, though not as the Expended Universe built him up or as many fans have come to see him. This movie really restored humanity to Luke.
Only if you deny Luke’s character development from the moment he failed to lift the X-wing. Discovering Darth Vader is his father, shattered everything Luke believed in. Yet, he overcame it, and ultimately became a Jedi, and redeemed his father.
Additionally the fact that he even for a moment thought about killing his nephew to the point that he activated his lightsaber, when his nephew had done nothing, but be tempted by the dark side, is just not credible. Luke refused to even fight is father, a man who was everything Luke feared his nephew might become and worse. The Luke of ROTJ would have attempted to redeem his nephew, not murder him in his sleep.
Who ignited and swung their saber first? Luke.
After Palpatine had goaded him, and his friends and allies were in real mortal danger. As I stated before ROTJ sets up Luke losing his composure over multiple scenes. TLJ gives us only a single short scene with a Force vision of something that might happen. It’s not the same thing. If TLJ had set up Kylo as being a real danger to Luke’s students, by hurting one of them, it might have worked for me. As it is now Luke’s terrified of a dream, when he kept his cool for a long time in the face of real danger before.
“Terrified of a dream” and not facing any real danger from it is just your interpretation and not supported by anything in the movie.
There’s nothing in the film, that suggest Ben Solo presented an immediate threat. Luke suggests Snoke had won Kylo’s heart, but he mentions only dark thoughts, and not a single incident of Ben using the dark side against the other students or himself. If anything the film suggests it was Luke himself who tipped the scale, and caused Ben to go beserk.
““I saw darkness. I’d sensed it building in him. I’d seen it in moments during his training. But then i looked inside. And it was beyond what i ever imagined ( then you hear lightsabers and screaming). Snoke had already turned his heart. He would bring destruction and pain and death and the end of everything that i loved because of what he would become. And in the briefest moment of pure instinct i thought i could stop it. It passed like a fleeting shadow. And i was left with shame. And with consequence. And the last thing i saw were the eyes of a frightened boy who’s master had failed him.””
You hear the use of lightsabers and lots of screaming as Luke is seeing the vision of the destruction Kylo would cause and Luke’s pained and terrified expression says it all. Everything you needed to know was in that scene, both visually and descriptively.
A single 30 second scene, which has Luke telling us about a bad vision is not a proper set up. Show not tell still remains the best technique. Having Luke tell us about growing darkness as we see Ben sleeping in his bed is not the way to go in my view. We should have witnessed Ben Solo’s growing darkness, as he threatens Luke’s students, such that we can see for ourselves the threat that Luke percieves. That’s the way it was effectively done in ROTJ, amd that’s the way it should have been done in TLJ.
Except in TLJ it is a back story, one that we see Kylo’s version of as well. It was done differently in ROTJ because it was the current moment, not a memory.
You do make a good point.
I disagree.
What happened to Obi-Wan and Yoda:
- Jedi purge aided by Obi-Wan’s former apprentice now Darth Vader
- Galactic Empire takes over the galaxy
- Yoda and Obi-Wan face off against Sidious and Vader despite terrible odds
- Yoda fights Sidious to a stalemate and is forced to flee, as troops arrive
- Obi-Wan defeats Vader, leaving him for dead
- Obi-Wan and Yoda are now hunted by the Empire, branded traitors with the approval of the Senate, and are forced into hiding
- Obi-Wan and Yoda hide Luke and Leia
- It takes twenty years for the Rebel Alliance to become a significant threat to the Empire’s powerbase
- Leia asks Obi-Wan for help in their most desparate hour, Obi-Wan answers their call
What happened to Luke:
- Luke’s Jedi Academy is destroyed by his former apprentice partly caused by Luke’s unfortunate mistake
- New Republic controls most of the galaxy
- FO is growing in power, but at this point still a fringe government
- Despite the fact that there’s still plenty of opportunity to stop the FO with the help of the Resistance and the Republic fleet, Luke doesn’t even try, and goes into exile, leaving everything behind
- In Luke’s absence the FO grows in power to the point, that it is able to destroy the Republic capital and take over the galaxy
- Luke refuses to help even after his sister Leia through Rey informs him of their situation, and his best friend has been murdered
Except let’s look at what is going on in each instance. In the PT (or even the OT backstory prior to the PT), the Empire has taken over, the Jedi have been hunted down. Ben and Yoda are in hiding. Waiting for something. They have hope that something will change.
Luke has just had his entire new order of Jedi wiped out (either killed or turned to the dark side). We don’t really know how many, but it wasn’t a lot. The facility is wiped out and the leader is none other than his own nephew. He fears that if he trains anyone else, the same thing will happen again. And Snoke and the Knights of Ren make a force that he does not have the power to combat. He would not kill his father in ROTJ so I’m sure he would not kill his nephew.
So the situations are vastly different in terms of what is at stake personally. Also remember, that Ben and Yoda were fully trained Jedi masters. They had learned to put their emotions behind them. When did Luke learn that lesson. We see in ROTJ that he is still prone to letting his emotions take control. He uses that to defeat Vader. As Johnson writes the lines for Luke to speak, he is also addressing fans who have idolized Luke and made him into something that the movies don’t show. The movies never show him attaining true Jedi mastery of his emotions and feelings. And the events that led to his self imposed exile in the ST are ones that, given the character traits shown and mentioned in the OT, would lead him to do exactly what he did. Luke was never perfect, only very determined. He used the Jedi training he had been taught and it failed his padawans. The same way it failed Kenobi in training Anakin. Luke sees that failing but does not know how to correct it. I saw it quite clearly in the PT that Lucas was showing that it wasn’t Kenobi or Yoda who failed, but the Jedi teachings. We are back to that. The Old Republic Jedi order had a major flaw - they didn’t teach their padawan how to avoid the temptation of the dark side. They just said don’t start down that path. They had gotten to a point where they denied attachments because it might lead that way instead of teaching how to avoid and resist the temptation. It is like teaching abstinence instead contraception to avoid teen pregnancies. It doesn’t work. Both Ben Solo and Anakin needed teachings that the Jedi didn’t have and that Luke doesn’t have.
Luke had three choices after Kylo turned. He could go after Kylo Ren and defeat him and the other dark ones. He could build a new order of Jedi to combat them - but the conflict would come eventually and there was no certainty that the new students wouldn’t be cut down or turned like the previous batch. Or he could decide not to kill and go into hiding. Staying and helping Leia really wasn’t an option because Snoke was already there and he would be expected to train new Jedi. And that is what he now fears. Luke rightly sees the Jedi order as flawed. He has given up instead of finding a way to fix it. And if you go back and watch the original, what he did is exactly in keeping with his character traits as established in the OT.
Sorry this really makes no sense to me. Luke refuses to train more Jedi, because he might fail. In stead he allows Snoke to take Ben Solo and to create any number of dark Force users. So, rather than take a risk, which may lead to a victory for the good guys, he opts for certain doom by doing nothing.
If Luke does nothing, the galaxy will be plunged into a second darkness, as there’s nobody to stand in Snoke’s way. If Luke tries to stop Snoke and Kylo, he might prevail, and then retire the Jedi Order, or he might be killed resulting in the end of the Jedi. Doing nothing obvioysly is the worst choice. Luke would be stupid for not being able to deduce this.
This is absolutely not in keeping with Luke’s character, who went on a suicide mission to destroy the Death Star even without significant knowledge of the Force.
Really? Remember in TESB, “I can’t, its too big” of trying to lift his X-wing out of the swamp? And Luke didn’t lead a suicide mission on the death Star. He was one of 30 pilots. And Luke’s failure was huge. He failed Han and Leia, not just Ben and the other students. And with retreat after failure already in him, such a huge setback could easily bring that out again. It is very in keeping with is personality as the OT presented it, though not as the Expended Universe built him up or as many fans have come to see him. This movie really restored humanity to Luke.
Only if you deny Luke’s character development from the moment he failed to lift the X-wing. Discovering Darth Vader is his father, shattered everything Luke believed in. Yet, he overcame it, and ultimately became a Jedi, and redeemed his father.
Additionally the fact that he even for a moment thought about killing his nephew to the point that he activated his lightsaber, when his nephew had done nothing, but be tempted by the dark side, is just not credible. Luke refused to even fight is father, a man who was everything Luke feared his nephew might become and worse. The Luke of ROTJ would have attempted to redeem his nephew, not murder him in his sleep.
Who ignited and swung their saber first? Luke.
After Palpatine had goaded him, and his friends and allies were in real mortal danger. As I stated before ROTJ sets up Luke losing his composure over multiple scenes. TLJ gives us only a single short scene with a Force vision of something that might happen. It’s not the same thing. If TLJ had set up Kylo as being a real danger to Luke’s students, by hurting one of them, it might have worked for me. As it is now Luke’s terrified of a dream, when he kept his cool for a long time in the face of real danger before.
“Terrified of a dream” and not facing any real danger from it is just your interpretation and not supported by anything in the movie.
There’s nothing in the film, that suggest Ben Solo presented an immediate threat. Luke suggests Snoke had won Kylo’s heart, but he mentions only dark thoughts, and not a single incident of Ben using the dark side against the other students or himself. If anything the film suggests it was Luke himself who tipped the scale, and caused Ben to go beserk.
““I saw darkness. I’d sensed it building in him. I’d seen it in moments during his training. But then i looked inside. And it was beyond what i ever imagined ( then you hear lightsabers and screaming). Snoke had already turned his heart. He would bring destruction and pain and death and the end of everything that i loved because of what he would become. And in the briefest moment of pure instinct i thought i could stop it. It passed like a fleeting shadow. And i was left with shame. And with consequence. And the last thing i saw were the eyes of a frightened boy who’s master had failed him.””
You hear the use of lightsabers and lots of screaming as Luke is seeing the vision of the destruction Kylo would cause and Luke’s pained and terrified expression says it all. Everything you needed to know was in that scene, both visually and descriptively.
And let’s not forget the conversation between Leia and Han in TFA about why Luke was training him in the first place. And also let’s not forget that Luke drew and ignited his saber, but never swung it. Had Ben not woken up, nothing would have happened. Instead that moment of weakness undid everything Luke had been working for. EVERYTHING.
We don’t even know what he saw. It could have been so bad it was clear there was no saving Ben. Maybe it was a likely future. And he had a moment of weakness, and then he came through it. If you don’t think he can have a one second lapse in judgement, then yes, you think he should be perfect.
The movie should have let us know then. It’s not enough to keep us guessing. If the film wants the the vast majority of viewers to accept Luke’s u-turn, it needs to make us understand what causes Luke to loose his composure like that.
And I think this says it best:
I think people are underestimating the guilt Luke must’ve felt when Kylo turned. Ben wasn’t just any student, Ben was his nephew, the son of his best friend and sister; and Luke failed him. Luke failed Ben in the worst way a Jedi master can fail. He also failed all of his other students, and they died because of his failure.
EDIT: On top of that, he probably figured that Leia and Han never wanted to see him again. Or, at least, he couldn’t bring himself to face them after what he’d done.
You do make a good point.
I disagree.
What happened to Obi-Wan and Yoda:
- Jedi purge aided by Obi-Wan’s former apprentice now Darth Vader
- Galactic Empire takes over the galaxy
- Yoda and Obi-Wan face off against Sidious and Vader despite terrible odds
- Yoda fights Sidious to a stalemate and is forced to flee, as troops arrive
- Obi-Wan defeats Vader, leaving him for dead
- Obi-Wan and Yoda are now hunted by the Empire, branded traitors with the approval of the Senate, and are forced into hiding
- Obi-Wan and Yoda hide Luke and Leia
- It takes twenty years for the Rebel Alliance to become a significant threat to the Empire’s powerbase
- Leia asks Obi-Wan for help in their most desparate hour, Obi-Wan answers their call
What happened to Luke:
- Luke’s Jedi Academy is destroyed by his former apprentice partly caused by Luke’s unfortunate mistake
- New Republic controls most of the galaxy
- FO is growing in power, but at this point still a fringe government
- Despite the fact that there’s still plenty of opportunity to stop the FO with the help of the Resistance and the Republic fleet, Luke doesn’t even try, and goes into exile, leaving everything behind
- In Luke’s absence the FO grows in power to the point, that it is able to destroy the Republic capital and take over the galaxy
- Luke refuses to help even after his sister Leia through Rey informs him of their situation, and his best friend has been murdered
Except let’s look at what is going on in each instance. In the PT (or even the OT backstory prior to the PT), the Empire has taken over, the Jedi have been hunted down. Ben and Yoda are in hiding. Waiting for something. They have hope that something will change.
Luke has just had his entire new order of Jedi wiped out (either killed or turned to the dark side). We don’t really know how many, but it wasn’t a lot. The facility is wiped out and the leader is none other than his own nephew. He fears that if he trains anyone else, the same thing will happen again. And Snoke and the Knights of Ren make a force that he does not have the power to combat. He would not kill his father in ROTJ so I’m sure he would not kill his nephew.
So the situations are vastly different in terms of what is at stake personally. Also remember, that Ben and Yoda were fully trained Jedi masters. They had learned to put their emotions behind them. When did Luke learn that lesson. We see in ROTJ that he is still prone to letting his emotions take control. He uses that to defeat Vader. As Johnson writes the lines for Luke to speak, he is also addressing fans who have idolized Luke and made him into something that the movies don’t show. The movies never show him attaining true Jedi mastery of his emotions and feelings. And the events that led to his self imposed exile in the ST are ones that, given the character traits shown and mentioned in the OT, would lead him to do exactly what he did. Luke was never perfect, only very determined. He used the Jedi training he had been taught and it failed his padawans. The same way it failed Kenobi in training Anakin. Luke sees that failing but does not know how to correct it. I saw it quite clearly in the PT that Lucas was showing that it wasn’t Kenobi or Yoda who failed, but the Jedi teachings. We are back to that. The Old Republic Jedi order had a major flaw - they didn’t teach their padawan how to avoid the temptation of the dark side. They just said don’t start down that path. They had gotten to a point where they denied attachments because it might lead that way instead of teaching how to avoid and resist the temptation. It is like teaching abstinence instead contraception to avoid teen pregnancies. It doesn’t work. Both Ben Solo and Anakin needed teachings that the Jedi didn’t have and that Luke doesn’t have.
Luke had three choices after Kylo turned. He could go after Kylo Ren and defeat him and the other dark ones. He could build a new order of Jedi to combat them - but the conflict would come eventually and there was no certainty that the new students wouldn’t be cut down or turned like the previous batch. Or he could decide not to kill and go into hiding. Staying and helping Leia really wasn’t an option because Snoke was already there and he would be expected to train new Jedi. And that is what he now fears. Luke rightly sees the Jedi order as flawed. He has given up instead of finding a way to fix it. And if you go back and watch the original, what he did is exactly in keeping with his character traits as established in the OT.
Sorry this really makes no sense to me. Luke refuses to train more Jedi, because he might fail. In stead he allows Snoke to take Ben Solo and to create any number of dark Force users. So, rather than take a risk, which may lead to a victory for the good guys, he opts for certain doom by doing nothing.
If Luke does nothing, the galaxy will be plunged into a second darkness, as there’s nobody to stand in Snoke’s way. If Luke tries to stop Snoke and Kylo, he might prevail, and then retire the Jedi Order, or he might be killed resulting in the end of the Jedi. Doing nothing obvioysly is the worst choice. Luke would be stupid for not being able to deduce this.
This is absolutely not in keeping with Luke’s character, who went on a suicide mission to destroy the Death Star even without significant knowledge of the Force.
Really? Remember in TESB, “I can’t, its too big” of trying to lift his X-wing out of the swamp? And Luke didn’t lead a suicide mission on the death Star. He was one of 30 pilots. And Luke’s failure was huge. He failed Han and Leia, not just Ben and the other students. And with retreat after failure already in him, such a huge setback could easily bring that out again. It is very in keeping with is personality as the OT presented it, though not as the Expended Universe built him up or as many fans have come to see him. This movie really restored humanity to Luke.
Only if you deny Luke’s character development from the moment he failed to lift the X-wing. Discovering Darth Vader is his father, shattered everything Luke believed in. Yet, he overcame it, and ultimately became a Jedi, and redeemed his father.
Additionally the fact that he even for a moment thought about killing his nephew to the point that he activated his lightsaber, when his nephew had done nothing, but be tempted by the dark side, is just not credible. Luke refused to even fight is father, a man who was everything Luke feared his nephew might become and worse. The Luke of ROTJ would have attempted to redeem his nephew, not murder him in his sleep.
Who ignited and swung their saber first? Luke.
After Palpatine had goaded him, and his friends and allies were in real mortal danger. As I stated before ROTJ sets up Luke losing his composure over multiple scenes. TLJ gives us only a single short scene with a Force vision of something that might happen. It’s not the same thing. If TLJ had set up Kylo as being a real danger to Luke’s students, by hurting one of them, it might have worked for me. As it is now Luke’s terrified of a dream, when he kept his cool for a long time in the face of real danger before.
So what you are saying is that because Palpatine threatened and goaded him that is a better reason to act rashly than seeing the depth of the darkness in Kylo Ren - a darkness that evidently bigger than what Luke felt in Vader. And in front of Palpatine and Vader he grabbed, ignighted, and swung his saber and the vision of darkness in Kylo only caused him to draw and ignite his lightsaber and not swing. I think you just proved a big difference in the two scenes.
You do make a good point.
I disagree.
What happened to Obi-Wan and Yoda:
- Jedi purge aided by Obi-Wan’s former apprentice now Darth Vader
- Galactic Empire takes over the galaxy
- Yoda and Obi-Wan face off against Sidious and Vader despite terrible odds
- Yoda fights Sidious to a stalemate and is forced to flee, as troops arrive
- Obi-Wan defeats Vader, leaving him for dead
- Obi-Wan and Yoda are now hunted by the Empire, branded traitors with the approval of the Senate, and are forced into hiding
- Obi-Wan and Yoda hide Luke and Leia
- It takes twenty years for the Rebel Alliance to become a significant threat to the Empire’s powerbase
- Leia asks Obi-Wan for help in their most desparate hour, Obi-Wan answers their call
What happened to Luke:
- Luke’s Jedi Academy is destroyed by his former apprentice partly caused by Luke’s unfortunate mistake
- New Republic controls most of the galaxy
- FO is growing in power, but at this point still a fringe government
- Despite the fact that there’s still plenty of opportunity to stop the FO with the help of the Resistance and the Republic fleet, Luke doesn’t even try, and goes into exile, leaving everything behind
- In Luke’s absence the FO grows in power to the point, that it is able to destroy the Republic capital and take over the galaxy
- Luke refuses to help even after his sister Leia through Rey informs him of their situation, and his best friend has been murdered
Except let’s look at what is going on in each instance. In the PT (or even the OT backstory prior to the PT), the Empire has taken over, the Jedi have been hunted down. Ben and Yoda are in hiding. Waiting for something. They have hope that something will change.
Luke has just had his entire new order of Jedi wiped out (either killed or turned to the dark side). We don’t really know how many, but it wasn’t a lot. The facility is wiped out and the leader is none other than his own nephew. He fears that if he trains anyone else, the same thing will happen again. And Snoke and the Knights of Ren make a force that he does not have the power to combat. He would not kill his father in ROTJ so I’m sure he would not kill his nephew.
So the situations are vastly different in terms of what is at stake personally. Also remember, that Ben and Yoda were fully trained Jedi masters. They had learned to put their emotions behind them. When did Luke learn that lesson. We see in ROTJ that he is still prone to letting his emotions take control. He uses that to defeat Vader. As Johnson writes the lines for Luke to speak, he is also addressing fans who have idolized Luke and made him into something that the movies don’t show. The movies never show him attaining true Jedi mastery of his emotions and feelings. And the events that led to his self imposed exile in the ST are ones that, given the character traits shown and mentioned in the OT, would lead him to do exactly what he did. Luke was never perfect, only very determined. He used the Jedi training he had been taught and it failed his padawans. The same way it failed Kenobi in training Anakin. Luke sees that failing but does not know how to correct it. I saw it quite clearly in the PT that Lucas was showing that it wasn’t Kenobi or Yoda who failed, but the Jedi teachings. We are back to that. The Old Republic Jedi order had a major flaw - they didn’t teach their padawan how to avoid the temptation of the dark side. They just said don’t start down that path. They had gotten to a point where they denied attachments because it might lead that way instead of teaching how to avoid and resist the temptation. It is like teaching abstinence instead contraception to avoid teen pregnancies. It doesn’t work. Both Ben Solo and Anakin needed teachings that the Jedi didn’t have and that Luke doesn’t have.
Luke had three choices after Kylo turned. He could go after Kylo Ren and defeat him and the other dark ones. He could build a new order of Jedi to combat them - but the conflict would come eventually and there was no certainty that the new students wouldn’t be cut down or turned like the previous batch. Or he could decide not to kill and go into hiding. Staying and helping Leia really wasn’t an option because Snoke was already there and he would be expected to train new Jedi. And that is what he now fears. Luke rightly sees the Jedi order as flawed. He has given up instead of finding a way to fix it. And if you go back and watch the original, what he did is exactly in keeping with his character traits as established in the OT.
Sorry this really makes no sense to me. Luke refuses to train more Jedi, because he might fail. In stead he allows Snoke to take Ben Solo and to create any number of dark Force users. So, rather than take a risk, which may lead to a victory for the good guys, he opts for certain doom by doing nothing.
If Luke does nothing, the galaxy will be plunged into a second darkness, as there’s nobody to stand in Snoke’s way. If Luke tries to stop Snoke and Kylo, he might prevail, and then retire the Jedi Order, or he might be killed resulting in the end of the Jedi. Doing nothing obvioysly is the worst choice. Luke would be stupid for not being able to deduce this.
This is absolutely not in keeping with Luke’s character, who went on a suicide mission to destroy the Death Star even without significant knowledge of the Force.
Really? Remember in TESB, “I can’t, its too big” of trying to lift his X-wing out of the swamp? And Luke didn’t lead a suicide mission on the death Star. He was one of 30 pilots. And Luke’s failure was huge. He failed Han and Leia, not just Ben and the other students. And with retreat after failure already in him, such a huge setback could easily bring that out again. It is very in keeping with is personality as the OT presented it, though not as the Expended Universe built him up or as many fans have come to see him. This movie really restored humanity to Luke.
Only if you deny Luke’s character development from the moment he failed to lift the X-wing. Discovering Darth Vader is his father, shattered everything Luke believed in. Yet, he overcame it, and ultimately became a Jedi, and redeemed his father.
Additionally the fact that he even for a moment thought about killing his nephew to the point that he activated his lightsaber, when his nephew had done nothing, but be tempted by the dark side, is just not credible. Luke refused to even fight is father, a man who was everything Luke feared his nephew might become and worse. The Luke of ROTJ would have attempted to redeem his nephew, not murder him in his sleep.
Who ignited and swung their saber first? Luke.
I never knew so many people thought Luke was perfect by the final scene of ROTJ and he’d be the exact same person 30-some years later.
We agree on this piont
You do make a good point.
I disagree.
What happened to Obi-Wan and Yoda:
- Jedi purge aided by Obi-Wan’s former apprentice now Darth Vader
- Galactic Empire takes over the galaxy
- Yoda and Obi-Wan face off against Sidious and Vader despite terrible odds
- Yoda fights Sidious to a stalemate and is forced to flee, as troops arrive
- Obi-Wan defeats Vader, leaving him for dead
- Obi-Wan and Yoda are now hunted by the Empire, branded traitors with the approval of the Senate, and are forced into hiding
- Obi-Wan and Yoda hide Luke and Leia
- It takes twenty years for the Rebel Alliance to become a significant threat to the Empire’s powerbase
- Leia asks Obi-Wan for help in their most desparate hour, Obi-Wan answers their call
What happened to Luke:
- Luke’s Jedi Academy is destroyed by his former apprentice partly caused by Luke’s unfortunate mistake
- New Republic controls most of the galaxy
- FO is growing in power, but at this point still a fringe government
- Despite the fact that there’s still plenty of opportunity to stop the FO with the help of the Resistance and the Republic fleet, Luke doesn’t even try, and goes into exile, leaving everything behind
- In Luke’s absence the FO grows in power to the point, that it is able to destroy the Republic capital and take over the galaxy
- Luke refuses to help even after his sister Leia through Rey informs him of their situation, and his best friend has been murdered
Except let’s look at what is going on in each instance. In the PT (or even the OT backstory prior to the PT), the Empire has taken over, the Jedi have been hunted down. Ben and Yoda are in hiding. Waiting for something. They have hope that something will change.
Luke has just had his entire new order of Jedi wiped out (either killed or turned to the dark side). We don’t really know how many, but it wasn’t a lot. The facility is wiped out and the leader is none other than his own nephew. He fears that if he trains anyone else, the same thing will happen again. And Snoke and the Knights of Ren make a force that he does not have the power to combat. He would not kill his father in ROTJ so I’m sure he would not kill his nephew.
So the situations are vastly different in terms of what is at stake personally. Also remember, that Ben and Yoda were fully trained Jedi masters. They had learned to put their emotions behind them. When did Luke learn that lesson. We see in ROTJ that he is still prone to letting his emotions take control. He uses that to defeat Vader. As Johnson writes the lines for Luke to speak, he is also addressing fans who have idolized Luke and made him into something that the movies don’t show. The movies never show him attaining true Jedi mastery of his emotions and feelings. And the events that led to his self imposed exile in the ST are ones that, given the character traits shown and mentioned in the OT, would lead him to do exactly what he did. Luke was never perfect, only very determined. He used the Jedi training he had been taught and it failed his padawans. The same way it failed Kenobi in training Anakin. Luke sees that failing but does not know how to correct it. I saw it quite clearly in the PT that Lucas was showing that it wasn’t Kenobi or Yoda who failed, but the Jedi teachings. We are back to that. The Old Republic Jedi order had a major flaw - they didn’t teach their padawan how to avoid the temptation of the dark side. They just said don’t start down that path. They had gotten to a point where they denied attachments because it might lead that way instead of teaching how to avoid and resist the temptation. It is like teaching abstinence instead contraception to avoid teen pregnancies. It doesn’t work. Both Ben Solo and Anakin needed teachings that the Jedi didn’t have and that Luke doesn’t have.
Luke had three choices after Kylo turned. He could go after Kylo Ren and defeat him and the other dark ones. He could build a new order of Jedi to combat them - but the conflict would come eventually and there was no certainty that the new students wouldn’t be cut down or turned like the previous batch. Or he could decide not to kill and go into hiding. Staying and helping Leia really wasn’t an option because Snoke was already there and he would be expected to train new Jedi. And that is what he now fears. Luke rightly sees the Jedi order as flawed. He has given up instead of finding a way to fix it. And if you go back and watch the original, what he did is exactly in keeping with his character traits as established in the OT.
Sorry this really makes no sense to me. Luke refuses to train more Jedi, because he might fail. In stead he allows Snoke to take Ben Solo and to create any number of dark Force users. So, rather than take a risk, which may lead to a victory for the good guys, he opts for certain doom by doing nothing.
If Luke does nothing, the galaxy will be plunged into a second darkness, as there’s nobody to stand in Snoke’s way. If Luke tries to stop Snoke and Kylo, he might prevail, and then retire the Jedi Order, or he might be killed resulting in the end of the Jedi. Doing nothing obvioysly is the worst choice. Luke would be stupid for not being able to deduce this.
This is absolutely not in keeping with Luke’s character, who went on a suicide mission to destroy the Death Star even without significant knowledge of the Force.
Really? Remember in TESB, “I can’t, its too big” of trying to lift his X-wing out of the swamp? And Luke didn’t lead a suicide mission on the death Star. He was one of 30 pilots. And Luke’s failure was huge. He failed Han and Leia, not just Ben and the other students. And with retreat after failure already in him, such a huge setback could easily bring that out again. It is very in keeping with is personality as the OT presented it, though not as the Expended Universe built him up or as many fans have come to see him. This movie really restored humanity to Luke.
This is the first time in my 28 years that I’ve even seen it suggested that Luke could’ve been doing anything other than choking the guards. I had no idea there was any disagreement at all about that.
This is the first time in the 34 years since the movie came out that I have heard he was force choking the guards. I must have watched ROTJ millions of times and never got that idea.
Yup. If you watch it carefully, Luke is doing exactly what Vader did. Except that Luke has different motives. Luke just uses it to harmlessly and temporarily disable them so he didn’t have to fight them. Vader used it to intimidate or kill.
You do make a good point.
I disagree.
What happened to Obi-Wan and Yoda:
- Jedi purge aided by Obi-Wan’s former apprentice now Darth Vader
- Galactic Empire takes over the galaxy
- Yoda and Obi-Wan face off against Sidious and Vader despite terrible odds
- Yoda fights Sidious to a stalemate and is forced to flee, as troops arrive
- Obi-Wan defeats Vader, leaving him for dead
- Obi-Wan and Yoda are now hunted by the Empire, branded traitors with the approval of the Senate, and are forced into hiding
- Obi-Wan and Yoda hide Luke and Leia
- It takes twenty years for the Rebel Alliance to become a significant threat to the Empire’s powerbase
- Leia asks Obi-Wan for help in their most desparate hour, Obi-Wan answers their call
What happened to Luke:
- Luke’s Jedi Academy is destroyed by his former apprentice partly caused by Luke’s unfortunate mistake
- New Republic controls most of the galaxy
- FO is growing in power, but at this point still a fringe government
- Despite the fact that there’s still plenty of opportunity to stop the FO with the help of the Resistance and the Republic fleet, Luke doesn’t even try, and goes into exile, leaving everything behind
- In Luke’s absence the FO grows in power to the point, that it is able to destroy the Republic capital and take over the galaxy
- Luke refuses to help even after his sister Leia through Rey informs him of their situation, and his best friend has been murdered
Except let’s look at what is going on in each instance. In the PT (or even the OT backstory prior to the PT), the Empire has taken over, the Jedi have been hunted down. Ben and Yoda are in hiding. Waiting for something. They have hope that something will change.
Luke has just had his entire new order of Jedi wiped out (either killed or turned to the dark side). We don’t really know how many, but it wasn’t a lot. The facility is wiped out and the leader is none other than his own nephew. He fears that if he trains anyone else, the same thing will happen again. And Snoke and the Knights of Ren make a force that he does not have the power to combat. He would not kill his father in ROTJ so I’m sure he would not kill his nephew.
So the situations are vastly different in terms of what is at stake personally. Also remember, that Ben and Yoda were fully trained Jedi masters. They had learned to put their emotions behind them. When did Luke learn that lesson. We see in ROTJ that he is still prone to letting his emotions take control. He uses that to defeat Vader. As Johnson writes the lines for Luke to speak, he is also addressing fans who have idolized Luke and made him into something that the movies don’t show. The movies never show him attaining true Jedi mastery of his emotions and feelings. And the events that led to his self imposed exile in the ST are ones that, given the character traits shown and mentioned in the OT, would lead him to do exactly what he did. Luke was never perfect, only very determined. He used the Jedi training he had been taught and it failed his padawans. The same way it failed Kenobi in training Anakin. Luke sees that failing but does not know how to correct it. I saw it quite clearly in the PT that Lucas was showing that it wasn’t Kenobi or Yoda who failed, but the Jedi teachings. We are back to that. The Old Republic Jedi order had a major flaw - they didn’t teach their padawan how to avoid the temptation of the dark side. They just said don’t start down that path. They had gotten to a point where they denied attachments because it might lead that way instead of teaching how to avoid and resist the temptation. It is like teaching abstinence instead contraception to avoid teen pregnancies. It doesn’t work. Both Ben Solo and Anakin needed teachings that the Jedi didn’t have and that Luke doesn’t have.
Luke had three choices after Kylo turned. He could go after Kylo Ren and defeat him and the other dark ones. He could build a new order of Jedi to combat them - but the conflict would come eventually and there was no certainty that the new students wouldn’t be cut down or turned like the previous batch. Or he could decide not to kill and go into hiding. Staying and helping Leia really wasn’t an option because Snoke was already there and he would be expected to train new Jedi. And that is what he now fears. Luke rightly sees the Jedi order as flawed. He has given up instead of finding a way to fix it. And if you go back and watch the original, what he did is exactly in keeping with his character traits as established in the OT.
Another criticism is the tonal problems. The prequels had the same problems with tone. Really not even considering the gravity of certain moments and jumping straight to buffoonery or bathroom jokes. There is a lot of that in TLJ and also talk about how bad the Jedi are.
Honestly this movie felt like an homage to the prequels and was even worse than them. TFA was at least much better.
The only reason jokes were a tonal problem in the PT was because they were aimed squarely at children, although they were not necessarily things children actually found funny. TLJ just makes normal jokes, and they’re funny jokes. PT jokes aren’t jokes, they’re Lucas’s approximation of jokes. So they’re not funny and don’t fit in at all.
I disagree with this. Comedy and tone are different. Maybe they are sometimes related I guess. But comedy is more subjective. If you think something is funny who can argue you with you? For me, I didn’t find almost anything in this movie funny and it didn’t feel like Star Wars humor either. I’ve seen a lot of people agree.
But tone is more objective. It’s not really about whether something is aimed at children. RLM had some great examples in their prequel criticism videos. I wonder if they will do the same on this movie. It really did feel like watching Attack of the Clones to me.
You misunderstand me a bit.
I think it is possible to achieve a proper tonal balance between drama and comedy. I believe TLJ achieves that balance (not just because the simple fact that the jokes are funny, but because they are well integrated and feel true to the characters and situations, which makes them funny). I do not think the PT does, because I believe the humor is forced in, almost an afterthought, designed to get kids to laugh. That is why the tonal mishaps take place.
I also think the humor in TLJ functions as a sort of release valve for audience tension. Without the jokes the film would be exhausting.
Exactly.
And don’t forget, a lot of those one liners were written by Carrie Fisher. And it isn’t as if the OT doesn’t have any comedy in it so I really don’t know what the complaint is.
Another criticism is the tonal problems. The prequels had the same problems with tone. Really not even considering the gravity of certain moments and jumping straight to buffoonery or bathroom jokes. There is a lot of that in TLJ and also talk about how bad the Jedi are.
Honestly this movie felt like an homage to the prequels and was even worse than them. TFA was at least much better.
Just going to go ahead and share something i have been thinking lately. Have you noticed how with every new SW movie there seems to be a small contingent who say “At least X was better” where X is the film out right before this one? its a sliding window. First, TFA was bad, at least the prequels were better. Rogue One was bad, at least TFA was better. TLJ was bad, at least TFA/RO was better…
so there are at least some people who just struggle taking in new films… doesn’t make the new film bad.
This is one thing I feel is going on. The new and different scares some. And I know there are a few people who didn’t like the direction TESB went and only accept the first movie. It also ties in to expectations. It is all fine and dandy to theorize what will happen in the next film, but ultimately we fans have no control over that. To expect them to do anything in the next film is setting the next film up for failure. TFA had fewer detractors because it didn’t do anything. It introduced new characters and set the stage without taking a single risk. TLJ takes risks and tells a story that sets up the end of the saga. There is no telling if Abrams will follow that ending (which was already written but due to Carrie Fisher’s death, has to be redone). Like TESB, this is a middle chapter. Like TESB, a lot of fans don’t like it (go read the fan reaction to TESB from 1980 - it has grown on many, including myself). Now TESB is considered the best of the saga. So initial reactions are not a good indicator of the quality of a film. Its saying power and how it furthers the story is what is the real indicator of quality.
I see Rey’s fast progress as playing catchup to Kylo. Everything she has learned as been from him. He tries to read her mind and then she reads his. He tries to use the force on her and then she uses it on the Stormtrooper. He is skilled with the lightsaber and she uses the same trick. Kylo is her teacher, not Luke. That is why she has what she needs already. Plus the patience. Her conflict is with Kylo, her equal in nearly every area. Yes, she is picking up these incredible powers, but she is facing an adversary even more powerful and practiced. I see that as her character’s main conflict. Luke’s was learning the patience to do things right. Rey has the patience and she just needs the skills and some clue how to deal with Kylo and save the galaxy. I don’t think things are as easy for her as some are making it out. The force powers are not her challenge. Kylo is her challenge. No one else who has faced him has had any impact on him. So I don’t find her fast learning of force powers to make her a Mary Sue because they only put her on equal footing with her adversary. He character journey is defined in other ways, not by the force powers she is learning. When you look at her scenes with Kylo, she has not had it easy at all. Things have not gone her way. She doesn’t have it too easy by any means.
Well, I loved TLJ. I have no complaints with it. I thought the stories were woven together nicely. I thought they went in the right direction and I can see where the next episode can wrap things up for the entire saga.
A lot of people complain that Rey just seems to magically pick up things. She doesn’t. She copies someone else every time. Every power she uses was first used on her. Mostly by Kylo. Who cares who her parents were. As far as I know, the Skywalkers are the only family where the force runs strong (in 3 generations). Otherwise the Jedi were monks and didn’t have children to pass on their genes. Johnson gave us the answer in what Snoke said. He knew that when he found Kylo and he was so easy to turn that the force would bring his opposite. That is Rey - someone who won’t turn. They are being setup as the yin and yang of the force. I think for the force to be in balance, the dark and light sides need to be in balance. Lucas already went this way in the prequels by laying out the total destruction of the Jedi and Sith.
And yes, TLJ is very much part of the PT canon. I expected that. I’m glad of that. I recognize that Lucas didn’t do his best work in those films, but I love the story he was trying to tell. It changes the nature of the good vs. evil in the OT to one of dark and light, but no necessarily good and evil. And even in ROTJ you get a hint of that when Luke draws on his anger to defeat Vader. But Luke did not turn as Vader and Palpatine hoped. Now you have Rey and Kylo, neither one of them seeming to be turnable to the other side. Each tapping in to half the force. I think the ST is going to be about merging the two to create something that keeps the balance and teaches students of the new way to avoid tipping one way or the other. It is a very Buddhist message of the middle way. I love it. I hope that is where Abrams goes with it. I think it could be a very powerful ending. I just don’t trust what he is going to do.
With the news that Luke’s self-imposed exile was Lucas’s idea (concept art from before the sale to Disney) I have hope that the story they are telling is Lucas’s core story for the ST. He has good ideas. The PT, when you dump all his silliness, is a good story. I’m hoping they kept Lucas’s core idea (the force side of things and the balance) and just changed the characters and their journeys.
And I find the complaints about what Leia did with the force to be very silly. What is the first force ability we saw both Luke and Rey use? Pulling a lightsaber to them. What did Leia do? she reached out and pulled the ship to her (and in terms of physics, it was she who moved instead of the ship). She reached out for the door and went toward it. Yeah, it looks like she is flying, but if you look at the pose and gesture, she is just doing exactly what Luke and Rey did.
I am as pleased with TLJ and I was disappointed in TFA. I need to watch it a lot more to properly rate it, but I consider it the best Star Wars movie since the OT. On par with Rogue One, but better. It gave me the Star Wars I was after. I loved where the characters went, what they did, how the story flowed. If they can follow it will a good Ep IX, I’ll forgive Abrams for his flawed first outing. Oh, and remember what Abrams said about Rey’s parents, they weren’t in TFA. She was never going to be a Skywalker of any sort. We saw all the living Skywalkers in that film.
Then there’s the fact that this entire arc aims to push Rey to the foreground as the next last Jedi, Luke 2.0, new and improved. However, does she deserve this mantle? Luke goes through hell and back before becoming a Jedi, making mistakes, suffering loss of life and limbs. Rey get’s her powers handed to her, and seemingly is never tempted. She’s almost a perfect heroine. The secret of her parents are supposed to be a representation of her personal demons, but it’s ultimately inconsequential. She cries about it, and the next scene she’s back being the hero. When Luke discovered the secret about his father, there was anguish and reflection, setting up the redemption arc of the next film.
Sorry to jump back a couple of pages, but if you remember Empire, Luke had this huge immediate reaction. The rest of his reaction had nothing to do with who his father is, but that Ben didn’t tell him. His litany is “Ben, why didn’t you tell me.” Before we ever see him really deal with it, he is back to his old self by the end of the movie and back to being a hero in the opening act of Jedi. Yes, he asks Yoda to confirm it, but Luke instantly accepted who his father was and carried on. So I’m failing to see how Rey crying about it and back to being a hero in the next scene is much different.
For one ROTJ takes place about a year after TESB, so it’s a difference between several minutes and a year. Secondly, the Luke we meet in ROTJ is not exactly the same character. He’s more mature, and serious, perhaps even a little darker (applying a Force choke early on). Either way, his discovery of his father’s identity leads directly into him questioning his masters, the shock of the confirmation, and the Vader redemption arc. Rey’s discovery as depicted really can’t go anywhere, and she’s already forgotten about it minutes later in the same film, and it is thus totally inconsequential. So, it’s definitely not the same situation.
One of the things that I didn’t point out was that it has been SW fans who have been dying to know who Rey’s parents are. Rey just wanted them to come back. Her revelation isn’t quite the same as Luke’s in TESB (and I was talking about how nomral he acted in the ending scene as he gets his new hand more than how he acted a year later in ROTJ). Rey learns her parents are nobody special (not a real surprise for her) whereas Luke learns the most evil creature in the Galaxy is his father. Quite a difference.
Then there’s the fact that this entire arc aims to push Rey to the foreground as the next last Jedi, Luke 2.0, new and improved. However, does she deserve this mantle? Luke goes through hell and back before becoming a Jedi, making mistakes, suffering loss of life and limbs. Rey get’s her powers handed to her, and seemingly is never tempted. She’s almost a perfect heroine. The secret of her parents are supposed to be a representation of her personal demons, but it’s ultimately inconsequential. She cries about it, and the next scene she’s back being the hero. When Luke discovered the secret about his father, there was anguish and reflection, setting up the redemption arc of the next film.
Sorry to jump back a couple of pages, but if you remember Empire, Luke had this huge immediate reaction. The rest of his reaction had nothing to do with who his father is, but that Ben didn’t tell him. His litany is “Ben, why didn’t you tell me.” Before we ever see him really deal with it, he is back to his old self by the end of the movie and back to being a hero in the opening act of Jedi. Yes, he asks Yoda to confirm it, but Luke instantly accepted who his father was and carried on. So I’m failing to see how Rey crying about it and back to being a hero in the next scene is much different.
Not anyone specifically, but in general a lot of the issue people have with sequels and prequels (not just Star Wars) comes from preconceived ideas. That isn’t how fiction works. Someone has to create the stories and they are not always going to go the direction you would take it. Building up ideas and comparing what one character did to what another character did ignores the big picture that life sometimes repeats itself and sometimes does the unexpected. Good stories do the unexpected. Star Wars was unexpected in 77. The PT were not what many fans were expecting. Yet many younger fans love them. This ST is going its own direction (The Force help us with Abrams doing IX) and hopefully it ends well. Some people really hate this movie, but a lot of people really love it.
Now this one looks great. The clouds and sky are dead on in the two frames that have them.
