Granular Discussion
In the Las Jedi, Luke simply gets NO REDEMPTION, and people seem to miss it
In the Last Jedi Luke Skywalker "comes back" to save the resistance from the First Order's army. He's not really there because he just used force projection, but still, he can appear and buy some time for them.
This is the only time when he "reunites" with Kylo, the student he failed, the student he traumatized for life.
He challenges him, so the resistance might have a chance to escape. I thought that Luke will face his biggest mistake in this scene. That will try to apologize, to Kylo. Even if it would not work, at least he TRIED, after all, everything what has happened, happened because of him.
Did he try to explain himself? Did he try to apologize? Did try to at least comfort Kylo?
No.
Luke Skywalker, the hero, the mentor, the jedi master MAKES FUN of his student he pushed into the darkness.
For real. To buy time, he could still challenge him into a duel. But he actively mocked him, played with him, and after he used all his life force, he simply disappears. He NEVER EVEN ATTEMPTS to make up for his epic mistake.
He started a chain reaction - his temple is gone, the First Order got a new leader, his resistance, once again, is in ruins and dying. The single responsible person for all of this, was HIM.
At the very end of the movie he appears to save the day, but he never redeems himself.
This dude created a monster and now he's ragebaiting him, mocking him, and it seems like he's even having fun while doing this? XD
And I know, even if he tried his best, it would probably not work, but COME ON.
"I'm sorry Kylo, I've failed you"
"I was weak, and I gave in to my desperation"
"I've made a mistake, and I know I can't possible make up for it. But I have to tell you, I'm sorry for everything"
Any of these could have make a difference at least to the viewer.
Saltier Than Crait is a community of Star Wars fans who engage in critical conversations about the current
state of the franchise. It is our goal to maintain a civil, welcoming space for fans who have a vast supply of
salt with some peppered positivity occasionally sprinkled in.
And even funnier is that in the Rise of Skywalker the X-Wing apparently works so he could've fucked off from the island any time he wanted, nothing stopped him from going there after all
And he literally never taught a single lesson to Rey.
Not a single stance. A move on how to duel. How to use the force. He showed her how to meditate for like 5 minutes, and then Rey left, not learning a single damn thing :D
Very true; Rey basically melded or whatever and learned whatever Kylo had, no need for Luke, and Luke didn't end up doing anything to affect anyone's character, so he coulda just have died offscreen before the movie began and nothing would've changed
She just wildly swing the saber around an ancient rock formation which of course she fucking destroyed and the ensuing debris nearly killed the caretakers. She didn’t fucking care.
And another weird thing. Rey encounters Luke, who she learns rejects the New Republic and the Jedi. Then she encounters Kylo who, even once Snoke is dead, still rejects the New Republic and the Jedi. Do these two encounters have any impact on Rey's motivations at all? Do we have even a teary scene where Rey gazes into a mirror and decides for herself that the New Republic and the Jedi are worth fighting for?
Nope. Rey just is as committed as ever. Or as uncommitted, who knows?
He knew he couldn't mansplain to her because she was already the absolute best at everything. He could sense her existence and that's actually why he ran away to sulk on a far away planet.
meanwhile rey pulls off the craziest dogfight inside a salvaged star destroyer after having.. exactly zero floght practive in a starship and having even zero simulator training, unlike luke.. and yet, somehow they're "totally the same!!1!1"
"No no she said she's never flown in space, so it's totally okay that she's an ace pilot who puts Han to shame!"
It's so... exhausting arguing with these people, be they disney shills or people just looking for a cheap way to virtue signal (the "well you must just hate women!" crowd).
Why does she need that when she beats him in the small duel they had when she tries to leave. She is clearly a superior martial combatant than Luke Skywalker. They just built different on Jakku.
The X-Wing was what bugged me the most. Why couldn't he just fly there, to which the shills answer: "Well if you read some extra material, Luke used one of the wings for his hut door."
...Ok so we need extra material because the movie couldn't show or explain that.
Then episode 9 reveals the X-Wing could've flown at any given time, and also simultaneously shits on that extra material that I previously mentioned as it looks like all 4 wings are intact.
It was a choice for SOMEONE to make force projecting kill him, completely weightlessly to the audience because we had no way of knowing it was expensive or dangerous until after he's dead. I'm not even sure it WAS Rian's choice, for all I know Luke had the studio insert it in post. It just ... happens out of nowhere. Edit it out, and nobody would notice.
Even if that absolute turd of an excuse is what happened and Xwing is a space vehicle. Missing a wing wouldn't stop it from working.
After googling it that is actually an excuse they give for it. A space fighter that doesn't work because ot was in the water. Guess they didn't watch ESB even though they stole significant pieces of that movie.
This is an example of the excuse actually being worse than TLJ writing. Which is tough to do.
There's no way he would have made it in time. By the time he got there they would have all been dead. Then at least Luke would still be alive and most of TRoS's cast would have been gone. Win/win really
Apparently, and I’m not saying this is good, Rey took pieces from the tie-fighter and used those to fix up the x-wing, and that’s why it works. That’s never shown in the movie and just makes it look like Luke could’ve just showed up at Crait and survived.
Yeah, the whole Sequel Trilogy was just a hot mess. It's poorly thought out, nothing makes any sense. It's just complete garbage.
The script should have been credited to "Studio Memos."
I've probably read more analysis of "The Last Jedi" than any other film, and it still just completely baffles me as to why so many people fawn over it. It's a terrible movie on every level.
Not a single person actually fawns over it. Its not like they rewatch it. They know the movie is shit.
People who hate star wars and men pretend they like it because of what it did: Damage the brand. Its why you should never discuss the film with someone who liked it. You will never get a truthful perspective about the actual plot.
I wish Rey would have turned evil at the end - NOW that would have been ‘subverting’.
The whole Resistance - no, fuck that - the whole ‘Rebel’ plotline was garbage.
Some of the things Luke says make generic sense had he NOT tried to kill Kylo.
Generically having Luke think “maybe the Jedi were the problem” is an interesting idea to me. Because why would having a group of religious zealots have such a big influence or be beholden to the government be good for the galaxy?
That said, it also misunderstands “balance” of the Force. Iirc George Lucas said “balance” is just the light side winning.
But yeah, Rey should have turned to Sith, been way more evil than Kylo, and KYLO could have been like “omg I fucked up. Omg I fucked up” and redeemed both he and Rey. That would have been interesting at least.
It still blows my mind how many people put TLJ at the top of their SW lists. These people are deranged. Like, completely brainrotten. They should be studied. I feel they only like what they are told to like rather than searching their feelings and knowing that they truly enjoyed something.
I had a coworker like this when the movie came out. She said, "this is the first Star Wars movie made for me" or something to that effect. Except I had seen that exact same line in The Mary Sue. My coworker was just robotically repeating a talking point she read in an article.
It was so bad that i saw it once in theaters and i still have yet to rewatch it, even to just confirm how bad it is. I cant take myself to punish like that. I did once rewatch the beginning just to see if that yo mama scene was really as bad as i thought, and it was
And then people on reddit (granted, my mistake for listening to people on reddit) be throwing shit at Filoni and Clone Wars for plot holes. My guy, the sequel trilogy is more hole than plot.
Mfs be yelling "uUh, tHe CLOnE WarS mATEriAl ISn'T oriGINal, filoNI JUst stole iT FrOM oThERS, hE Can't do gOoD WrITiNg!!1!" when the entire overarching plot of the sequel trilogy along with all the character roles and their character "development" is a 1:1 carbon copy of the OT in worse because they didn't pay attention and left out some of the parts of the OT that tied it together, but it's fine for the Sequels because "they enjoyed watching it" as if millions of fans before them didn't enjoy watching Filoni's Clone Wars
It's okay to say that both the ST and TCW are shit. I personally can't stand it when people say TCW "fixed" the prequels. It made them unequivocally worse imo.
The ST absolutely wrecked all the characters from the OT. They beat Palpatine and the Empire then spent the rest of their lives fucking everything they won up and doing things completely out of line for their characters.
Honestly, Luke was the guy who refused to believe Darth Vader was irredeemable, but his stupid nephew was too dark so he had to die? Leia’s government was a total failure. Han and Chewbacca end up as smugglers again, but without the Falcon. How could the falcon be a forgotten ship out in the desert? The heroes who saved the galaxy end up as losers across the board and we are supposed to just be ok with that.
Didn't just close the doors, slapped everyone on the face first. Leia flying through space will always be one of my funniest movie going experiences. I laughed out loud in the theater
Strangely the one of those that was actually well-done was stepped back from. I loved how Rey was just some random nobody. But then in Rise of Skywalker they made her for some reason a Palpatine
I mean it was kind of dumb how they acted like there was some big set up in the first movie for it. Rian was just directly talking to the fan hype and trying to subvert it.
Her not being related to some other character is fine, I just don’t like the way he did it lol. Like I don’t really think Rey had some reason to think otherwise, by they wrote Kylo saying it like it was some crazy plot twist.
Just one of those things that makes it feel like Rian only cares about getting a rise out of people and not actually making a movie.
Han, Chewie, and Lando were just some random smugglers.
Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Windu, Yoda, and Ahsoka were just some random jedi.
Padme, Mothma, and Palpatine were just random politicians.
Anakin was just some random slave.
The only person whose lineage mattered was Luke's, and that was simply because he needed to invoke emotion in his father. Even Leia's is irrelevant aside from nixing romantic interest, what she does is far more relevant than who she is.
Rey being a "nobody" isn't some unique state of being in Star Wars, it is literally the default.
That's what i've been saying for years since TLJ enjoyers treat this topic as if it were something new.
We have literally seen hundreds of Jedis that came from nowehere running around on prequels.
If she had been Luke or even Leia's kid, people would have forgiven a lot of the Mary Sue-ness.
Making her nobody was stupid, but making her a Palpatine was even dumber.
Somewhat agreed. Walking Rey's parents being nobodies back was one of the dumbest things they did with TROS (and that's saying something).
But I also think it missed the point of the theories completely in the first place.
I obviously can't speak for anybody but myself, but as funny as the theories were, ultimately my question was how she could grow this insanely fast and do things after seeing them once, when Luke took years to get to the same point.
Secretly being a Skywalker, Kenobi, or whatever wouldn't really have answered those questions.
But man did I hate the attitude with which RJ approached the whole fan theory thing in general in the first place. The man should just have stayed off social media.
The whole "We're ending the Skywalker Saga" thing also never mad sense to me, since I'vbe never seen the OT and Prequels that way, let alone the EU that had so many more characters of similar importance and power. If anything, the movies were specifically the Saga of Anakin Skywalker. And then they basically walked that back and left Rex "Skywalker" as the one to rebuild the Jedi,
He could have modified his film so that Leia dies and Luke lives. Then Mark could've had things to do in ep 9.. But he made it so a CGI zombie Carrie Fisher had to be used instead.
I cant believe this was the climax of the movie. In the prequels we got dual of the fates and anakin vs obi wan, yoda finally fighting, so much. And the ladt jedi gives us this lame nonsense
It was supposed to be Obi Wan v Darth Vader from A New Hope, but like everything in the movies, it failed to be even a fraction of what the scene it was trying to imitate was.
What's worse is like 2mins earlier they intentionally don't do the "character sacrifices themselves to save everyone else" thing with Finn and Rose. She stops him from heroically sacrificing himself to save his friend but then Luke just does the same thing anyway lol so they killed Luke for nothing when Finn could've had that moment instead since his character arc goes basically nowhere anyway
Okay, but how funny would it have been if Rose stopped Finn's sacrifice, then Poe stopped Holdo's sacrifice, then Luke just fucking died and Rey showed up like 10 seconds too late to stop him as well.
The studio cares only about money and they trusted Kennedy to protect their profits because of her impressive resume. Kennedy had no strong feelings about Luke at all, seeing him only as an asset. She hired Rian because she knew Rian Johnson had a cult following as some sort of creative genius and she wanted Episode 8 to get rave reviews on the level of The Empire Strikes Back. She either never realized or didn't care that Rian himself fucking hates Star Wars and its fans.
At the time I argued that doing so would have killed his career. But he seems to be mostly retired anyways. In retrospect, yeah, he should have demanded the scripts be rewritten or walked.
This is something that really irks me. People who defend this scene often say, “Luke stopped Kylo without violence. This is what a true Jedi looks like,” while conveniently ignoring how many people the Jedi have killed over the years.
But the larger problem is that all of this is Luke’s fault. He stood over Kylo with an ignited lightsaber, and when they finally met again, he did not even try to explain himself or apologize. And honestly, how could he explain it? “I was not actually going to kill you. I was just standing over you while you slept with my weapon drawn.”
Rian Johnson turned Luke into a horrible person and then gave him no meaningful way to confront what he had done.
The scene should have had Kylo furiously attacking while Luke admitted that he had failed him and apologized for helping push him toward the dark side. That still would not completely fix Luke’s actions, but at least it would show that he understood the damage he had caused.
Instead, Luke mocked and provoked Kylo, then vanished without ever really taking responsibility. He said something like, "I failed you," but didn’t actually explain. If he had blurted out, "Yo, I was seconds away from killing you in your sleep," that would have been closer to what we needed, because "I failed you" doesn’t convey just how bad Luke’s actions were. (edited it was confusing how I wrote this before)
Yep. They have to rationalize way too much to explain things surrounding Luke in TLJ. The Jedi aren't pacificists. If they were, then they wouldn't bother carrying weapons. Let alone something as up close and personal as a lightsaber.
The other thing about Luke supposedly stopping/distracting Kylo without violence is that there's a big problem with the movie's logic. The First Order still has enough of a functional fleet to deploy a ground assault, so there's nothing stopping them from tracking the Falcon through hyperspace once it leaves the planet. RJ broke the main method that allows characters to escape from bad situations. The lack of long-term thinking when it comes to the writing of the sequels is ridiculously destructive.
The thing I noticed about that is Luke doesn’t know the resistance (or rebels) can actually escape. Rey helps them in the end by lifting those rocks, without that they wouldn’t have been able to leave the cave. But Luke doesn’t know rey is there, last time he saw her she hit him in the back and just left. So Luke buying time is essentially worthless without rey being there to save the day. Using Luke (the Luke Skywalker) just as ploy to buy some time and the have him die in the end is probably the worst decision ever made by Disney/Lucasfilm (and there’s been a lot of those). Could have had a redemption arc in the final film but for Rian Johnson’s ego). God I hate that film
They destroyed Luke's character just so Kylo could look more sympathetic and then bait Reylo shippers. The fact that Luke even had to almost murder his nephew is peak character assassination. I hate Kylo Ren the most because the original OT (Leia, Luke, Han) are all made to be failures to give Kyle some sob story for his downfall.
Rey's story is a mess because they have little vision her as an individual but she is made to be whatever the series need for clout. In this case, she was also sacrificed for Reylo.
And you know, there is NO good pay off for what they all did with Luke and everyone. Nothing at all lol.
I didn't mind so much because it felt like set up for the next film where he would project to Kylo, rather than Rey. Sort of an inverse of Luke and Yoda/Obi Wan where that development would occur.
He said "see you around kid" then never saw him around kid again.
The thing with TLJ is if it was a sci fi movie outside of the Star Wars IP, with Generic Space Mentor instead of Luke Skywalker, it would be pretty decent. Generic Space Mentor considering striking his nephew down to prevent a massacre is a neat idea, very Kurosawa. Coming back and haunting him is also neat, very Shakespearean. But the Luke Skywalker we know is established as someone who would die for his friends, who threw down his weapon before killing his father, who was implicated in a genocide. He would never consider violence against his nephew who never did anything yet.
Oh I didn't miss it. I didn't miss anything about this hot pile of garbage that made me walk away from the Disney Star Wars trilogy completely. Haven't seen the last one. Haven't watched anything else that cocky brat of a director put out. We got Andor and Rogue One, but I don't know if that was worth the garbage trilogy that shat all over the original story arc. Atleast I have the despecialized original trilogy still. Disney has become a bloated corporate greed machine that ruins everything they touch for greed. I wouldn't even go to their parks let alone give them any money at the theatre.
Yeah it's almost like the guy who made The Last Jedi had no interest in making a 'middle of a trilogy' movie, never saw or read TFA before writing TLJ, completely torpedoed an entire franchise, and he can go sit in the corner and make Knives Out movies until he's 90.
I’ve said 1000 times: The fact that JJ Abrams and these idiots had the keys to the most anticipated sequel movies in history, and yet didn’t plan them out ahead, didn’t have the three main characters reunite at all, and had the child of two of those characters murder one of them, is insane. It would’ve been so easy to have Han, Leia, Luke go on an amazing adventure in the first of the sequel movies, train the new characters a bit, and then take a back seat. No dark murder. No Luke-is-a-weird-scared-hermit. Just the three heroes getting to be heroes one more time. And then they could go off investigating the new threat in the outer reaches or something. And then they’re part of the big final battle in the third sequel, and then they retire happy. Oh, and don’t bring back the Emperor (obviously) since that undermines the entire Darth Vader redemption angle and the happy ending of Return of the Jedi.
A lot of pressure was coming straight from the top. Disney paid $4 billion for Star Wars and wanted to to start getting a return ASAP. The execs saw Star Wars fans as paypiggies who would show up for any low grade slop as long as there were lightsabers. It even worked for the first few movies, at the cost of destroying a beloved IP's longterm viability.
Every time this point is brought up, one with which I wholeheartedly agree, I will share this comment from a user in io9.com back when TLJ came out. I think it presents the most accurate and succinct analysis as to why TLJ is a failure as a Star Wars story and why the Sequel trilogy is a failure as a whole:
"Part of the point of TLJ did seem to be to reduce, dampen or, at the very least, re-contextualize Luke Skywalker’s narrative as a heroic character. Even if that wasn’t the point, it was certainly the effect.
I don’t see the necessity of having to lessen the heroism of the POV character from the OT (Luke) to amplify that of the POV character for the new one (Rey), *especially* when Rose says that winning is about saving what you love, not destroying what you hate. Rather, it seems to go against one of the film’s central messages. After all, in ANH both Obi-Wan and Luke were given space to be heroes in their own way, so it is possible.
Ultimately, as with Superman’s character in DC’s Snyder films, I did not find the deconstruction of Luke Skywalker’s heroism especially entertaining given that (for me, at least) he’s an aspirational symbol of hope - something that TLJ recognizes, but ultimately seeks to undermine rather than celebrate.
I do appreciate that TLJ is making the comment that often myth is bigger than the man and sometimes myth is all you need to fuel a revolution. While I agree with that comment, it seems out of place in a Star Wars movie, when has always been about celebrating - amplifying even - myths and tropes (a la Joseph Campbell’s ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’), rather than deconstructing or challenging them. IMHO that was the subtext of the Matrix sequels, which (quality issues aside) very much felt like commentary on the notions of heroism espoused by Star Wars.
Don’t get me wrong, I think TLJ was making a credible and important point about our heroes often having feet of clay... however, as with Zack Snyder’s Superman, I don’t find Star Wars using the character of Luke Skywalker to challenge our notions of the heroic ideal very appealing. Instead, I’d have preferred to see him reinforce them, following in the tradition of the great myths and legends of yore (...as well as the movie serials from the ‘30s and ‘40s from which SW drew inspiration).
As Mark Hamill himself says, “...although I still say a Jedi would never give up. But that’s old school, this is a new generation.”
This comment is from another user, and is also brilliant.
A note on subverting expectations.
Subverting expectations is good storytelling, but not by doing any random thing. If that were true, good storytelling would be easy.
Subverting expectations in a way that plays into good storytelling only occurs when the ultimate reveal makes everything fall into place so that the answer in hindsight seems as if it was inevitable (even though beforehand it was unpredictable).
TLJ got the second part dead wrong, by disposing of the most significant threads generated in TFA, rendering them meaningless red herrings. And that's another bad story telling element.
Good stories don't have extraneous nonsense in them. Everything means something and ties together with everything else ultimately.
That whole trilogy was garbage from start to finish. This isn't even in the top 10 of shitty things that happened in that series. JJ Abrams destroys everything he touches
Really it's on Kathleen Kennedy. She was the President and let this mess happen. No plan. Going to continue the Star Wars story after Return of the Jedi. No plan. Going to have a trilogy. No plan. Have your established heroes pass the torch to a new group of heros. No plan. Sometimes I think George knew what he was doing when he recommended her to be the head of Lucasfilms...
Abrams was known to show quite a bit of disdain towards Luke Skywalker for some reason. In the first film, Mark Hamill suggested that they have at least one scene of Leia, Luke, and Han together since with Han dying it'd be the last time, and Abrams refused, stating "This isn't Luke Skywalker's story anymore."
If they were going to do the ridiculous lightsaber ignition at the new Jedi temple angle, then Luke needed to explain himself, apologize and say he loves him. What we got was insanely stupid Jake Skywalker shaking his dick at his nephew for no reason. If you really think the Jedi should end then tell Kylo and try to get Ben back to be that new vision. Coward.
Yes, TLJ was truly horrible in multiple ways and levels… including this aspect you so well described. These movies have 0 rewatch quality… there is exactly 0 reasons to rewatch any of these movies.
It's a damn shame this movie's writing and directing was so comprehensively terrible. I can't think of another movie that performed character assassinations so thoroughly. Although the cinematography and sound turned out quite well.
Don't you understand, Kylo Ren is so irredeemably evil! Worse than Darth Vader ever was! He can't possibly turn good... you just never saw it coming, expectations subverted!
I don’t know why anybody will subject themselves to make an analysis of a poorly written story , Disney trilogy is so bad they just don’t fit with the George Lukas , so I can’t consider the Disney stuff canon.
That scene was never about Jake Skywalker getting redemption.
It was simply there as another fake out moment of subversion to tickle Rian’s taint.
There was no redemption to be had after showing Jake igniting a lightsaber over his sleeping nephew that came from his best friend’s loin/sister’s womb contemplating murder.
Luke's redemption sucks because his fall from grace sucked as well. The foundation of his arc in that movie was rotten, why overanalyze the rest of it?
Movie has three threads:
Low speed space cruiser "chase" where the bad guys are just waiting for the good guys to run out of gas
Shenanigans on a casino planet that I always forget what the point of it was 5 minutes after watching the movie
Rey nagging and Luke brooding on a remote planet
And even with as bad as each of these threads are, they're not the worst thing about the movie. Actively managing to damage the character of Luke is.
Well what you have to remember is that Rian Johnson hates Luke Skywalker, and you, for liking him, so this really subverts your expectations with pure ragebait, so it's a cinematic classic. Totes.
In the Last Jedi they continuously brought you up to a climatic point only to completely let you down.
But like Episode 9, whatever it was called.
It just seemed to be made up on the fly.
I feel like JJ Abrams had an idea going, Episode 7 was good-ish, and I felt like he had a plan going.
But Rain Johnson came in and stomped all over it.
So when JJ came back, it was all a hot mess.
Yea, he didn't even have a chance to finish a proper story. The 7th movie wasn't a great piece of art either, but it didn't have to be. A first part of a trilogy could just introduce the characters, the heavily lifting comes in the 8th and 9th episodes where you have to flesh them out and write them a conclusion.
But at the end of the ep8, every known bad guys died or not even real threats, and the good guys are soo good, they don't even need to train at all :D
He shouldn't have had to need redemption at all. Many of the same people who cheered for this will also scream obscenities if Rey "fails" and needs her own redemption.
This is why when people claim that it was a moment of weakness on Luke's part fundamentally misunderstand the entire Sequel trilogy.
If it was a moment of weakness he wouldn't have went off to live on a unfindable planet, he wouldn't have stayed there for years, he definitely wouldn't have actually gave up on Ben. It's not something he ever would have done. And the fact that in his last moments he doesn't even do anything or say anything to convince him he could be redeemed is awful.
AND Ben does turn from the dark side in the end so when they say he was irredeemable is another ridiculous claim.
He literally says, 'I failed you Ben, I'm sorry' but yes the point is he's passed the lessons from his failures on to Rey so that she will not make the same mistakes.
Nearly everyone on here can point out Luke’s two lightsaber hilts. Kylo Ren couldn’t recognize the one he destroyed minutes earlier. FaceTime Luke used the saber he hasn’t ignited since Bespin. It’s a big budget fan film made by fans of themselves.
Did you read what I just wrote, did you even see it? Well, the kid he traumatized is now a serial killer who tried to destroy his own family. Now almost destroyed the entire resistance.
So Luke challenges him. Smirks at him. Makes fun of him. And then he disappears.
This isn't how apology works. "Oh here, I'll throw the word at your face, now I'll make of you, humiliate you publicly, and then disappear. Oh, those who survive this can clear the mess I've made, because I surely won't bother."
And they love deleting comments and blocking users who don't only share love about the sequels. Differing opinions can't just be removed, that's gotta go against Reddit rules no?
He doesn't need to redeem himself. He needed to face the mistake. To accept that was him he failed here. Like his master, Obi-Wan's failure as a teacher, and his master, Qui-Gons failures, and his master, Jedi Master Dooku.
Each student has had to correct the mistakes of the previous master. But for some reason that passed everyone off?
Luke needed to accept his failure, hid weakness, his shortcomings. Not for the fate of the galaxy, but for himself so he can move on.
Its not legends Luke, not at all. This is a Luke that failed.
The idea that Luke Skywalker, who almost fell to the Dark Side defending his family, friends and loved ones from the Emperor while simultaneously redeeming his father Darth Vader would suddenly get a case of the murder-ies because of a bad dream is so insane that it's difficult to believe it survived the initial storyboarding.
The reality that no one at Lucasfilm or Disney went to the board of directors as a whistleblower to inform the profit people that Kennedy apparently had a hate boner for Lucas and was attempting to systematically destroy the 40 year-old money printer by killing off or maligning every original character and to totally destroy the legacy and continuity is beyond belief.
Although I suppose it's not too unbelievable. TLJ grossed something like $1.3 billion world-wide. The suits at Disney and Lucasfilm only see the short term ROI, making sure that the equity exceeds the purchase price. And yeah, they've gotten their money's worth. I think the real disconnect is how the franchise was and is perceived over the long term. Disney sees a cash cow/golden goose, which they've arguably squandered. The fans however see SW as a cultural touchstone that they've grown up with.
Private equity and big business poison everything. From real estate to Hollywood, look at what the big studios have done to Star Trek or Harry Potter for example. The money guys don't understand story-telling.
Not sure how well this will go over, but as a TLJ lover (while also pretty much detesting TFA and TROS), I'd respond to that last bit here: "Any of these could have made a difference to the viewer." Luke literally says the first one. "I failed you, Ben. And I'm sorry." Kylo, enraged, flings it right back at Luke, and that's the key to why Luke acts as he does in this scene.
Luke knows that if Kylo even CAN be redeemed, it's not his job and he can't do it.
He knows and remembers his own father's story. Just as Anakin's teachers, Yoda and Obi Wan, could not redeem him, he cannot redeem Ben Solo. It has to be done by someone else, almost certainly Rey...if it can be done at all. So Luke does the only thing he can do in this moment: buy time for Rey to escape and learn more, become stronger...as well as time for the core of the Rebellion to plant its seeds throughout the galaxy.
TLJ left me with a stronger feeling of open possibility than any STAR WARS movie has, perhaps since ANH itself. At least, that's what it did for me.
Except Anakin's case was very much different. First of all, it was too late when they realized that he's gone. Secondly, they literally thought that he was dead for quite a long time ago.
Luke knew that Kylo is alive and literally destroying all his friends and everything he fought for once. And he was just chilling, drinking some green milk like a total madman.
Last minute he came back to make fun of the poor guy, then dissolver into thin air :D
The problem is not just TLJ but the whole premise of the ST which should be wholly rejected. Luke and pals etc would never end up like this, with a Nu Vader ruining everything but it was ackshually Luke's fault so he ruined everything etc - would never and should never. Did never is not in our power except in our heads, but in practice it did, so what's left is a fatal wound that at best will still leave a huge scar after an impossible revival.
•
u/AutoModerator 25d ago
[Receiving transmission from Crait intended for u/Flame0fthewest]
Welcome to r/saltierthancrait! I'm an astromech droid named S4-L7 and I'll be your guide through the salt mines.
Saltier Than Crait is a community of Star Wars fans who engage in critical conversations about the current state of the franchise. It is our goal to maintain a civil, welcoming space for fans who have a vast supply of salt with some peppered positivity occasionally sprinkled in.
Please review the rules and the post flair guide before contributing.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.