Joek3rr
Master Member
Actually that not what Mark Hamill disagreed with. He disagreed with the idea that Luke would disappear into self imposed exile. He also said that he was wrong, and that after seeing the film he was "firmly in Rian's camp."
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Post-release)
- Thread starter Vivek
- Start date
Joek3rr
Master Member
JJ didn't retcon Luke. That's absolute rubbish.
Upon seeing The Last Jedi, Lucas’ representative Connie Wethington told The Hollywood Reporter that Lucas described the film as “beautifully made.”
Wethington added, “And in speaking with director Rian Johnson after viewing was complimentary.”
HeartBlade
Sr Member
Wait what does that have to do with TROS? Just can't stop yourselves from going back to TLJ. That's okay I'll indulge because I love TLJ
It's because of Luke's experiences that cause him to react the way he does. He's knows visions of the future can come true. He's come face to face with the dark side incarnate. He knows the threat of dark side how it can twist a person. He's experienced it first hand, in himself and his father. And frankly to have Luke have any other kind of reaction then he did would very out of character. No ands, ifs, or buts.
View attachment 1346006
joker, the reason why I reference TLJ is because RoS has to be built based on the foundation TLJ has set, or the lack thereof.
let’s take the Ironman movies. Tony becomes adamant about building an earth defensive shield (aka Ultron) because he is fearful of an alien invasion that could wreck earth. Why does he think this? Because he experienced an alien invasion in Avengers 1 and knows the threat is real (he essentially died). He is also haunted by the fact that he essentially died and suffers sleepless nights and trauma, directly impacting his performance in Ironman 3 with a ton of armors but his latest venture being pretty shoddy because he has been operating on 2 hours of sleep for several weeks or so.
TLJ’s foundation should come from OT, that Luke held adamant faith in his father and was rewarded for it. That is the foundation and so to have a reaction that goes completely against that foundation is going to feel off unless it is adequately explained. It’s also why many directors argued RoS was screwed from the get go and JJ was fighting an impossible battle. The foundations set in TFA were destroyed in TLJ and did not lay any new ones down which is why TLJ is a terrible mid-movie in the trilogy, because it fails its purpose to build upon the story to its eventual climax. You can love it (I love the Room) but the writing sucked.
and this interpretation of Luke sounds more like Batman than Luke Skywalker (if there is even a 1% chance he is our enemy we have to take it as an absolute certainty).
this is honestly quintessential Luke, the culmination of his character development as of OT.
Face to face with Vader, an embodiment of evil, he tells him that he will not fight him and that he can sense the conflict of good and evil within him and believes the good can win out. It’s Anakin who sees and believes in the visions of the future and how the dark side is too powerful.
The final saber battle between Luke and Vader, although from a technical standpoint is pretty mediocre, is so powerful because it represents the struggle and final victory of Luke’s ideology. He is driven to anger and attacks Vader after he threatens Leia and sees how powerful the dark side is. Yet, he constantly refuses to turn or give up faith in his father and is rewarded with Anakin not only killing the Emperor (allegedly) but also reaffirming that Luke’s faith in him was right with his dying breath.
The Luke in that art book better describes Obi Wan. Luke never “experienced“ the dark side since he never fell to it. If giving in to anger is all it takes, Obi Wan, Yoda, Windu, and pretty much every other Jedi is also experienced in the dark side. Luke did see first hand that despite being twisted beyond recognition by the dark side, a person can still be redeemed.
Now if Luke did see Kylo was the embodiment of the dark side and was darkness incarnate and that he had to kill him because Ben would cause unspeakable evil, they needed to make Kylo much stronger. As the embodiment of darkness, he should be more powerful than Vader or Palpatine. Redemption is impossible because darkness is where his true self lies. The fact that the embodiment of the dark side loses to an untrained farmer girl 3 times with marry a scratch on her makes the dark side seem incredibly weak.
Joek3rr
Master Member
Your only taking into account one side of Luke. You talk about it, but you aren't really taking it into account. One side has this faith that his father can return. But this other side of Luke flies into a rage and tries to murder his father when his sister is threatened. This is what makes Luke, be Luke. This dynamic between his light side and dark side. Take away his dark side, and he's no longer the Luke we love.
Yes giving into anger and fear is all it takes. "But beware the dark side. Fear, anger, aggression. The dark side of the Force are they, easy they flow quick to join you in a fight! If once down the dark path you start, forever will it dominate your destiny." - Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back
"Consumed by the dark side the Jedi were." - Yoda, Rebels
Now back to Luke. I agree completely with your assessment of Luke in the OT and I argue that TLJ most definitely uses the OT as its foundation. As I said Luke has two sides(and do anyone). And this is why above all else, Luke hates himself. Look at his reaction when Rey says. "You didn't fail Kylo. Kylo failed you." Luke knows this untrue, and its killing him. He knows he failed Ben. Because he is this man who held out all hope that his father could return. And he knows that, while visions in the Force can come true, that the future is always in motion. Luke Skywalker is a very fallible person, he slipped up, and it cost everything.
I'll just leave this here 
HeartBlade
Sr Member
I think you arnt properly looking at Luke as a whole. You just see his two sides, not how he struggled with them and made the choices he made. He is prone to anger because he does go into a rage because his sister was threatened to be turned to the dark side. But you forget that throughout the fight, he never once attacked Vader who was trying to kill him because he can see the good in Vader and the conflict that has resulted, knowing that Vader can’t kill him. Luke repeatedly drops his guard, lowers his weapon and moves away rather than engage with Vader because he knows Vader would turn to the light. Luke was willing to die for that belief. He defended himself but didn’t attack until his loved ones were threatened. He throws away his saber and reaffirms his dedication to the light, forcing Palpatine to kill him. This was Palpatine’s loss. He tried to seduce Luke to the dark side and he failed.
And this is what makes Luke the hero at the end of the journey. Not the cooler suave Han or kickass Princess Leia. It was Luke, through the firm belief in the good in Vader that allowed him to conquer the dark lord.
So unless you are arguing that Kylo/Ben was pure darkness equivalent or worse than the Emperor and worse than Vader despite being a boy in training, I don’t see how RotJ Luke can strike down an unarmed sleeping kid. Given the fact that Kylo’s entire character arc is a wannabe Vader who can’t because he has too much light in him, it is inconceivable that Luke cannot have faith in Ben when he did in Anakin.
This isn’t just my opinion either. Many fans take issue with TLJ because this is Luke’s character in RotJ and it just doesn’t mesh with TLJ Luke.
RJ did respond to the first tweet, saying it was stupid because it treats Luke as a game character gaining some permanent level up rather than the mythic hero he is but this is where RJ is fundamentally wrong. A mythic hero is someone who is a hero that is mythic in nature because what they have accomplished is super-human. Luke accomplished the impossible (destroying the galactic empire and the dark side) through love and pacifism. That makes him a mythic hero.
Also it has already been heavily emphasized but Luke goes on a hero’s journey in Star wars, which ends with the hero coming back changed. Luke is no longer the wide-eyed impulsive brat he was at the start of ANH. He comes back from his adventure a wise knight, ready to train the new order and secure peace in the galaxy.
Now it is very possible for Luke to become a fallen hero or a broken ace but the causes usually stem from huge tragedies that were arguably out of the hero’s control. For Luke who seemed primed to restart the order with his new found lessons, the complete failure and destruction of his order despite his teachings might make sense. You can even twist the knife further by the cause being due to his own son or other family member, the lessons learnt in the OT utterly failing him.
Joek3rr
Master Member
I'm going to stop you right there. Because Luke does attack Vader. When Luke lashes out at the Emperor and tries to kill him, Vader stops Luke's blade. So Luke directs his rage at his father. Only when he is applauded by the Emperor for his actions does Luke come to his senses and stops attacking his father.
Here's the scene in the script...
-Luke's eyes are full of rage. Vader watches him.
EMPEROR (CONT’D)
Good. I can feel your anger. I am defenseless. Take your weapon! Strike me down with all your hatred, and your journey towards the dark side will be complete. Luke can resist no longer. The lightsaber flies into his hand. He ignites it in an instant and swings at the Emperor. Vader's lightsaber flashes into view, blocking Luke's blow before it can reach the Emperor. The two blades spark at contact. Luke turns to fight his father.
115 EXT FOREST 115 .......
........ 117 INT EMPEROR'S TOWER - THRONE ROOM 117
Luke and Vader are engaged in a man-to-man duel of lightsabers even more vicious then the battle on Bespin. But the young Jedi has grown stronger in the interim, and now the advantage shifts to him. Vader is forced back, losing his balance, and is knocked down the stairs. Luke stands at the top of the stairs, ready to attack.
EMPEROR (LAUGHING)
Good. Use your aggressive feelings, boy! Let the hate flow through you. Luke looks momentarily toward the Emperor, then back to Vader, and realizes he is using the dark side.
He steps back, turns off his lightsaber, and relaxes, driving the hate from his being.-
It's not that Luke has lost his faith in Ben, or given up on him. He hasn't. It's a reaction to the darkness, to the threat to his loved ones. It's that fear of loss coming the surface, and taking ahold of him, just for a moment. And in that moment Luke is twisted by the dark side and considers the quick and easy. But it just a moment of weakness, it passes like a fleeting shadow. Luke could never kill his nephew. If only Ben hadn't awoken, or Luke turned off his lightsaber sooner. And that is what drives Luke up a wall. All of this bad that happens, from just a brief moment of weakness. That is why he's become first and foremost disillusioned, with himself, Luke Skywalker.
Also just a reminder, people need to quit point the finger at Rian. This is from George Lucas. George wanted Luke to be struggling with the dark side. In George's version, Ben Solo is actually injured and scarred by Luke.
Except Luke never finishes the Hero's Journey, because of George's change of plans, Lukes story ends partway, there is no return for Luke. There's a Reddit post that goes into that, I'll have to find it later.
Here's what Rian had to say about mythic heroes.
"If you look at any classic hero's myth that is actually worth its salt, at the beginning of the hero's journey, like with King Arthur, he pulls the sword from the stone and he's ascendant — he has setbacks but he unites all the kingdoms. But then if you keep reading, when it deals with the hero's life as they get into middle-age and beyond, it always starts to get into darker places. And there's a reason for that: It's because myths are not made to sell action figures; myths are made to reflect the most difficult transitions we go through in life."
I have to ask. If you got everything you want from this movie as well as this new trilogy, what difference does it make to you that other people disagree with the choices made in them? No one is stopping you from endlessly enjoying them. Telling other fans they are wrong for not accepting these new additions does nothing but breed contempt because it essentially talks down to us as if we don't understand what we saw.
I'm thrilled that you love these new movies and I don't begrudge you for enjoying them. I think most of us here feel that way and it's not our place to tell you how to enjoy Star Wars, just like it's not your place to tell us how to enjoy it. What I do find bothersome is your constant need to "correct" fans at every opportunity as though it were some simple misunderstanding. At the very least if you want an honest discussion about it, you'd be better off occasionally acknowledging that not every choice made in the scripts were the result of genius. I've often conceded on the points raised against elements of the OT, though I often disagree, but as a writer I can acknowledge where there are inherent flaws. It just seems like you are unwilling to do the same with these movies and it strikes me as disingenuous because you are so biased to love them.
Not to mention your constant need to place the focus of the script choices on George Lucas is absurd. Rian Johnson wrote The Last Jedi and directed it. Lucas had no involvement whatsoever on that movie. Trying to shift the blame for Rian's choices to George makes no sense. I seem to recall an interview George did with Charlie Rose where he expressed his bitterness toward Disney for rejecting his treatments for 7,8, and 9 even going so far as to describe it as a nasty divorce. Just because they took some of the ideas George suggested doesn't in any way mean that he would have executed them the same way had he directed the sequels.
I'm thrilled that you love these new movies and I don't begrudge you for enjoying them. I think most of us here feel that way and it's not our place to tell you how to enjoy Star Wars, just like it's not your place to tell us how to enjoy it. What I do find bothersome is your constant need to "correct" fans at every opportunity as though it were some simple misunderstanding. At the very least if you want an honest discussion about it, you'd be better off occasionally acknowledging that not every choice made in the scripts were the result of genius. I've often conceded on the points raised against elements of the OT, though I often disagree, but as a writer I can acknowledge where there are inherent flaws. It just seems like you are unwilling to do the same with these movies and it strikes me as disingenuous because you are so biased to love them.
Not to mention your constant need to place the focus of the script choices on George Lucas is absurd. Rian Johnson wrote The Last Jedi and directed it. Lucas had no involvement whatsoever on that movie. Trying to shift the blame for Rian's choices to George makes no sense. I seem to recall an interview George did with Charlie Rose where he expressed his bitterness toward Disney for rejecting his treatments for 7,8, and 9 even going so far as to describe it as a nasty divorce. Just because they took some of the ideas George suggested doesn't in any way mean that he would have executed them the same way had he directed the sequels.
sbaxter
Sr Member
Point taken, but that would apply more to the real world than to Star Wars. Comparable creative discretion has been taken to what would have been required to drive home the point without having it turn into a gore-fest.
SSB
Bigdaddy
Master Member
OT, PT, ST... three separate stories, written at separate times. This isn't some master plan that's been in the making for decades. It's a bunch of cobbling onto the front (PT) and back (ST) of a financially successful story (OT).
What's the point in arguing about fanfiction?
What's the point in arguing about fanfiction?
HeartBlade
Sr Member
Joker and that reddit post doesn’t make sense. First, characters don’t have to hit every single aspect of the hero’s journey, just the major points which is why there are still variations in stories. Second, if that reddit post is true, Luke’s journey makes no sense.
you are telling me that after overthrowing the empire, seeing his father return as a Jedi in force ghost form, and reuniting with Leia and Han (returning to his family), Luke then suddenly refuses to return (despite already having returned) and exiles himself to Ahch-To where he waited for someone to bring him back which was Rey? And his return is not to his home and family but the battlefield where he faces off against Kylo Ren, then dies because he used the force too much?
Ofcourse, you are also telling me that I am completely wrong about Luke Skywalker. That if he even sensed a hint of darkness from Han or Leia, he would not hesitate to activate his lightsaber and turn against them.
And even assuming your interpretation of Luke is absolutely correct, his actions in TLJ still don’t make sense. As I said before although you probably stopped reading just so you can call out that Luke did attack Vader at the beginning of the fight, this might make sense if Ben was a force wielder who is completely devoid of light, a dark side wielder who is so innately evil that even our hero Luke considered the unthinkable (killing an innocent child) to prevent the rise of the monster that Ben would become. After all, Luke did try to strike down the Emperor who is the dark side incarnate.
However, this completely flies in the face of Ben’s characterization in TFA where he was a Vader-wannabe who couldn’t even reach Vader’s level of darkness because there was too much light in him, a man who after killing Han gets even more conflicted, a dude who couldn’t shoot a vessel for fear of killing his mom.
Luke’s fear of Kylo Ren was also completely unwarranted as well. The dude is a literal non-threat. The only major character Ben killed was an unarmed old Han in a fatherly hug. Kylo is toyed with by Luke, couldn’t kill Finn, failed to lay a scratch on untrained Rey, he might be the most harmless villain following Nute Gunray. This is the “threat” Luke was afraid of?
you are telling me that after overthrowing the empire, seeing his father return as a Jedi in force ghost form, and reuniting with Leia and Han (returning to his family), Luke then suddenly refuses to return (despite already having returned) and exiles himself to Ahch-To where he waited for someone to bring him back which was Rey? And his return is not to his home and family but the battlefield where he faces off against Kylo Ren, then dies because he used the force too much?
Ofcourse, you are also telling me that I am completely wrong about Luke Skywalker. That if he even sensed a hint of darkness from Han or Leia, he would not hesitate to activate his lightsaber and turn against them.
And even assuming your interpretation of Luke is absolutely correct, his actions in TLJ still don’t make sense. As I said before although you probably stopped reading just so you can call out that Luke did attack Vader at the beginning of the fight, this might make sense if Ben was a force wielder who is completely devoid of light, a dark side wielder who is so innately evil that even our hero Luke considered the unthinkable (killing an innocent child) to prevent the rise of the monster that Ben would become. After all, Luke did try to strike down the Emperor who is the dark side incarnate.
However, this completely flies in the face of Ben’s characterization in TFA where he was a Vader-wannabe who couldn’t even reach Vader’s level of darkness because there was too much light in him, a man who after killing Han gets even more conflicted, a dude who couldn’t shoot a vessel for fear of killing his mom.
Luke’s fear of Kylo Ren was also completely unwarranted as well. The dude is a literal non-threat. The only major character Ben killed was an unarmed old Han in a fatherly hug. Kylo is toyed with by Luke, couldn’t kill Finn, failed to lay a scratch on untrained Rey, he might be the most harmless villain following Nute Gunray. This is the “threat” Luke was afraid of?
sztriki
Sr Member
God knows why I'm getting into this again, we went through this ad nauseum...
Joker, I think the flaw in your logic is exactly what you accuse others of: focusing on the character's one side only. You keep referring to the point when Luke was mad at the end of ROTJ when he attacked Vader and flew into rage citing that there has always been a dark side and he's always been back and forth. While you're correct in that you don't seem to understand the significance of this and why it's PART of the storytelling. The reason for adding this rage is to give basis for character development. If he was full zen all along it would have been a pretty boring confrontation without any real stakes (one can argue that Luke had no real reason to be tempted by the dark side other than people were pissing him off, he never wanted power or fame or whatever). He was provoked into anger and the payoff was that he overcame it. You're stuck on the middle of the ladder without realizing that you've still got a few steps to go to reach to the top.
This similar "focusing on one side without realizing why it's there" view is why Yoda behaves like a moron in TLJ. Rian Johnson said somewhere that he always loved the funny Yoda in Empire so that's why he put that side of the character in TLJ. He failed to realize however that Yoda was putting on a face to fool Luke and that his real character only comes out after he reveals himself to be the Jedi Master and not just a goofy goblin.
Now I said that before that the concept of a broken Luke is not bad at all. I read only a handful of EU books and Luke was always the most boring @sshole ever. Always super zen, always calm and always knew what to do, while having the charisma and character of a bowl of cucumber salad. He was the biggest character-void because no writer was about to change the Luke from the last 4 minutes of ROTJ to anything that was compelling, it was a beige guy with a lightsaber moving forward in some dumb plot, like a Saturday morning cartoon show protagonist, going through the same old beats.
The problem is execution. You've probably seen concept cars which look amazing and when the production model comes out it's a dumbed down bore-fest. This is the difference between concept and realization.
Let me ask you this, is Luke right to be in isolation? Is not responding to anyone and leaving the galaxy to sort the problem out without having him in the game a solution? In the end he says no. He realizes this when Yoda appears and confesses this to Rey in TROS. The problem is that the audience knows this from the first minute. This is why the movie and the treatment of Luke is so frustrating. It's not a real obstacle that needs to be overcome like if he was trapped on the island or if he had turned dark and needed to be brought back or if Snoke could syphon his Force out so he couldn't get anywhere near him, etc. The obstacle is stupidity and stupid people are frustrating. There's clearly pandemonium out there, his best mate is murdered, his sister is in mortal peril, planets got blown up, the last remnant of the Resistance is about to be wiped out, there's two super powerful dark jedi running amok, but he thinks the solution is to stay out of it because that helps. Like it prevented said two dark jedi from building an empire and take over the galaxy. He was out of the picture by then, how could he possibly make it any worse??? And everyone knows this. Rey knows this and she spent all her life on a crappy planet scavenging metal and barely knowing anything about the galaxy. It's like watching a movie where a flat-earther is being told for 2 hours that the planet is not flat only for him to continually refuse it saying some edgy lines and some seemingly deep backstory on how he dropped a globe on his mate's head that made him hate the concept of a round planet. Then in the last 30 minutes he turns around and says well yea Earth is actually not flat. It's not emotionally satisfactory because everyone with half a brain knows that the dude is plain wrong from the beginning.
If RJ had the chops to make it a compelling argument for Luke to stay away I would be all for it. Or if he made the revelation/realization emotionally compelling instead of pulling Yoda and solving it in 2 minutes of pep talk then yea, I like that. The script was way too self-important in trying to present concepts and put the story in service of those whereas it should be the other way around. Here's the thing about concept cars: they're not real. They're just a facade, a mock-up and a visual demo, they don't go anywhere and they're just for display.
Joker, I think the flaw in your logic is exactly what you accuse others of: focusing on the character's one side only. You keep referring to the point when Luke was mad at the end of ROTJ when he attacked Vader and flew into rage citing that there has always been a dark side and he's always been back and forth. While you're correct in that you don't seem to understand the significance of this and why it's PART of the storytelling. The reason for adding this rage is to give basis for character development. If he was full zen all along it would have been a pretty boring confrontation without any real stakes (one can argue that Luke had no real reason to be tempted by the dark side other than people were pissing him off, he never wanted power or fame or whatever). He was provoked into anger and the payoff was that he overcame it. You're stuck on the middle of the ladder without realizing that you've still got a few steps to go to reach to the top.
This similar "focusing on one side without realizing why it's there" view is why Yoda behaves like a moron in TLJ. Rian Johnson said somewhere that he always loved the funny Yoda in Empire so that's why he put that side of the character in TLJ. He failed to realize however that Yoda was putting on a face to fool Luke and that his real character only comes out after he reveals himself to be the Jedi Master and not just a goofy goblin.
Now I said that before that the concept of a broken Luke is not bad at all. I read only a handful of EU books and Luke was always the most boring @sshole ever. Always super zen, always calm and always knew what to do, while having the charisma and character of a bowl of cucumber salad. He was the biggest character-void because no writer was about to change the Luke from the last 4 minutes of ROTJ to anything that was compelling, it was a beige guy with a lightsaber moving forward in some dumb plot, like a Saturday morning cartoon show protagonist, going through the same old beats.
The problem is execution. You've probably seen concept cars which look amazing and when the production model comes out it's a dumbed down bore-fest. This is the difference between concept and realization.
Let me ask you this, is Luke right to be in isolation? Is not responding to anyone and leaving the galaxy to sort the problem out without having him in the game a solution? In the end he says no. He realizes this when Yoda appears and confesses this to Rey in TROS. The problem is that the audience knows this from the first minute. This is why the movie and the treatment of Luke is so frustrating. It's not a real obstacle that needs to be overcome like if he was trapped on the island or if he had turned dark and needed to be brought back or if Snoke could syphon his Force out so he couldn't get anywhere near him, etc. The obstacle is stupidity and stupid people are frustrating. There's clearly pandemonium out there, his best mate is murdered, his sister is in mortal peril, planets got blown up, the last remnant of the Resistance is about to be wiped out, there's two super powerful dark jedi running amok, but he thinks the solution is to stay out of it because that helps. Like it prevented said two dark jedi from building an empire and take over the galaxy. He was out of the picture by then, how could he possibly make it any worse??? And everyone knows this. Rey knows this and she spent all her life on a crappy planet scavenging metal and barely knowing anything about the galaxy. It's like watching a movie where a flat-earther is being told for 2 hours that the planet is not flat only for him to continually refuse it saying some edgy lines and some seemingly deep backstory on how he dropped a globe on his mate's head that made him hate the concept of a round planet. Then in the last 30 minutes he turns around and says well yea Earth is actually not flat. It's not emotionally satisfactory because everyone with half a brain knows that the dude is plain wrong from the beginning.
If RJ had the chops to make it a compelling argument for Luke to stay away I would be all for it. Or if he made the revelation/realization emotionally compelling instead of pulling Yoda and solving it in 2 minutes of pep talk then yea, I like that. The script was way too self-important in trying to present concepts and put the story in service of those whereas it should be the other way around. Here's the thing about concept cars: they're not real. They're just a facade, a mock-up and a visual demo, they don't go anywhere and they're just for display.
Finally the truth is revealed! This stupid theory that it was all planned from the beginning was literally just blown out of the water by the lead actress. There is no way to refute this.
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