Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Post-release)

[Joek3rr]

Considering what Luke valued, and what he was willing to sacrifice, it was indeed incredibly stupid to say he had a moment of wanting to kill his nephew BEFORE his nephew did anything bad. Moments of anger were things Luke struggled with as part of his growth. I 100% better of him post RTOJ as he grew from the first movie.

Luke even thinking of killing his nephew because of a growing darkness made no sense because it implies he was aware of it (growing) and this was his answer. Not to work with him but to walk in on him while he slept and ignite his saber??! That's just horrible writing that showed a Luke who learned nothing. Great way to treat a legacy hero.

And more sloppy writing. He sensed all of that, despite the growing darkside use, yet was blinded by the growing darkside that allowed his entire school to be destroyed? Did he sense it growing or not? Did he sense it and did nothing at all for some perplexing reason? No wait, he sensed it and his response was to do nothing until one night he decided to kill his nephew? And that backfires because he didn't sense it enough and everything was lost.

And now he's so incredibly mind ****** by it he leaves forever as an answer and let's the galaxy deal with the fallout? That's so incredibly sloppy.

Your clip is as self serving as people who "research" things by cherry-picking memes to support their argument. I honestly expect more from you than that considering your posts can be far more well thought out.

The entire premise was odd.

That said, at least we got to see a little redemption of the kind of Luke in TROS that we should have had from TFA onwards.

Like a person can ever beat their anger issues that permanently.

He went to confront his nephew. He didn't go there with the intent to kill. That temptation came after he saw vision of his loved ones dying at the hands of his nephew.

 

[Ron]

Calmly contemplated murdering his nephew? His anything but calm. He just witnessed a vision of nephew killing his loved ones! The man is in anguish.

Well, I meant the situation was calm but I should've made that clearer. Fair enough. Though like patrickivan said, he was aware that Ben was heading toward the dark side so it shouldn't have come as such a shock.
[/QUOTE]
Why do you think he gave up? Maybe because he doesn't trust himself? Maybe because he's afraid of what will happen to him the next time he confronts his nephew. For Luke to realistically go into a self-imposed exile, so seriously bad stuff has to happen. And it has to be his fault. Briefly considering killing his nephew what he was going to do, is just that.
[/QUOTE]
But he still gave up right? I mean if he doesn't trust himself, why not seek to remedy this distrust? Find this fault of his and correct it. Is the fear of what he might do to his nephew greater than consequences of him not taking action ie. the birth of Kylo? Which brings me to another question...

Why did Luke think Ben's path to the dark side was set? Maybe the vision was not the only possible outcome but one of many.

 

[ConvergencePro]

I think the EFAP crew said it best...
Can we just admit how goddamn messed up it is that Uncle Luke would not only walk into his sleeping nephew’s bedroom in the middle of the night to stare at him, but also did so holding the equivalent of a loaded gun, and then held it to his nephews head when he had a bad vision of something that hadn’t even happened yet...
Theres like a multi step process required for this scene to unfold, all of which is just mountains of “no bueno”
Maybe RJ was just projecting or some **** cause im sorry but #NotMyLuke
No wonder Bens so messed up

 

[azheat]

I've been thinking a lot about this movie and how it ended over the last couple of weeks. I've been taking in comments of others, both good and bad, trying to see both points of view. But I figured out one of the things that's really bothering me about this movie and how this saga ended. And I'll preface this by saying the movie, for me, wasn't awful, much better than The Last Jedi, but not what I was hoping for (no need to rehash any on my previous comments).

I've been to every single theatrical release of every Star Wars movie made (yes, I'm that old), and this is the ONLY Star Wars movie where I heard fans booing out loud at the end. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't popcorn throwing chaos, but just something I've never experienced with these films. When Rey is asked who she is at the end and before she replies, the guy next to me literally said "Oh ***** please don't", and then there were groans. There were a couple applauses, but the tone of the audience seemed to be one of disappointment.

Sure, that was just one screening I happened to be in, I'm sure many of you were in theaters where the tone was different. I'm not saying had there been more applause or less groans my view of the movie would be different, I just never thought I would hear boos for Star Wars, and that kinda leaves me feeling sad............not how I want to remember the end of the Skywalker saga.

 

[Joek3rr]

Well, I meant the situation was calm but I should've made that clearer. Fair enough. Though like patrickivan said, he was aware that Ben was heading toward the dark side so it shouldn't have come as such a shock.

Why do you think he gave up? Maybe because he doesn't trust himself? Maybe because he's afraid of what will happen to him the next time he confronts his nephew. For Luke to realistically go into a self-imposed exile, so seriously bad stuff has to happen. And it has to be his fault. Briefly considering killing his nephew what he was going to do, is just that.
[/QUOTE]
But he still gave up right? I mean if he doesn't trust himself, why not seek to remedy this distrust? Find this fault of his and correct it. Is the fear of what he might do to his nephew greater than consequences of him not taking action ie. the birth of Kylo? Which brings me to another question...

Why did Luke think Ben's path to the dark side was set? Maybe the vision was not the only possible outcome but one of many.
[/QUOTE]

The fault is with him. He is the fault. And what can he do now, but make things worse? Chase his nephew down and kill him? Let his his nephew kill him, furthering his journey in the Dark Side? That's what he's afraid of the most. That his return will simply be like pouring gasoline on a fire.

In the end Luke does the only thing he can do. Apologize, and let Ben expend his anger at his image, and take away from Ben what he wants most, to kill his uncle.

 

[Joek3rr]

I think the EFAP crew said it best...
Can we just admit how goddamn messed up it is that Uncle Luke would not only walk into his sleeping nephew’s bedroom in the middle of the night to stare at him, but also did so holding the equivalent of a loaded gun, and then held it to his nephews head when he had a bad vision of something that hadn’t even happened yet...
Theres like a multi step process required for this scene to unfold, all of which is just mountains of “no bueno”
Maybe RJ was just projecting or some **** cause im sorry but #NotMyLuke
No wonder Bens so messed up

Edit: Sorry I had to
View attachment 1248324

Because you'd be able think straight after seeing a trippy Force vision of you nephew killing your loved ones......................

 

[BlandoCalrssian]

I've been to every single theatrical release of every Star Wars movie made (yes, I'm that old), and this is the ONLY Star Wars movie where I heard fans booing out loud at the end. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't popcorn throwing chaos, but just something I've never experienced with these films. When Rey is asked who she is at the end and before she replies, the guy next to me literally said "Oh ***** please don't", and then there were groans. There were a couple applauses, but the tone of the audience seemed to be one of disappointment.

My screening too. Packed IMAX screening on opening night. No outright boos, but lots of groans at Rey Skywalker and the Rey being a Palpatine reveal. Not to mention the outright laughter at Ben keeling over like a friggin Monty Python sketch.

 

[BTTUK]

Because you'd be able think straight after seeing a trippy Force vision of you nephew killing your loved ones......................

Maybe not. Mind you, he also isn't someone who has been a Jedi for decades, and Master for a number of years. Whereas Luke was.

 

[cboath]

There's a difference between understanding RJ's intent there and the execution as presented to the audience. There's a massive fail in the execution.

As noted above, if something is bothering you you don't go in with a loaded gun unless you plan on using it. We're told NOTHING of what transpired before that. Nothing at all really. He goes in, has the vision and is all of sudden, lets kill him him now, raise saber, oh wait.....maybe i shouldn't. After 30 years he'd have much more control over himself than that.

You don't go in to kill your sister's kid, period, without taking your concerns to her first. If that happened, they'd have addressed it. they didn't. Everyone with a niece, nephew, or watching a friends kids, etc, has wanted to discipline one harshly before but didn't. You bring it to the parents attention for them to handle. Yeah, Ben was an adult, but you don't do anything severe without discussion. You can kick him out on your own, or send him home, etc. You don't make the unilateral decision to kill him. As luke damn well knows, force visions are far from definitive.

I can see him failing and not wanting to face han or leia, but not telling the galaxy to screw off. If you want to hide from everyone, you do that after you fix the mess you made.

Luke originally wanted more from life, to go to the academy. He was denied by his uncle and after meeting up with Ben told him he couldn't go, but he'd take him to the port to catch a ride. After that blew up, he went with him, to rescue the princess. He succeeded and when he realized they needed help in the fight against the death star offered to help. In ESB he's helping at the base before going off to training which he leaves to go help his friends. In ROTJ he created the plan to save han, went back to help his friend assault the 2nd DS, and offered to join the ground team. From there when he realized he was putting the team in jeopardy he turned himself in to try and save his friends and their plan. He only fought vader to save his sister, and when victorious quit the fight. After getting roasted he drags his father to safety to try and save his life.

Along that entire journey, sure, there are some self doubts, but that's it. There's no quitting on those he cares about even slightly. NONE. Zip. Zilch. Nada. In ANH these are people he knew but days, in ESB a year or so, ROTJ 3ish years. There is no way in hell he quits on these same people who are now his literal family that he's know and been through everything with for 30+ years. It just isn't going to happen. The most recurring theme he has throughout the OT is he does everything he can for his friends. He's not going to up and quit on his sister, brother-in-law/best friend, nephew etc. It isn't going to happen. My oldest nephew is 12 and there's not a chance in hell i'd quit on him. Period. And you want people to believe it's OK for luke to have done the same thing? Just no. Like I said, he had some self-doubt, but it never translated outside of that.

 

[patrickivan]

Because you'd be able think straight after seeing a trippy Force vision of you nephew killing your loved ones......................

So one of the most powerful Jedis was written as being so incredibly weak-minded that he was unable to control himself? That's again, incredibly sloppy. The entire point of that scene was to show the audience Ben's motivation for turning to the dark side. Which is funny, considering we saw his struggle before that in killing his father, suggesting he hadn't completely embraced it.

In other words, if he HADN'T clearly fully embraced it, why the hell hadn't Luke still sensed good in him YEARS before on that fateful night? He was able to do so with Vader. The biggest, baddest person in the galaxy. Well, Luke apparently wasn't able to sense that good still in Ben, that was evident in the TROS, because of sloppy writing. Ben was still conflicted.

And yes, the past movies had sloppy writing as well, but I expect better in the 21st century. ****, Disney can rock 10 years of Marvel movies into some woven tapestry of greatness, but they couldn't get 3 movies with an existing back history into some degree of continuity with EACH OTHER. 3 lousy movies that feel like 3 completely separate movies with sloppy writing.

I still enjoyed them more than naught, despite the ******** lack of vision. But that enjoyment is like reading a book, then watching the movie adaptation. You can NOT go into a movie based on a book, with ANY thought that it will be as good. Just ignore that book and hope it's a decent movie.

 

[Paul Andrew]

I think the assumption that the Luke from the end of ROTJ, or an even wiser more leveled up version, should be the same one we got in the sequels is off.
Most folks I know who are well into the second half of their life get jaded and cynical in some way, and I think that makes perfect sense for a guy who thought he defeated the great evil of the Galaxy only for it to spring back up in his own family. This faultless, superhuman Luke that folks seem to have wanted would have made for a lousy story. Your heroes are only as good as the torture you put them through.

 

[cboath]

The problem is nothing was given to show that. Not everyone gets more cynical and jaded either. Even at that there's a massive difference between not wanting to kill your father, who, you flat out know is responsible for the killing of billions and think, meh, why not whack my nephew, he's done nothing wrong but might hurt a bunch of people down the road. Wanting to kill him and actually beginning to act on it is so far gone from 'getting more jaded and cynical' that i'm not sure there's much of a description for it short of going psychotic.

We're talking a guy who did it (vader) to a 20 year old who hadn't actually done squat yet (ben).

I'd be willing to bet if pressed, RJ's goal was a 'would you kill a baby hitler' scenario? Problem is, you KNOW what baby hitler becomes definitively, but yet there is no guarantee on ben.

I'll say again, they COULD have constructed a scenario where that worked. But i think that only happens if RJ does part 1 as well. You'd have to set a lot up in part 1 to make that scene actually work. The didn't do it and thought they could get the point across believably in 15 seconds and blew it. This is why you can't have each director blowing off what came before.

 

[Paul Andrew]

You're not wrong about that, the lack of consistent vision in this trilogy really hurt it and major plot points were not given the development they needed.

 

[BTTUK]

I think the assumption that the Luke from the end of ROTJ, or an even wiser more leveled up version, should be the same one we got in the sequels is off.
Most folks I know who are well into the second half of their life get jaded and cynical in some way, and I think that makes perfect sense for a guy who thought he defeated the great evil of the Galaxy only for it to spring back up in his own family. This faultless, superhuman Luke that folks seem to have wanted would have made for a lousy story. Your heroes are only as good as the torture you put them through.

Except the point that is always made in criticism of how Luke was characterised in the ST, isn't about what his actions were, but more about there being no lead up to them, or any real background as to what drove him to be that way.

It could've been so simple to suggest or even show that Ben had been doing things that worried Luke and made him fear him enough to consider killing him. Then after that, exiling himself to Ach-to as he felt that is where the Force was guiding him to. After many years of loneliness and nothing coming, he becomes more withdrawn and his faith shaken.

That could then tie in and enhance Rey's backstory, and potentially eliminate one of the reasons they had for Palpatine's return

 

[Paul Andrew]

Star Wars has always been a series that starts in media res. I don't disagree that it could have been sold better, but even more flashbacks would have gone against the grain of how these movies in particular have always worked. I'm surprised we had any at all, frankly.
We're grousing about what could have been at this point and I'm really feeling echoes of PT discourse now. Despite them being bad, there's been a general wave of warm fuzzy that the PT has developed over time (certainly not for everyone) and I wonder if given 10-15 years we're not going to be looking back at the ST in a similar fashion whilst griping about what the Old Republic Trilogy could have been.

 

[HeartBlade]

I’m really starting to thinkRJ did the Luke and Ben story line specifically to subvert expectations and nothing else.

honestly, the rational fall for Luke into old bitter man would be for Ben to hurt his expectations. Like Vader, Luke would be scared of Ben’s darkness but believe in the light in him. (Let’s not forget that Ben’s most notable feature as a Sith is that there is too much light in him, thus why he had to kill his father Han).

Naturally, the expected storyline would be Luke believed in Ben against his better judgement like he did for Vader and was punished for it, his Jedi academy destroyed, loved ones killed, dark side rises in power again, etc.

having Luke being the impetus of the darkness, striking Ben first while sleeping makes Luke the bad guy as well as subvert our expectations that Ben was lying (also why Ben saying Rey was a nobody carries a ton of weight in TLJ. He could have lied about his history with Luke but didn’t. He hasn’t shown to lie once to to say Ben was lying when he said Rey was nobody is farfetched given his previous commitment to honesty).

Subverting expectations is essentially doing the opposite of what the audience expects to happen which they develop through logically predicting the character’s motivations. Would work if Luke was a nobody mysterious teacher who was secretly bad (not an uncommon storyline in Star Wars) but doesn’t work because we know who Luke is.

 

[BTTUK]

Star Wars has always been a series that starts in media res. I don't disagree that it could have been sold better, but even more flashbacks would have gone against the grain of how these movies in particular have always worked. I'm surprised we had any at all, frankly.
We're grousing about what could have been at this point and I'm really feeling echoes of PT discourse now. Despite them being bad, there's been a general wave of warm fuzzy that the PT has developed over time (certainly not for everyone) and I wonder if given 10-15 years we're not going to be looking back at the ST in a similar fashion whilst griping about what the Old Republic Trilogy could have been.

Wouldn't need flashbacks. A simple line by Luke along the lines of "Ben, like both my father and myself, struggled with who we are, the power we have in the Force, with the pull that the dark and light side would always have on us". Simple dialogue that adds to the background, whilst explaining the fact that Luke perhaps wasn't completely ignorant to what was going on with his nephew, then suddenly decides to bump him off.

For me the biggest missed opportunity was this film. It had potential to perhaps add backstory to TFA/TLJ without being such a hodge podge of fan service and JK attempting to be the "fan's director". It may be too late now the trilogy has concluded, but to me that is more of a reason to keep discussing it.

 

[Noeland]

Rian Johnson has said in a few interviews that some times he just likes to be contrary and do things he knows an audience will hate. So, there you go. He did. It's part of Star Wars forever now. There is a video of him saying it in interviews, I'm not going to post it.

I did not enjoy the way Luke was written in TLJ. I do think Mark Hamill was fantastic in his portrayal though. He was incredible. However, I recognized immediately that it was being written the way it was written entirely to subvert expectations and nothing more. For me, it killed the film, it killed any enjoyment of the film to see a character that was so hopeful, heroic, and "good" become a coward who had no interest in being a hero. And the worst part for me was that it didn't work narratively in the story being told. It was just flat storytelling. Had it worked in the overall narrative, and I mean all the films, not just this single film, I would have been fine with it. But it was like watching a temper tantrum. It happened, and I didn't enjoy it, but it's the way it went down.

In Rise, I think bringing Luke back to catch the saber and say he was wrong was just about all they could do to try and make it right for the fans who didn't enjoy the way Luke was written in TLJ. That said, as I posted a few times in TLJ thread, there is plenty to enjoy in the film, just like Rise, it's not perfect, I don't really care for the end, but the movie was entertaining.

 

[HMSwolfe]

Rian Johnson has said in a few interviews that some times he just likes to be contrary and do things he knows an audience will hate. So, there you go. He did. It's part of Star Wars forever now. There is a video of him saying it in interviews, I'm not going to post it.

I did not enjoy the way Luke was written in TLJ. I do think Mark Hamill was fantastic in his portrayal though. He was incredible. However, I recognized immediately that it was being written the way it was written entirely to subvert expectations and nothing more. For me, it killed the film, it killed any enjoyment of the film to see a character that was so hopeful, heroic, and "good" become a coward who had no interest in being a hero. And the worst part for me was that it didn't work narratively in the story being told. It was just flat storytelling. Had it worked in the overall narrative, and I mean all the films, not just this single film, I would have been fine with it. But it was like watching a temper tantrum. It happened, and I didn't enjoy it, but it's the way it went down.

In Rise, I think bringing Luke back to catch the saber and say he was wrong was just about all they could do to try and make it right for the fans who didn't enjoy the way Luke was written in TLJ. That said, as I posted a few times in TLJ thread, there is plenty to enjoy in the film, just like Rise, it's not perfect, I don't really care for the end, but the movie was entertaining.

Eh, I thought there was a lot of cringey stuff in TROS but Luke was some of the worst of it. Totally phoning it in, “oh look he caught the lightsaber cause she threw it away like he did”, “oh look he finally lifted the X-Wing cause that was something we were all waiting for”. Probably one of the worst parts of the movie to me. Like the writing or not, at least Hamill did a good job in TLJ. In TROS the writing and acting were bad.

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

Star Wars has always been a series that starts in media res.

Star Wars has only been about "in media res" because the one standalone Star Wars film George set out to do was done that way to evoke the feeling of coming into the middle of a serialized story. If he'd actually intended it, at the time, to be realized as a serialized story, he'd've started at the beginning and gone ever forward. There would be story gaps between episodes, but minor. There would not be such huge gaps in story or character between one episode and the next that the audience has no idea what's going on or why the returning characters are utterly unfamiliar.

To get to where we started in TFA, we needed to have actually seen at least some of the story leading to that point. Doesn't have to be all of it, but when 86% of the ST is Mystery Box, that's bad writing.