Which is completely valid way of enjoying film - except that there are very, very, very few stories in any medium that don't follow an internal logic. Escapism should not directly translate to "it should just be this way just because" - IMO.
I also wasn't equating realism/realistic stories with internal logic.
You're being told a story, right? So if something happens, that is what happened. It isn't what could have, or should, or maybe would - it is (unless the film is then showing you/telling you there is an unreliable narrator/offering ambiguity etc.
I had visions, even watching the film, of how unbelievably epic it would have been for us to have heard a single screaming of an X-Wing fighter just as all hope is lost, and Luke arrives to kick some ass. And yet, what we got was just as good as what I'd imagined because that is what happened in the film, and I judged it on that basis - not what it could have been. You can make adjustments to your own expectations and experiences all the time, which people seem to forget. Having Luke's final redemption for losing his faith be an unprecedented (not plot hole) and thoroughly powerful use of the force following the last lesson of his master was excellent storytelling, I think. Making the decision to have him emotionally fight rather than physically made a lot of sense. Things that would not make sense if we simply ignored the progression of character and stuck to "what is known".
You are absolutely right. But IMO you are swinging way too far to one side on that scale of potential character development. IMO the heroes journey is what it is in a story. I am pretty sure that it developed because of people´s wishes and longings for something like a heroes journey to happen, it is why people listened to heroic stories since the dawn of time. I think no character development can be greater than the transition from farm boy to hero.
That is what made the OT. That is what we all or at least most of us had hoped for. That is why we rooted for OUR heroes. They succeeded in doing superhuman tasks.
They are super human. The escapism worked because of that. THAT is what fuelled OUR childhood imagination.
And NOW those heroes are deconstructed, brought down. Do we really need that?
I like all those old Westerns where a lady or a girl or a group of people went to that old drunkard who once was an honorable man and gunfighter, to seek help and be saved.
In those stories we do not see why and how the demise happened. But we see a light reignited that for a long time was dim or dark, and maybe in the end the fallen hero redeems himself by making the biggest sacrifice of them all, giving his life for others.
The same happens in TLJ, doesn´t it?
But the problem that I have is that we KNEW Luke and LOVED him. He was the HERO. And now he is a broken hermit on a remote island?! And a COWARD to boot?! Actually (atm in my emotional state) for me NOT acceptable!!! I do NOT need this!!!
Yes, he gets a grip of himself, but then he´s gone after a deed that ends in his sacrifice. Okay, I can live with that, but DAMMIT why did that have to happen in the MIDDLE of the trilogy?! And even if he saved the last handful of rebels, it seemed so damn wasted, so NOT heroic. So BADLY written because it IMO was messing with the audience.
The same actually goes for HAN!!! Eff it, Han is a BAD FATHER and HUSBAND???!!! He was part of my childhood, and I must admit that the star wars characters had a huge influence on me growing up, certainly a positive influence, just as superheroes had.
And we had to see him fail and fall, too?! That is REALLY a drama that nixed all those efforts and sacrifices they had made. If they go out, let them go out like heroes and not like punks. Have them lead a life that is unquestionable. You IMO cannot be superheroic without a certain way of looking at all things in life from a point of view that MAKES you the hero you are.
The only one remaining and standing true to her former personality seems to be LEIA. They guys fail, the gal keeps on truckin´. She was the one who held everything together, she was always the leader of the pack, with the guys circling around her. She always had the will to push onward, but the guys errr boys(?) always ran away?! Now that I think of that, at least.
Escapism. A flight into a reality that helps us to not think about our busy lives and what we have to cope with every day. To flee from our own reality, if only for a few hours. A "realistic character development" can be seen as too much reality being brought into that fantasy, pulling obviously a lot of us out of the movie.