It's really confusing. Is it that hard to understand that those three accounts are three subjective versions of the story?
Yep. Which is why Yoda sneakily says, "That library contained nothing that Rey does not already possess." (paraphrase, but pretty close)
In ROTJ Luke tries to decapitate the Emperor and almost kills his own father when he threatens to turn Leia to the dark side. His instinctive reaction to the horrifying vision of Ben's future is perfectly in keeping with Luke's established personality, as is his immediate shame at ever considering it.
Successfully smuggles something onto a smuggling ship on her first try. WHAT A MARY SUE!
/s
This explains why Yoda was so quick to burn the tree down
Yes! annnnd Yoda knew about it, which is why he is so gleefully fucking with Luke by blowing up the tree. and that line Yoda dishes "Wisdom they held, but that library contained nothing that the girl Rey does not already possess." points to the fact Yoda knows she has the books. You might catch a glimpse of them another time when Rey is packing up to get on the escape pod when she is going to visit Kylo.
I absolutely get that, but that's not "falling to the Dark Side", it's "being manipulated by Snoke".
The Dark Side isn't a tool in Snoke's hands. It doesn't obey him.
Also, the dark side shows Rey THE TRUTH. It gives her an answer that we later one is not only correct, but the thing Rey needs to accept in order to overcome her own insecurity.
If what she met in that hole was the Dark Side, she's either pretty much immune to it or it's the new and improved Friendly Neighbour Dark Side™, dishing out hard truths and counseling. There's no "temptation" in Rey's experience, only clarity.
That said, I don't get why people are so hung up on Luke's moment of weakness in threatening Ben (which is absolutely IN CHARACTER) when the actual character assassination is elsewhere.
The fact that Luke for a moment considers ending the life of a potential new Vader, considering all he experienced, is far from absurd or irrespectful of his character. The fact as a consequence he goes in hiding and cuts all ties with the rest of universe, leaving his sister and best friend in the hands of two powerful dark side users is the problem.
The thing about Luke going into exile, though, is not that it's just him being a bitter, depressed asshole. He's trying to do a good thing in a bad way. He has learned how the hubris of the Jedi caused so much pain and destruction, and now he's seen it firsthand. He thinks the net positive of destroying the Jedi Order for good is the only choice.
Yeah, and that's why I'm good with the way things happen in the movie.
When Luke goes into the cave on Dagobah is he tempted by the dark side? Or is he shown a truth about himself?
I can buy this line of thinking if we were talking about doing the best thing for the Republic or whatever; what I feel is completely out of character is for Luke to completely abandon his sister. He knows Snoke is around, he knows he's creating the First Order, he knows his sister will rise to the fight. He knows Ben is being drawn to the dark side and that he has murderous intentions toward his parents, and he chooses to have none of it and do nothing.
Even if he was convinced that Jedis are morally questionable and the galaxy would be better off without them, Luke Skywalker would be like "fuck the Galaxy I'm going to look after my sister". I think this is the only real betrayal of Luke's character (everything else is tone and framing, and can be explained or justified simply with the idea that people change over time). The one thing I can't get over (and that Hamill couldn't get over at least initially, judging from his interviews) is Luke turning his back to his family - to Ben and Leia specificially, expecially to her.
If Rey never foundt the map to the temple and reached him, Luke would be oblivious to the fact that his sister is being shot at with a minideathstar cannon and probably dragged in chain and executed by the first Order. He'd be willingly choosing to ignore that, shutting himself out of the Force to make sure he never knows any of that. That is my "NotMyLuke" moment. I can't like him as a character now, as I couldn't like myself if I did that to my sister. He does his pretty light show at the end and provides a distraction that saves her, sure, but that doesn't excuse him. He failed her twice and did nothing to make up for it until the very end. I'm sorry, but he kind of sucks, which is fine - characters can be flawed and "negative" - but now I just like him a lot less.
I loved the "I'm not the superhero people think I am, I only saved my family and not the galaxy, I can't fight wars alone" angle. I hate that that's followed by him abandoning his family and having his crowning moment be a direct fight against a literal army.
Seeing Luke in this film was the first time I felt any real connection between the new films and the OT.
Right off the bat The Force Awakens lost me with its clear disinterest in telling a new story. How can I have investment in this rebellion when it's clear nothing came of the last rebellion? It's like making a Lord of the Rings sequel trilogy and immediately asking people to care about a new "one ring to rule them all". On top of making the stakes vague and unreliable, it also shows me that no one actually approached this trilogy with a story in mind - a pretty fatal error in and of itself.
Everything after that point has rung similarly false; the non-stop quips, the excessive references to the old films, the mugging for the camera... the fact that nothing feels like it's playing out in real time (the OT at least slowed down at certain points to keep you grounded in the world).
Then The Last Jedi came along and actually made me feel some of the weight of those intervening decades. It gave me a character that forced me to search in order to find the Luke that I knew, which is so much more rewarding (and believable) than the borderline impersonation Harrison Ford was doing for Han Solo.
When Luke finally shone through I was back in that world again, if only for a moment, so that has at least added some worth to these films for me.
Right off the bat The Force Awakens lost me with its clear disinterest in telling a new story. How can I have investment in this rebellion when it's clear nothing came of the last rebellion? It's like making a Lord of the Rings sequel trilogy and immediately asking people to care about a new "one ring to rule them all". On top of making the stakes vague and unreliable, it also shows me that no one actually approached this trilogy with a story in mind - a pretty fatal error in and of itself.
Everything after that point has rung similarly false; the non-stop quips, the excessive references to the old films, the mugging for the camera... the fact that nothing feels like it's playing out in real time (the OT at least slowed down at certain points to keep you grounded in the world).
Then The Last Jedi came along and actually made me feel some of the weight of those intervening decades. It gave me a character that forced me to search in order to find the Luke that I knew, which is so much more rewarding (and believable) than the borderline impersonation Harrison Ford was doing for Han Solo.
When Luke finally shone through I was back in that world again, if only for a moment, so that has at least added some worth to these films for me.
For all the hate this movie gets it had a lot of best in Star Wars movies scenes, such as the light speed attack, the throne room battle and Luke's epic troll. I have a feeling JJ will bring Luke back somehow, he has to. He was awesome.
See you around, kid
Luke is going to troll Kylo Ren, as a Force ghost, appearing at inappropriate moments and quipping non stop. Like in the old "Jesus is a jerk" memes.
It's weakness to be certain but to be fair, both Yoda and Obi Wan essentially did the same thing in regards to self-imposed exile.
Luke reacted to the Force showing him a vision of the future (Ben killing his best friend Han, Ben killing his students and helping Snoke, all of that).
We've seen this before, in Empire, when Luke reacts to seeing his friends in danger.
He still reacts, because that's his character and you can't change that. But Luke has grown since then and doesn't act on his feelings. But it's too late, of course, and Ben still falls.
So Luke questions everything about what he learned. He learned to control his feelings and not act upon them, and yet everything still went to shit. So he believes that the true solution is simply to leave the Jedi and Sith dynamic completely behind. And since he himself is a Jedi, he himself poses a danger to his family and the Galaxy as a whole.
And he's not completely wrong. The First Order rose despite Luke being around (it rose before Ben's fall to the darkside) and a Jedi Master getting into galactic politics wasn't a good idea, as the prequels showed us.
It makes sense.
I like this too. Luke's plan to hide and let the Force find another way, worked, because as Snoke mentions, the light side found another person to awaken in anyway and it completely caught Snoke off guard. He was obsessed with Luke Skywalker (ahem) because, who else would the light side of the Force choose? Snoke found it amusing.
Fair I might have misread the line. To be clear are you saying that Holdo's negative reaction is explicit in pointing out that Poe and Co have a misconception about hyperspace tracking? Because like you say, I took her reaction to mean that it was was a risky plan, and not the writer telling the audience that the plan was based on a fundamentally flawed assumption.
Well in their own case it was more so that they were hopelessly out matched once the Emperor took control, and they were hiding out in the hope that circumstances could change (and knowing that they would stir up a hornets nest death trap if they were found which is why ObiWan is in the backwater and Yoda is on a uninhabited planet rich in the dark side.
For the record, Luke used the force to reach out to Leia. Leia didn't use the force in a Star Wars film until 2017's The Last Jedi, despite being confirmed a super powerful force sensitive from the Skywalker bloodline in 1983's Return of the Jedi.
My point is that confirmed force sensitive film protagonists Anakin, Luke, Leia & Rey don't use the force until someone tells them tells them or shows them that they can
For as much as I have to say that my opinion on the movie did tumble more on a repeat viewing. 'Seeya around kid' as well as the Luke/Kylo duel is still an amazing moment.
By a small margin at most sure. Nothing in that fight indicates that he could reliably take her down in a post TLJ world. I mean she opens the fight fighting more guys at once for longer than he did later, and even twirls around to take out a guy coming at Kylo. Once they are split off you're just head-cannoning that he was doing the bulck of any fighting while he wasn't on screen. When it pans back, two guys try to pin him to the wall, he pushes them away and then another guy comes in seperately to get killed (Rey fought 2v1 as well with guys actually trying to decapitate her before whip man snags her saber). He takes out a guy and then stops as 3-4 of them had surrounded him and likewise stopped, to prepare to take him on at once. There're one multi-step flourish, before they pause again and then he gets choke-held.
By a small margin at most sure. Nothing in that fight indicates that he could reliably take her down in a post TLJ world. I mean she opens the fight fighting more guys at once for longer than he did later, and even twirls around to take out a guy coming at Kylo. Once they are split off you're just head-cannoning that he was doing the bulck of any fighting while he wasn't on screen. When it pans back, two guys try to pin him to the wall, he pushes them away and then another guy comes in seperately to get killed (Rey fought 2v1 as well with guys actually trying to decapitate her before whip man snags her saber). He takes out a guy and then stops as 3-4 of them had surrounded him and likewise stopped, to prepare to take him on at once. There're one multi-step flourish, before they pause again and then he gets choke-held.
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There was a Rebel Alliance that clearly could have used the help of two powerful and seasoned Jedi, Yoda especially.
But I think failure and retreat has always been a significant part of this franchise. The pressure Luke must have felt to singlehandedly resurrect the Jedi would have been enormous, coupled with his own nephew's fall to the Dark Side and the implications therein. His behavior throughout much of the film is that of a hero who is tired of being heroic; somebody who has endured having the fate of the entire galaxy foisted onto his shoulders once already and doesn't want that responsibility again.
Regardless, he acts every inch the hero at the end, which is why I find it so bizarre that people are angry. Had TLJ ended with Luke a coward, I could maybe see their point, but he redeems himself and saves the Resistance.
Luke is by far the biggest hero in the franchise.
Communicating via the force is using the force. You don't just reach out to anyone random and get them to hear you through the force. She also used the force when she sensed that Luke was alive after the DS explosion in ROTJ. She also said that she's "always known" that they were brother and sister (which is highly suggestive of her knowing this through the force) You don't always know when you're using the force.
This is wrong.
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I dunno. With Vader being able to sense ObiWan and Yoda, I don't know what good they'd have done with 'force perception' in play considering how heavy Vader rolls. They came from an era with hundreds of Jedi, and now there were like 2 against the very same Army that had won the clone wars, and it's populace mostly being behind the Emperor when they first escaped.
Yoda lowering his head implied that it was both-ish. What the Dark Side showed him was a setback.
Didn't Padme communicate with Anakin on some level via the force? Was she force sensitive?
That's very passive force using but ok and still doesn't change my point that Leia had to be told she was strong in the force before overtly using it, just like Luke in A New Hope
I don't think that absolves them from basically going into hiding as the Empire takes over. Yoda in particular is very powerful and yet spends thirty years doing nothing more than making stew and waiting for Luke.
I do think Luke's reason for exile was very different than theirs but I don't think it was any more cowardly than what Obi Wan and Yoda opted to do. All three faced massive failures and subsequent destruction in the wake of those failures, which would deflate anyone, hero or not.
Just the idea of Luke having to face and potentially kill another family member seems like it would be soul-crushing. I still recall how utterly haunted he looked at the end of TFA.
I don't remember any instance where Padme communicates with Anakin via the force. I don't think there is anything that leads us to believe she's force sensitive.
And I don't think we see any evidence that she was ever trained after ROTJ. Her use of the force was clearly reactionary and something that appeared to happen while she was unconscious. Then she just seems to kinda go with it once she comes to.
I don't see any issue with her using the force in this way, though I think the actual scene itself could have been shot differently to accomplish the same thing a little more subtly.
quick googles, apparently Padme communicates with Anakin from across the city in the novelization of Revenge of the Sith. Obviously, I don't think that makes her force sensitive
I do assume that Leia received some base level of training by Luke, just not full Jedi training.
I really liked the scene with Leia finally using the force in the Last Jedi and I don't really understand why so many people have a problem with it. I thought it was awesome
The final product is the film, and as far as I'm aware, Padme isn't force sensitive or uses the force in any way. The novelizations often take extra creative liberties that don't make it into the films themselves
Holdo is reacting negatively to Poe/Finn/Rose's hyperspace tracking sabotage plan because it is risky and likely to not help the situation, because Holdo and Leia have a plan to sneak away to Crait.
I've sort of lost what it is we are actually talking about. I think I entered in this discussion on this topic to counter you on an argument I thought you were making about Hyperspace Tracking. You linked to a wookiepedia article about it and had a point in your discussion that was 'Only the Supremacy had it'.
I don't think wookiepedia is a good source yet on anything in the movie, it kinda needs more time to get everything correct. They can't possibly be instantaneously a reliable source. That's an opinion of mine, and part of the reason I began talking with you about this. To correct you on one point, all the FO ships have it...
... or at least I'm telling you from my recollection of what Rose and Finn say in the movie. They guesstimate that all the FO ships have it, and that the lead ship is the only one using it at any time. Whether it's actually true or not that all the FO ships have the tracking, doesn't really matter, but it is one of the basis points for their plan to sabotage the tracking. Then further what I'm getting at is their plan is the kind we are used to seeing work, a risky plan. In my words previously, a bad weird sketchy hair-brained plan. When the risky plan goes bad and ends up making things worse is kinda the point of it all. We see them fail and deal with the consequences, or at least we see Holdo step up and deal with the consequences.
I kinda get the impression you don't like any aspect of that thread of the story and I'm just trying to come in with some counter discussion.
Exactly. And you know, I still wrestle with myself a tiny bit about the force projection thing. I admit I was initially deeply disappointed by it. Sometimes I still wonder if "Luke's last stand" being a Force projection was the right call to make for what is essentially the last time we see Luke in action (outside of being a Force ghost).
But at the end of it, how else would he be able to single handedly face down the First Order, and save the Resistance in that circumstance. He even said it himself earlier in the film- something along the lines of "how am I supposed to show up with a laser sword and beat the First Order. And ironically, he DID figure it out. What a hero, what a legend.
I know haters will keep hating and I know nothing will stop them, but for me, there are just so many beautiful layers to this film that they just don't see, because it wasn't the film they predicted or expected. And I honestly wonder why people are shocked at Luke's disposition in this film (the whole "that's not the Luke Skywalker I KNOW" thing. Did they not question why he exiled himself to this remote place, and why he has that haunted (and less than thrilled to be found) look on his face at the end of The Force Awakens. It didn't shock me one bit that he rejected the blue lightsaber, and didn't want to leave, but apparently many thought otherwise...
I said obviously I don't think that makes her force sensitive
Visanideth said something
I think he's saying that it's a problem that Rey has no "temptation" in the dark side pool. I disagree, because both Luke and Rey are not tempted by the dark side in their respective dark side caves. It's something else. Luke has a weird force vision/encounter that shows him a truth about himself that he won't yet understand and spooks him a little because he actually kinda is afraid. Rey has a weird force vision/encounter that kinda maybe shows a truth about her sort of, and that makes her feel lonely and disappointed. Neither of these instances are tempting Luke or Rey to be seduced by the dark side.
They are both set-backs in their own ways sure I'd agree with that. The criticism that it's silly that Rey has no temptation to the dark side, when the example cited is the cave scenario, is what I have a problem with.
That scene isn't about killing Ben but saving all the people Ben would go on to kill. Han, Luke's students, and many other people would be alive if Luke had actually killed Kylo. Not considering what to do about Ben in that moment would have shown that Luke didn't care about those people.
The entire point of Luke's exile is that he doesn't think he can help. He came to realize that the Jedi order and Obi Wan were responsible for the empire and Darth Vader existing, and he himself created Kylo Ren. He felt like everything he fought for just made things worse, and he thinks the best thing is to relegate himself and the Jedi order to history and not interfere. He has no confidence that his help would improve the situation for anyone.
That's his arc. Luke learns some things in the film and regains his sense of purpose, and ends up doing the right thing by saving his friends and restoring hope to the resistance. Luke is the character you and everyone else complaining wants him to be by the end of the film, but he has to work to get there. That's much more interesting than just seeing him flipping around with his green light saber and being the hero just like always right from the start, which is apparently the only thing most fans wanted to see.
I agree with everything you've written and in regards to the force projection, I think we need to remember two things about it:
He did it from across the galaxy and he basically was able to create matter, albeit temporarily.
The fact that Han's dice linger even after Luke is gone and subsequently vanish in Kylo's hand demonstrates that what Luke did was far and away the most poignantly powerful use of the Force seen thus far.
Luke literally created not merely an illusion but an illusion that occupied physical space.
His power ranking is now, officially, off the charts.
Look how nice and playful Luke is being with Vader! Such a nice young man all the time. No anger. No flaws. He's the perfect human being.
I hope DJ doesn't appear in Episode IX. I love him but he's really perfect as a one-off character. It's awesome that we don't even know his name.
