Saga Mega thread: Sequels and spinoff films and the overall saga

He's half wrong is basically what it boils down to. The Jedi could not control themselves for going into war. Young brandishes the Jedi as if they had a choice in the beginning of AOTC. Yes, the Jedi were flawed and I don't disagree with either of you. Some arrogance definitely contributed to it. The difference is that Sidious had immense power manipulating both the republic and the separatist. Same with Sidious clouding the Jedi's powers to sense the future.

In TPM they didn't think the Sith existed until Qui-Gon gave them hints on who attacked them. There, the Jedi's opinion changed on the matter.

In AOTC, Padme made a claim that Dooku was her attacker. Except she had no tangible evidence of said claim and the Jedi also made an arrogant one saying Dooku wouldn't do such a thing since he was friends with them.

"What if I told you that the Republic was now under the control of the Dark Lord of the Sith."
"No that's not possible, the Jedi would be aware of it."
"The Dark-side of the Force has clouded their vision my friend."

Why would he trust a Sith in the first place?

The Jedi fell because of Sidious with his complex orchestrating behind the curtains.

 

I don’t think anyone is putting more blame on the Jedi than they put on Sidious, but Sidious did take advantage of the Jedi’s flaws.
That’s what Luke is talking about when he says they allowed him to take over. He’s not saying that they deliberately, purposefully allowed it, but that their flaws allowed for it to happen.
Something similar happened to his Jedi and that’s why he’s afraid of having another go at it. The risk of history repeating itself, again, seems too great. He fears that the Jedi are inherently flawed.

 

My interpretation of that scene is that when Luke decides to 'myth bust' the Jedi to Rey, he is referring purely to the flawed Jedi Order we see in the PT, not necessarily the Jedi religion as a concept. It's also fair to say that Luke is stating this from a place of disillusionment himself, having lost his nephew to the Dark Side. He sees his fathers generation of Jedi fail, as well as his own, and decides that preserving the religion is no longer worth it. What's more important IMO is that, by the end of the film he has rejected this viewpoint, and declares himself a Jedi once more. "I will not be the last Jedi."

I think Luke's views on the Jedi should be examined within the context of TLJ's thematic commentry on legends.

 

The problem with TLJ Luke is not that he sees the flaws of the Jedi Order, but that he throws the baby out with the bath water. It is almost like we have to forget he failed, reset and pushed forward multiple times in the OT.

If you want to compare it to religion, it would be like somebody that has talked to God (verified the Force is real) and then decided to shut themselves off from it because a religious sect got a few things wrong. It would be illogical.

 

But he also failed. It’s perfectly understandable that he would lose heart.

 

However by the end of the movie, Luke has declared himself a Jedi once more. "I will not be the last Jedi." So clearly his earlier feeling that, "it's time for the Jedi to end." Is only temporary. Like @Lulu Mars says, he'd lost his nephew to the Dark-side, and so was probably not in the best place mentally.

Hopefully when TLJ is released on DVD we'll get some clarification regarding Luke's opinion of the Jedi.

 

Luke's journey has been a series of failures. The idea that he doesn't know how to deal with and learn from failure is essentially throwing out Luke's core traits.

 

Redeeming his dad was a failure?

 

It is actually a validation of his character trait to be imperfect, reset and finish what he started in short order.

 

”A few things wrong”!? That’s quite an understatement. In just a few decades the Jedi had trained THREE evil tyrants. Who all helped kill thousands, or even millions. The Jedi Order had become a school for future Dark Side users. When it happened a 3rd time with Ben Solo Luke was entitled to say “enough is enough”. That’s three strikes. It’s too dangerous to continue training people. Time for the Jedi to end. That’s not the only conclusion but it’s far from illogical.

 

That's like saying just leaving the spilled milk to dry and sour on the floor is a perfectly logical conclusion to reach.

Did Snoke and Palps receive their training from the Jedi Council? The idea that two out of thousands is a high *failure* rate and stopping training altogether will "work the problem out" is .... myopic vanity.

 

The problem isn't the rehashing of the Empire. The problem is rehashing the same dynamics between the Empire and the Rebels. All they had to do was flip the roles and that alone would make it alot more interesting. But instead, they came up with some convoluted proxy war and muscled out the Republic so they can get back to what they want to do which is plucky Rebels vs tyrannical Empire.

 

Yeah there are two sides to the argument. It’s not a black & white issue. Neither side is illogical though. Those ex-Jedi helped to kill millions. The damage done when a Jedi goes rogue is like a super-weapon falling into the hands of evil. If the US had a nuclear weapon stolen & was used to destroy a city, it would be a crisis that would spark debate. If it happened again many would call for the abolishment of such weapons. If it happened a third time there’d be a huge outcry calling for total nuclear disarmament. That would not be illogical under those circumstances. However you & others could rightly point out that other nations, possibly with evil intent also have nukes. That’s also logical. Then add the element of Luke’s feelings of guilt. His own father was the 2nd nuke & he blames himself for the 3rd. I’m not sure how anyone can question his response to that. It’s the most relatable human reaction imaginable. Only talking about logic is not taking his feelings on the matter into account. That’s not how people work.

 

It would have been interesting to treat the New Republic as the separate Chinese States following a Dynasty and Empire era. Explore the idea that the Rebels were united in ending the Empire, but had vastly different visions of what was to come after. This would also carry over to the Imperial side as perhaps Order being the unifying discipline, but the means in which to achieve it are disputed. Some states might have lower tyrants (Governors) refusing to cede power because they know it means the executioner's chair.

Luke's dilemma would be how the Jedi Order fits into all of this, or if it does at all.

The First Order could rise out of the chaos. Whereas in the past the "rebels" would band together against a common threat, now they refuse to "lose so many lives all over again" if the final cause cannot be defined.

The First Order could use this "head start" to quickly secure resources that will further paralyze a unified front against them.

Instead we got

Spoiler

Dooku was the only true failure. Vader actually had to follow his tortured destiny to correct events that were already set into motion and would have occurred with or without him.

Vader mostly destroyed the Jedi, which could be argued needed the flood. The Jedi Order were too far gone and unwilling to change. Luke was served up the greatest gift ever. A chance to bring the Jedi back to its roots. Something tells me killing a padawan in their sleep wasn't in the Ancient Jedi Texts. Not that Luke would know.

 

Not really. It's the same old "blame the Jedi/dogmatic Jedi/Jedi were wrong" narrative that has suddenly been plaguing fandom in the last few years. I'd refute every single one of his arguments using the movies and Lucas' commentaries as evidence if I wasn't too tired of repeating and arguing this same topic over and over again on so many threads (even current ones) on this forum and elsewhere.

 

What would be the point? That trilogy is a cautionary tale. The Jedi, like everybody else, have flaws and Sidious, as a representative of the dark side, takes advantage of those flaws. Just as he does with Anakin. And the Republic. And the Separatists.
To deny that is to miss a huge chunk of the point.

 

Clarification. Being informed on what's intended as opposed to misinformed.

That some Jedi have flaws is not and never was in question. It's stated in the movies, it's something recognized by their own. There's a difference between having flaws and extrapotate everything they do and stand for into a flaw, and/or that they let their flaws affect their decisions and actions.

 

I don’t think that everything they do and stand for is being extrapolated into a flaw. Especially not what they stand for, since what they stand for is compassion and selflessness.
It’s just that what Sidious does pushes them further and further away from that until finally, Mace Windu throws the Jedi code out the window and attempts to murder an unarmed prisoner to save his beloved Republic.

 

Ironically, Young's piece is full of flaws and serves as an example of a bigger problem that's been going around ever since TLJ came out; the way it's defenders have been justifying it by oversimplifying, dumbing down and devaluing the first six films, while also using exaggeration, inaccuracies, cherry picking out of context and using distorted false equivalencies to force their views like a puzzle piece into a place it doesn't go. (such as the memes of Yoda & Obi-Wan telling Luke that they gave up too to name one). Rather than also acknowledging the flaws within TLJ itself.

Ironically, people are pointing to the Jedi thinking they were infallible (which is fair enough), yet they've been putting them on trial as if they are supposed to be.

What was that last part of Young's first sentence?

I have a long rebuttal to his article ready to go, but yes, what's the point of getting into it here? Ultimately the piece could've just been one paragraph long simply saying what Alex, Lulu and Midi just said here, or one at least using honest comparisons. But no, it perpetuates these distorted views of the first six films that has been spreading around, which throws the Jedi under the bus with broad over-generalizations and points missed (and a little misplaced spite?).




And this isn't about Young. I don't mean to talk about him without him here to defend himself, I'm just using the posting of his article as an example of a bigger pattern.

 

Luke didn’t kill Ben in his sleep & didn’t even attempt to. He merely thought about it for one second. Completely understandable if he foresaw wholesale death & destruction.
Luke thought Vader could be redeemed only bcs he sensed it was possible. Based on Vader’s thoughts & feelings betraying him. Clearly Luke was hoping to sense some hope within Ben. Yet he found none.

 

I think Luke igniting his lightsaber was done in a split second of panic, one which he quickly overcame. It wasn't pre-planned. Luke is impulsive (like his dad) at times, but he's not a cold-blooded killer. If I thought that Rian Johnson had tried to make him one I would not be pleased, however I don't think that is the case.

Anyway, I'm interested to hear the director's commentary for that plot point.

 

Luke had to deliberately walk to Kylo's hut, sneak in, and ignite his lightsaber at the foot of Kylo's bed.

If he wasn't intending to carry through to killing him, then it seems like more than a split-second thing. Luke wanted to kill Kylo. He may have stopped at the last second, but Kylo didn't know that.

Honestly, you should be wary of any relative cold-blooded enough to stand over you brandishing a weapon in your sleep.

 

He deliberately walked to his hut to get a sense of his thoughts. His mental state. I’m sure killing him didn’t enter Luke’s thoughts until that one brief second.

 

Baz Edit: Nope

 

Except that isn't what happened at all. It wasn't cold blooded. It was full of mounting fear, dread and anger at what he foresaw AFTER walking into Ben's hut. Luke was put in that position before and was similarly restrained in the end. Even though the person under his blade was a family member who had once cold bloodeddly killed a school full of children.