ST Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) in the ST

Luke's character is beyond ruined. FG Luke won't be allowed to have any real role in the film, especially not something that will overshadow Princess Perfect Rey. The only scenario I can see happening is somehow over the course of the next 10 years or so canon books, comics somehow retcon or flesh out the failures of Rian and JJ and bring some semblance of heroism and honor back to Luke as a character post ROTJ.

 

Rey as written in The Last Jedi has demonstrated that she did not need nor even want Luke's help. That is her connection and dynamic to and with Luke in the film - to find him and discover she doesn't need him after all. The scene with Yoda and all her inexplicable Force feats reinforce this. That's how the story was written.

 

Wait. Rey spent a large chunk of her time on Ahch-to asking for Luke's help. It was Luke who was being standoffish. So it's not true that she didn't want Luke's help.

Rey's story is more about being independent and learning to do things for yourself and I don't know if this is a message that they want to send to current generations? That sometimes no one will define you for you, no one will just give you a place (and if they do, sometimes that's actually not a good thing), sometimes no one will spoon feed you the answers, sometimes you just have to develop yourself and teach yourself.

In any case, I think that Luke saying to Yoda that he can't be what Rey needs is kind of meaningful, in that Rey actually wants A LOT from Luke. It goes rather beyond just a teacher-student relationship. I think that after her path in TLJ, Rey might not have so many expectations, i.e. that Luke will no longer be expected to do everything for her--define her identity, substitute for her parents, determine for her her place in things, save the galaxy while she provides support, etc. in addition to teaching her about the Force.

I can't talk about her Force feats without IX as I feel some of it will be cleared up by IX.

 

In the end...she did not need Luke's help. That is how the dynamic was written.

 

Still, she will probably end up learning things from Luke in IX.

 

I agree she is not a jedi yet.

Regarding ST not being about Luke Skywalker,
this is the skywalker saga and Rey is a "nobody" .

Luke still holds more importance than Rey bcoz this is his family's story.

Why did i watch the previous six movies if in the end they will show that the skywalkers are a curse on the galaxy and Rey "nobody" will fix everything skywalkers ruined?

If they wanted to show how great, independent and awesome Rey is they should have given her a different trilogy than the saga.

They basically are trying to show that the skywalkers are wrong and messed up but Rey "nobody" is the solution to everything.

Now she has MF, Anakin's saber, is new face of the resistance and will probably start a new jedi order.

While Luke, Han, Leia are all dead.
Kylo is the big bad.
Anakin as Darth Vader is the most hated man of the galaxy.

What a way to make Rey important.

 

I don't know. I feel like Rey is more important than Luke in the ST because she is the protagonist...

 

Folks, the entire point of Yoda’s last words to Luke are to mentor Rey from the beyond. Yoda knows he can’t get off the island. He knows Rey has the texts. Yoda tells him “Lose Rey we must not” and to Pass on what he has learned. Strength. Mystery. But folly and failure. Yes failure most of all.”

They clearly set up Luke and Rey’s relationship to be in a better place then where it ended in Ahch-To. She learned her life lesson setback. He learned his. He found purpose. She is less confident than ever at the end.

 

Seeing how she has been given everything she needs by apparent design, I do not think that the character has suffered any poignant nor notable setbacks, except in that she learned being on Acht-to that Luke wasn't going to help her - not in life. So, amounts to a bit of time wasted, which ultimately doesn't matter because she's been empowered with unexplained Force skills since the start of the film. I do not think she learned anything relevant from Luke on camera. Except whatever she wants to believe or feel about Luke just after he dies. Maybe Luke will mentor her in IX, or maybe he will have something better to do.

 

She learned how to connect to the Force beyond adrenaline-fueled self defence mechanisms she didn’t understand.

It’s the entire reason her final Force epiphany involves a situation where she’s not under direct threat of violence herself and has to reach out in a peaceful calm mind as Luke taught her in order to go beyond what she could. That’s why she says “lifting rocks” there because she realizes the irony and is reminded of her most important lesson (arguably the single most important lesson for a Force user to have). She wasn’t a pessimist so she didn’t have Luke’s block on Dagobah. Luke knows this from seeing how much she counters his critique of the Jedi Order. He knows that not only is she gifted but she’s optimistic, too. That optimism for what she’s doing the longer she speaks with Kylo Ren and that’s him slowly chipping away at it and planting doubt in her mind and eventually she’s grown cynical and angry and starts seeking out easier solutions and seeing optimism in him. Her greatest strength turned to weakness. All Dark Side path steps.

When the rocks start moving one by one and each person sees her power in that shot she eventually slowly opens her eyes and realizes she didn’t try to do it. Do or do not. She did it.

I also paid closer attention recently to her saber training sequence. It starts very clearly with her staff and her showing all of her critics that she likely does self training with that staff regularly. Like a work out routine. She does this on her own and it’s all staff at first and she’s practicing control with it and we see how remarkable she is with the staff after like a decade of working at it and defending herself on Jakku. Then, she looks over at the saber and tries to apply some of her same skills from a decade of mastering the staff to the saber. She starts out slowly. Trying to one hand it and slowly bringing it to each side of the rock and stopping. She’s testing her movement and control with it. She doesn’t seem to like one handing it as much and reverts over to a 2 handed style briefly like how she holds her staff. She gains confidence and tries the same spin we just saw her do with the staff earlier in the scene but she can’t do it anywhere near as fast. She does do it but much more slowly. She’s happy. She can see some transference of her formidable staff skill and that is as awesome for her future hand to hand combat skill as Luke’s Force-inspired piloting skill transferred over to making him immediately the best Rebel pilot. Rey then tries her regular daily routine of moves with the saber and it starts out promising but she still lacks control and slices right through the rock. A reminder that while some of her staff skills are being transferred, not all are yet.

The scene is a nice sequence of not only development but also some minor retconning that suggests she may have made this staff training routine a significant portion of her life on Jakku and again helps explain her proficiency.

 

Luke can telepathically speak to Leia and Rey presumably, who could come pick him up. The idea that Luke is stranded on Ahch-To is silly.

 

agree 100%.

 

Both Rey and Leia were too busy in combat to come get Luke a second time after Rey left. And the survivors of the Resistance needed a miracle and got one in Luke but it cost him his life to pull off. One one person answered the distress call: Luke.

 

Isn't the entirety of The Force Awakens about finding Luke Skywalker? Wasnt that Leia's priority number one? Leia believed so much in this and Luke, when he decides to plug himself back into the matrix, does not senses a single thing? Instead, he decides to procrastinate--do or do not there is no try--for a few minutes for Rey and Chewie to leave, and then what the heck he meditates and decides to teleport to the rebel base right on schedule? Convenient.

 

Went for 7th viewing on Monday, y'know Luke still has really great hair even for an Ach-To island hermit in his 60s. And it gets better with his Force Projection.

 

I just wanna say how great this new policy is. It's clear and most of all it encourages good discussion.

Cheers.

 

On my third viewing, a couple of moments really made me smile. Moment's where Hamil's delivery brought back the tone and inflection of young Luke Skywalker.

"But the sacred Jedi Texts!"

Sounds just like that eager young adventurer we knew in Empire and ANH.

I definitely think that was intentional on Mark's part.

 

I was with my sister and cousins for a viewing and even before we were laughing about the "Sacred Jedi Texts!" line and we were the ones in a packed house laughing at that bit again too.

 

Yes. It's very similar delivery to "But I've learned so much since then!" and "I am ready! Ben tell him I'm read-*bump*!"

 

Apparently Leia should have gone to her BROTHER herself instead of sending a super powerful but aloof stranger, and repeated her ANH plea to Obi-Wan to Luke in person, and he'd have then hopped aboard the falcon with her and flown to meet the Resistance.

People are failing to see this consequence of Rey being unrelated and unconnected in any way prior to Luke: It makes Leia's decision at the end of TFA a very very poor one and weakens her agency and her character.

Earlier in TFA, we see Leia tell Han that the Force connection between Luke and Ben is not as important as the Family connection between Han and Ben. She posits (correctly) that as his father, Han has a better chance of reaching Ben than Luke as a Jedi does.

So it stands to reason that, character-wise, Leia would also see how her family connection to Luke would be more important to reaching and reasoning with Luke than any force connection would be, particularly the Force of a young person Luke doesn't even know.

Imagine an ending to TFA in which Leia arrives on Ach-To and hands Luke his old lightsaber. The lightsaber he lost then called out to her for help in ESB. Now it is Leia who is asking Luke for help. She extends the saber and Luke takes it. He ignites his father's sword, the familiar blue glow hits his face again at long last as the Skywalker twins lock eyes, steeling their nerves for the fight ahead against the First Order...IRIS OUT.

Then TLJ opens with Luke explaining to Leia the ancient knowledge and true understanding of the Force he's discovered at the original Jedi Temple (this begins her journey to embracing the Force more thoroughly), and Poe is trying to lead the Resistance himself under siege with Rey and Finn trying to help him, but Holdo throwing an authoritarian wrench in the works...

 

Of ALL the characters, Leia should be the LAST person to give up on Kylo Ren.

 

Well each that's kind of the point. Everyone's lost hope. The galaxy has decide it can't fight the First Order, and Leia has given up ho in saving her son. Luke restores the hope to both.

 

By the time Luke is willing help the Resistance, Leia and the soldiers are trapped behind a massive door waiting to die.

 

Ha, yeah. I think there are some nice flashes of the old luke under the embittered surface.