ST Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) in the ST

You are working entirely from your own perspective on that scene in Empire here. I don`t need or have ever needed "mental gymnastics" to make myself believe that it was not cowardly or anything like that. That thought never even entered my mind. I was gobsmacked reading people thinking like that. It was 100 % clearly a heroic sacrifice to me to not let yourself fall into enemy hands when you are beaten in a physical fight and can no longer fight nor flight.

What he did after the temple failure is not and never will be the same situation for me. Again, I`m gobsmacked that anyone even would think so. But people have different viewpoints, okay. You just can`t beam that analogy into people`s heads just because it is there for you. I for one think entirely differently and see that entirely differently.

So just as the scene in Empire was 100 % heroic to me, hiding on Ahch-To in shame and failure is 100 % cowardly to me. It`s really black and white for those two situations as far as I`m concerned.

 

You know, Mark has said that he believes Luke - as he personally sees Luke - could really be reduced to what we see in TLJ.

It would just involve more than just what we saw in TLJ.

 

You think it was heroic for the Last Jedi then to give up all hope of ever being able to save the people he cares about and trying to commit suicide?!

So, by that logic you think Luke would have been more heroic after the events of a temple if he’d walked up to a high height of a cliff and jumped in order to avoid becoming one with the Dark Side after an actual Dark Side moment?

Because he didn’t fight to the end. He could have fought harder. He could have forced his enemy to kill him in TESB. He could have ran and tried to tackle him. He could have had faith in an eventual escape plan. He did none. He gave up on life and his friends but life wasn’t through with him yet.

 

I don`t think there is any "in his mind". He did fail Leia. And Han. Even Ben. The one thing the character doesn`t do is blame himself when it is unwarranted. He was actually at fault.

I don`t think he tried to "commit suicide". That is your interpretation of the scene. It is not and never will be mine. So again, you are applying your logic to it.

To me he had no physical option anymore left there. Letting himself get caught on some hope that it worked out is a risk I can understand not taking. He accepted his death in that situation as the least possible harm. It`s not "abandoning the fight" if you can`t actually fight anymore. Biggs didn`t "abandon the fight" by being killed. Wedge didn`t "abadon the fight" because he was of no good as a wingman in the trench star run with his busted X-wing.

Luke throwing himself at Vader in his condition would have been ridiculous. It`s like the Black Knight in Monty Python saying "come on, come on, fight me" when he is just a legless and armless stump on the ground. That`s satire for a reason.

Since for me the circumstances make ALL the difference, nope. He was not physically in a situation where he couldn`t fight anymore. He was able-bodied, he was not under a current physical threat. He could leave the planet and do what he wanted. Including trying to fix his mistakes and/or helping the Resistance/Rebellion.

I don`t equate the two situations. And never will because it doesn`t even compute for me that those are remotely alike.

 

Darned straight Luke’s journey in the OT was ultimately about growing up, and family. Becoming a Jedi was sorts symbolic window-dressing.

The SG knows this. PH has indicated as much.

Imo...from what I gather...not even close

 

That’s easy. I wanted Luke to be shown the respect that an iconic character of 40 years; a character who was a hero for children and adults alike for decades, deserved. Instead of being disconstructed, his character, personality, core traits, and integrity, should have remained in place. Luke should have been a true Jedi teacher and mentor for Rey. Their relationship should have been the “ beating heart” of the film that Rian Johnson once said it was. Instead, it was antagonistic, with Rey even attacking Luke and Luke being a jerk with her. This was supposed to be the passing of the baton, but Luke never taught her anything, and she didn’t even need to learn anything.

I also feel that Luke should have lived to restore the Jedi order that was lost because of kylo’s betrayal. This legacy should be his, not just handed off to Rey. She hasn’t earned it; Luke with all of his sacrifices and struggles and years of Jedi training and searching for all things Jedi, has. Luke’s father helped destroy the Jedi. It would have been appropriate and fitting for his son to rebuild it. Luke could have even done this mostly or entirely off-camera between or during future films.

I would have liked one action scene with Luke and Rey working together against evil too, where Luke got to use his green lightsaber to defend others, but at least if Luke would have been allowed to train Rey and restore the Jedi order, I would have been satisfied with that. I could have accepted not having the thrilling scene that I would have liked.

In the end, Luke got nothing, and it would have been better if none of the skywalkers ever would have been born. I think that’s a really sad and disappointing way to end the skywalker saga.

Also, Luke should never have been put into the position of being partly responsible for kylo’s fall. (Or for for that of HALF of his Jedi order) We were already told in TFA that snoke was the problem. It should have remained that way. Kylo should have betrayed Luke; it shouldn’t almost seem like it’s the other way around. I can’t tell you how much I hate it when filmmakers try to raise a new character or make a new character look better or more sympathetic by bringing down or blaming an established, beloved character. This always backfires with me. I now actually want Kylo to die with no redemption at all. My allegiance for about 30 years has been with Luke. Why would I choose Kylo over Luke now?

I knew that this wasn’t supposed to be Luke’s story. But if it wasn’t his story, he shouldn’t have been the one making mistakes and still needing to learn. That should have been Rey. I even would have been okay with Luke dying before or at the beginning of TFA, IF he would have died a hero, with his integrity and character intact, and if he would have left behind a Jedi legacy, a group of Jedi knights who were taught by Luke, and who would go on to take his place, standing against evil and protecting the galaxy. That certainly would have been better than having Luke brought down so low and being virtually unrecognizable as the character from the OT.

 

I disagree. To me "becoming a Jedi" was his arc. At the very least it was the storyline I was invested in. Just growing up and family are not stories in and of themselves for me. They should while a character has a real story to go through.

 

Every character has an arc, but should anyone other than the main protagonist be on a hero's journey? I mean, that's kind of a major aspect to the story. Han had an obvious arc in the OT -- going from the selfish loner to a part of the family, but the main plot of the story didn't follow HIM the way it did Luke's evolution.

 

For many people the fact that Luke makes ZERO attempt to rectify his own mistakes is so out of character it borders on being a completely different character altogether. That isn't the idealistic Luke we know from the CT, so why change one character so drastically when both Han and Leia are the same people who have just drifted apart? Yes Luke can become cynical just as Obi-Wan had, but it never stopped Obi-Wan from doing what was right, when the time came Obi-Wan didn't make excuses no matter if it could make matters worse. Luke follows this in TESB, he follows the example of his master just as his father would've done.

Why didn't Obi-Wan just project himself onto DS1 and create a diversion for Luke and Han to rescue Leia? That is something that wasn't addressed when RJ was writing TLJ, it's something any writer has to encompass in what went before cannot be ignored or rewritten. Obi-Wan has had 19 years to learn how to project himself but doesn't, Luke has from the time Rey leaves and the FO attack Crait unless he spent time exploring the Force when he should've been teaching his students.

Ultimately having a deeply flawed Luke isn't the problem, it's the resolution that brings him back to fulfil his "heroes journey" that defines him and in that the film has so far failed...but it does have the chance to complete the journey and Luke finds a final peace with himself.

 

Yes. Surface-level. But fundamentally, it was coming-of-age, including coming to terms with who his family really was, and his own identity with relationship to that family.

The Hero’s Journey is considered both a great adventure and coming-of-age. Doesn’t have to be one or the other.

 

It always appeared that Luke's arc was becoming a Jedi Knight and his final test was facing the temptation of the Darkside and not giving in to it hence his statement "I am a Jedi, like my father before me." In that one sentence he denounced everything that the Empire and Darth Vader was and accepted everything which was right about the Jedi. Selflessness and Sacrifice and a willingness to DIE on the Death Star. At the point and time when he was getting electrocuted by Force Lightning he had no clue that Lando would succeed in blowing up the Death Star or not. Which is another reason why the version of Luke in TLJ is terribly flawed and a mischaracterization.

 

I’m rarely on these boards these days, so perhaps someone can catch me up -

Has there been any serious consideration that we have not yet been told the whole story re broken!Luke?

 

What is there to tell? RJ's version: Ben is corrupted, Luke considering killing him, Ben brings the roof down on him and murders some students and leaves with others, Luke goes to into seclusion with the intention of the Jedi Order ending with him.

What else is there to say? We know a lot more about Luke during those six years than we know about many aspects of the ST so far.

@Darth Chiznuk there's nothing per se WRONG with it, but is really strange to hype up the ST as being about handing off to the new generation, and then having the new generation bond so little with the old, but then turn around and have the major evolution also come from the old character and not the new. Luke is the one who continues to learn, while the principle protagonist has stayed the same 2/3 of the way through, other than a 5-minute freakout in part 1. Rey is all-in at the end of TFA, and moreso than ever in TLJ.

What if Obi-Wan was the character who evolved and learned in ANH rather than Luke; who would the film really have been about? The new hope or the old knight?

 

It's almost like Luke put his faith in something besides himself. Something he's doing throughout his exile.

 

The crowd I saw TLJ with was dead silent at the end. It was like filing out of a funeral. I knew they had made a lot of people upset, but I have to tell you, I really appreciate you acknowledging the backlash is real. My phone started blowing up with people who were confused, shocked, or downright angry by that night (I saw it first thing Friday morning).

I knew the backlash was coming, because I was absolutely furious, and where's there one's or two, there's bound to be many more.

It's been three months, and I am still angry and shocked. Talking about it here is my way of working through it.

 

Yeah but personally I`m really there for the adventure story. If you take that away, my interest goes too.

Theoretically, probably nothing. My problem is more that this "hero`s journey" leads me to not seeing the character as a hero anymore. It destroys the character for me in this timeline, even all the way back to the OT retroactively.

Now I still have another timeline that allows me to keep the OT and my love for the character intact but the ST`s version of a "hero`s journey" is just not it.

 

Considering how much I’ve heard people complain that TLJ did not give an adaquate-enough justification for broken!Luke, I thought perhaps some would speculate that there was indeed more to it? There *is* another movie coming, after all

Not expecting that to be the dominant theory, or for disappointed fans to hang their hoped on it, but I’m surprised this hasn’t occured to anyone as at least a reasonable possibility?

 

I think it was always gonna be the case because it kicks conventional, you might say "old-fashioned" ideas of heroism in the face. Not everyone likes to see the hero like that. And those conventional ideas of heroism are still popular (so old-fashioned might be the wrong term even), all the Marvel movies use them to great success. I like my struggles in hero`s journeys, just not in the way TLJ depicted.

 

My best friend of more than 30 years -- we are both 41 -- and our wives went, and afterward headed to lunch. No one said a word. Finally, my friend's wife said 'What's wrong? You didn't like it, did you?' I don't think anyone wanted to be the first one to say what we all were thinking for fear of raining on the others' parade in case they did like it, but by the time we got to lunch, it was open season and the insults and obscenities were flying. We all needed drinks for a far different reason.

My friend's wife said to me "I was afraid to look at you when Luke died, but when I did, you had no expression on your face whatsoever, and it scared me." My wife said "I did the same thing, but when I saw his face, I said to myself 'He's already checked out; he hated this movie as much as I did, and he doesn't give a _______.' "

My wife's insight served her well.

 

Given the unsubstantiated assumptions people make there is definitely room for fleshing out.