ST Did You Like TLJ's Characterization of Luke Skywalker?

The fear and shame that Luke felt as a result of his perceived failures was palpable from the very start as was his attempt to distance himself from his pain. Rey, Chewie and R2 forced him to take an honest look at himself and hit rock bottom where he could be receptive to Yoda's final lesion.

In some ways this is what it really means to "bring balance to the Force" Instead of remaining some cosmic overly complicated theme , it is a very personal journey of self discovery and how to use both your strengths and weakness to better yourself and those around you. Unlike the cave where Luke took all of his weapons to fight the darkness within him, In TLJ he recognized that the true battle was to look deeply at his own mind, tame it , take full responsibility for his actions and apply the antidotes of courage, love and compassion to defeat fear anger and hate.

 

Agree, Luke's behavior after Ben Solo's fall reminds one of a kid. He goes off to a remote planet to pout. The parent Yoda comes to give him guidance to get him out of his funk.

It suggests that Luke has practically learned no wisdom in the 30 years since we last saw him, which is a shame, since Luke was always been the guy who kept the faith. He was undaunted when told that the size of the hole on the Death Star, he went out of his way to save his friends, he thought he could redeem Darth Vader! Yet we are asked to believe that he would not want to train a promising new Jedi, he would leave his sister to die by not coming to her aid, especially after learning of the death of his friend Han Solo. It is completely unbelievable. Rubbish.

 

There is an incessant need in Hollywood and in Disney movies specifically to humanize our protagonists and legends. To show that they're no better than the common man (or woman). Star Wars is fairy tale. The heroes are indeed human, but there is supposed to be a sense of being "bigger than life" that these few CAN rise up to be extraordinary. That there is a "destiny". Let Luke Skywalker live up to what we wanted him to be and without the "reality" that he was largely a failure after ROTJ and only redeemed himself again at the very end.

The new movie does revisit this to a degree with the ending (Slave kids on Canto Bight), but I really feel like it was a bit of a "character assassination" of Luke Skywalker.

• Luke Skywalker doesn't toss the lightsaber over his shoulder without a regard for the person that traveled so far to find him. (and largely without knowing why)
• Luke Skywalker doesn't activate his lightsaber based on a POSSIBILITY or even a likelihood that Ben Solo would become a Dark Sider/Sith.
• Luke Skywalker doesn't give up on a just cause or a person, no matter how "far gone" they seem.

RJ found it necessary to invert everything that we previously loved about Luke Skywalker. "Why?" I will never know.

I get it. This movie literally screams to one and all (via Kylo) that the past is gone. What's done is done. Star Wars is made horrifyingly anew in all of it's modern "we all live in a grey area of morality". This was the OPPOSITE of the intent of George Lucas, where the bad guys literally wore Black and the good guys literally wore White. We can really never go home again. The Star Wars that most of us loved is dead.

 

He’s left his friends before while they were being hunted to learn.

He faced mental blocks on Dagobah & thought things were impossible.

He jumped off a ledge, risking death, to escape his problems.

Throw PTSD from war and the stages of grief and it’s very believable. I know tons of veterans who moved out to a cabin up north to live a more relaxed life of fishing and hunting.

This is a guy from a family where every other male but him as become a psychopath. Is it really so hard to believe the Dark Side called briefly and he answered for one of the first times in his life before regaining control? Wouldn’t such an experience bring shame and confusion to a guy who has tried to define himself by being different than Vader in that way? Also, we only know the truth is closer to Luke’s version. The point was that our own actions can be interpreters differently by others. It’s an important message for the times to be honest.

When any of us get back around respected elders we tend to seem younger again.

 

Painfully I have to go see TLJ again today with my children.

I hate RJ for what he's done. Luke in TLJ is worse than Jar Jar Binks in TPM.

 

At the moment, I feel Luke got a great ending. I've only seen the film once, but I don't see the character assassination so many people see.

 

They ruined four films and 40 years worth of an iconic character in one fell swoop.

Turr-bull, turr-bull, turr-bull!

AND.....I don't even have an issue with him momentarily contemplating striking down Ben Solo.

 

Exactly. You have to realize that people change. I just went to my 10 year high school reunion. If you met my high school self, you would not think it's the same person. That's just 10 years. We're looking at Luke after 30 years. He dealt with the fear of his own nephew turning to the Dark Side then he pushed him to the Dark Side. He slipped into fear and then made a huge mistake.

 

They ruined four films and 40 years worth of an iconic character in one fell swoop.

Turr-bull, turr-bull, turr-bull!

AND.....I don't even have an issue with him momentarily contemplating striking down Ben Solo.

 

yeah I agree with you there , I mean it doesn't serve either character well , and this is something that really needed to be good , more than just 'oh I thought there was evil in him' .

on the other hand I quite like the idea that Luke beat him without fighting physically in the finale .

 

I've said this elsewhere, but I'm okay with MOST of what they did. Where I really run into an issue is that Luke would NEVER give up and abandon his family. From the opening of A New Hope to Return of the Jedi, Luke put his family and friends ahead of himself. He was willing to give up the chance of a grand adventure and learning more about his father (something he desperately wanted) for the sake of his Aunt and Uncle. He ran into danger for for Han and Leia and gave up the Jedi training he badly wanted. And in ROTJ he was willing to sacrifice his life for the chance it might save his father and for the rebellion.

I do not buy that Luke would just give up, leave his family and friends behind and go to die on some island. And if he did, it would take a hell of a lot more then what we saw in this film. They could recon some of this and let us know there was way more going on then what we saw, but at this point, it does not make sense for the character and it does not work.

 

I think his character was horrible. This is not the Luke Skywalker that I admired as a kid. But I'm not too bothered about it either. Anakin was my hero and his story was complete a long time ago. And there's always Legends Luke for me.

 

They ruined four films and 40 years worth of an iconic character in one fell swoop.

Turr-bull, turr-bull, turr-bull!

AND.....I don't even have an issue with him momentarily contemplating striking down Ben Solo.

 

Abrams gave Han the perfect send off, it would seem RJ didn't see that and how being faithful to an established character sometimes is the right thing to do. However we'll wait to see how it plays out, as it is it's a massive anti-climax for many.

 

I hated every worthless second of it. This film is a non-canonical parody as far as I am concerned.

 

Luke achieved as a youth, with the help of his friends and elders. Unfortunately, over many years, left to his own devices, he suffered self-doubt. It runs in the family, and when your own father was partially responsible for the destruction of an entire republic, it's not hard to understand why he had a crisis of confidence in the Skywalker dynasty, as represented by Ben Solo. It all went belly up and he ended up a regretful old man. This is all very human and a great starting point to an arc that finally allows him to make peace with himself. I thought it was terrific and when folk are over the initial shock I hope they can appreciate it more.

 

An "all-ready-for-action" Luke after years as an hermit would have been the parody for me.
Luke Skywalker was human and his academy disaster was so huge and tragic that he just changed: he simply lost all hope and decided to hide out to avoid more failures.
Rey brought the missing spark back thus allowing him to be the greatest jedi ever one last time - more or less - on Crait.

I for one do not see any assassination of our beloved hero. And I really hope to see him one more time as a Force Ghost on Episode IX.

 

It was terrible.

 

I think it was a quite brilliant choice to portray Luke this way - though only after one viewing of TLJ. Having seen the OT as a kid, I've always seen Luke as that grand hero or legend that he kinda resents himself to be in TLJ. Now I'm in my late 30s and sort of relates to this new Luke in a different light, due to experiences in my own life.

On a more nostalgic note - Luke's struggles and ultimate failure with the "new Jedi Order" and his self-imposed exile was sort of reminiscent of the way I always imagined Obi-Wan failing Anakin and moving to Tatooine. (Yeah, the PT never made any sense to me).

 

Technically we have that with Marvel. They already make happy happy fun and camp-y movies, so it would make a bit more sense to just have Superman being more realistic. Plus we've gotten that before so I don't mind the change.

JLA however...

 

Ironically, that still has not happened. By the end of the The Last Jedi, the good guys and the bad guys are separately divided into two camps with no overlap whatsoever. Even George managed to explore morality as a concept in a far deeper way in by displaying a Jedi Order that had fallen to bureaucracy, legalism and the role of warrior rather than scholar and peacekeeper. Any statement about the sequel trilogy making Star Wars "more grey than ever" just seems like pretentious posturing.

 

Something seems to be off with the forum. I pressed 'Submit' and nothing happened. It just sat them. I pressed submit again and got a double post, so I'm deleting the first one here.

 

Yes. Luke did NOT go to the Dark Side. Even at his lowest point. YAY!!!!

That was one of the things that I disliked most about the EU; they had Luke. going over to the Sith which was ridiculous. Bah! Phooey! If he didn't go dark in TESB or ROTJ, then he wasn't going to go Dark, Period. And TLJ wipes that all out! BIG YAY!

I'm disappointed that he won't be there in the flesh for the next one, but his send-off was just as good as Han Solo's in the last movie. And he all but promised to haunt Kylo Ren, so we may get a taste-o-Luke in Episode IX.

Luke would rather that he and the Jedi Order fade away on an island on some distant planet than go Dark. That is Luke. When he looked at Ben/Kylo, he saw him making the same mistakes as the old Jedi Order which was a huge catastrophe. Honestly, I don't think he could see a way out of it until Rey showed up. I don't mean to dis Luke, but he was never a guy with a huge amount of imagination.

And I get the impression that he did not have a lot of students. That would NOT have been up to Luke. It all depended on who turned up on Luke's doorstep with the potential to train. The Old Republic Jedi had a whole infrastructure for finding people and that was gone. Maybe they weren't there at all? Is that why Ep. VII was called 'The Force Awakens'? There was not much going on in with the Force the first place?

Episode VII and VIII are really one big story. No place for explanations about what had been going on since Episode VI without it looking like clumsy exposition. Artistically, the story works without the backstory since Episode VI that we were all craving. I wonder if that was deliberate.

The Clone Wars was a throw-away line that was never fleshed out in the OT until we got the prequels and the animated series. Will we get the filler on what happened between Episode VI and VII that way. I really, really hope so.

However, they COULD have put in more throw-away lines that they did SOMETHING between Episode VI and VII without slowing the story down. I will fault them for that.

 

It is pathetic that Disney allowed Johnson to write Luke like this. Would have preferred the Legends version of Luke.

 

Havent responded until a second viewing. After a 2nd viewing, I hate it even more than I did walking out of the first one. Rian Johnson has the keys to a new trilogy?

I will leave with the video which captures my thoughts.