A/V Episode VIII - THE LAST JEDI - Official Movie Discussion Thread

Well in my scenario Luke wouldn't have pulled a saber on Ben at all, so it's unclear whether Ben would have reacted via massacre if he had nothing to react to. Even if Ben wakes up and sees Luke staring at him, and the worst happens (Ben tries to go on a weaponless attack), I don't think Ben would have been able to kill anyone. Remember Palpatine himself seemed pretty useless without a saber against Windu, and presumably Ben hasn't learned Force lightning.

I'd comment on the KoR, but we know so little of them. If they were evil before the massacre, they shouldn't have gotten sabers either. If they don't have sabers, and they all join with Ben to rush Luke, I think Luke can Force push them all down. But we're getting into a hypothetical battle here, so who knows.

 

So your Luke viscerally lives the events of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, the destruction of the New Republic, the burning of the Temple, the deaths of his students, the murder of Han Solo, Leia floating near lifeless in space, plus whatever evil Kylo gets up to as Supreme Leader, and he just... Nothing? Luke who abandoned his Jedi training because of the comparably less intense vision of Cloud City. Luke who nearly murdered his father because he threatened to corrupt Leia. That Luke isn't even gonna REACT to this horrific desire in his nephew's heart?

My Luke Skywalker loves his family too much to act like a robot. His mastery is demonstrated in not acting on the instinct; to not even HAVE the instinct would make him a completely different person than the one we've known.


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I'm not sure I can phrase my thoughts correctly, so I'll let movie/tv characters do it for me.

Luke: "So I just let Han and Leia die?"
Yoda: "If you honor what they fight for? Yes."

Miles Straume on the tv show Lost (the Lost gang is about to ignite a nuclear weapon on the Others to prevent 'the Incident'): Has it occurred to you that maybe we're going to cause what we're trying to prevent? So maybe the best thing to do is to do nothing.

Now I don't mean literally Luke do completely nothing. I already said he not give Ben and the KoR sabers, don't ignite a saber on Ben (following Jedi rules on control). That's what the rules are for. By following them, Luke massively minimizes any damage Ben and the KoR can cause. And that's all he can do. Like Anakin should have done in ROTS: get Padme the best medical care and hope for the best.

By venturing into illegal territory (pulling a weapon on a sleeping kid), Luke totters along the same mistake as his father (although not nearly as bad of course).

 

So, was Luke literally seeing the events of the ST an addition in the novel? Because what Luke said he saw in the movie itself was pretty darn vague.

Anyways, if we are running with the "Ben Solo was born an irredeemable piece of human garbage" angle, I'd argue it actually makes Luke more culpable not less. Its basically knowingly taking an aspiring school shooter into you class, giving him all the guns and explosives he needs, and then teaching him how to use them.

 

If characters always made the best choices in all situations... well we wouldn't really have any stories to discuss in the first place.

 

And yet you condemn Luke for removing himself from the situation.

What rules? The old Jedi Order is gone, and even if their rules still applied, nothing in those rules stopped them from becoming Generals in an interplanetary war.

Yoda's rules? Yoda told Luke to confront Vader. Obi-Wan's? Obi-Wan told Luke the Emperor would win if Luke could not KILL Vader. Sounds to me like drawing a weapon on a man (Ben is older than Luke in Return of the Jedi, older than Anakin in Revenge of the Sith, he is not a "kid" and you are skewing the argument by calling him that) who intends to murder everything is actually what the rules say to do.

There've been multiple clips posted of Jedi who instinctively light their weapons out of surprise. But Luke has to be an inhuman superman better than anyone before or since. Luke has to have crystal clarity of the future (which no other Jedi has had or is expected to have) so he knows which students to deny lightsaber training. Never mind that the lightsaber is a SPIRITUAL tool as well as a weapon, that building one is an integral part of training, we'll just deny them part of their spiritual growth because they're friends with Ben. We'll make sure their peers know they're different, know that they can't be trusted, that will also definitely help keep them from splitting away.

Did Legends Luke get this kind of abuse from the fandom for losing his nephew and at least a half dozen students to the dark side? Or was that ok cuz they were spread out? Did he get this kind of abuse for turning to the dark side himself? No wonder he lost a student every five years.


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Legends of Luke has got plenty of criticism, including killing Jacen when there was still possibility of redemption. He got criticism for ever accepting Jacen/Vergere's ends justifying the means philosophy. He got plenty of criticism both in universe and out for absolving Kyp and his Dark Empire actions. He still gets criticism over his "Compassion is for those who deserve it" mentality.

Legends Luke got plenty of criticism for training Brakiss even knowing Brakiss was trouble--then training him anyway. That criticism is identical to the criticism canon Luke is getting with Ben I think.

Legends Luke outright says in 'The Jedi Path' in his margin scribbles that his rushing students to lightsabers was wrong, and he cites the Jacen/Tenel Ka incident.

I am working on the assumption that canon Luke had codified some sort of rules on control, readiness for weapons, etc. at the start of his order but maybe I am wrong. It would be even worse if he made this school without setting ground rules in my opinion.

I don't understand how deadly weapons are necessary for spiritual growth. There are ways people can be a Jedi and grow as a Jedi without weapons. If spiritual growth of Luke's Jedi is hinged on lightsabers, I feel that maybe the way Luke is defining Jedi growth is incorrect.

Working on Ben's issues and solving them before he gets a lightsaber is far more essential to Jedi spiritual growth than getting that lightsaber sooner. I just don't understand how a deadly weapon is essential to spiritual growth.

The Jedi Code is still canon in Dark Disciple, unchanged from Legends. It says:

There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force.

There is nothing in here about lightsabers.

And if Ben is just not ready for a lightsaber, then he may never be ready. And that's it.

 

We've seen the rituals for building a lightsaber multiple times now, and had the spiritual lessons of those rituals spelled out explicitly for the children in the audience. It'll take you less time to just go rewatch them than it will for me to type it out.

Beyond that, the lightsaber is necessary because people are always trying to murder Jedi. If the sequel trilogy were about literally any other threat you'd be holding Luke responsible for his student's deaths because they did not have lightsabers to protect themselves from pirates/Mandalorians/Yuuzhan Vong/whatever.

Luke literally can't win here, no wonder he left for Ach-To.


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There are other weapons of defense aside from lightsabers. Stun blasters were introduced in the first few minutes of ANH. People use pepper spray in the real world.

Now yes, there is the possibility that Ben and the KoR might go around stunning everyone. Then try to kill them afterwards. But without full lightsabers, this may be difficult to do. Even if Ben and the KoR stun one person, others might run. If he somehow stunned everyone, the others might still wake up while Ben is trying to break the neck of the first victim (Leia woke up pretty fast after she was stunned in ANH). All in all, it's still better than sabers.

Legends Luke outright says in the Jedi Path that lightsabers should not be rushed, and he also faces the same threats to his students, i.e. Vong, Death Watch, Black Sun, whoever. But Legends Luke still says lightsabers should not be rushed knowing this full well, and who am I to disagree with him on this? Despite his other mistakes, I agree with his logic here.

 

You have to listen closely, it's in the Finn looks at Canto Bight in awe montage, but this lil dude has one of my favourite lines where some alien loses at gambling and smashes the table and the lil alien dude says "Rather! Where are your manners old man?!!" Just the vocal performance combined with the fairly basic puppet movement is hilarious.

 

Trying to work it out, but I'm getting nothing - which one did you have in mind?

 

Now I'm imagining this AU stun blaster ritual:

The stun pack is the heart of the blaster.

The heart is the blaster of the Jedi.

The Jedi is the stun pack of the Force.

The Force is the blaster of the... Wait, the stun pack is the Force of the... no, um...

Whatever, all are intertwined, go shoot some targets I guess. Good luck deflecting anything with that thing.


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Well, if this is the direction we're going - just go full Dark Tower!

 

That's quoted from Luminara Unduli in the Clone Wars microseries.

The old Jedi didn't get everything right. Qui-Gon recklessly let kid Anakin go with him to a war zone for example and the Jedi Council didn't complain about this.

Going back to the core Jedi code, there are no lightsabers mentioned. And one thing that would be expected of Luke is that when he made his new order, he would make changes to the old rules that fits logic rather than copying the old rules without question.

And if this means that unstable students get lightsabers later (or never), so be it. Ben can get a self-defense stun blaster, because in the end the potential damage he could do with a saber outweighs what could be gained if he got a saber before he was ready.

As for deflecting blaster bolts, TFA shows Ben can do that through the sheer power of the Force (freezing it in the air). Presumably he would also be trained in Force speed in dodging blaster fire (Force speed is canon per TPM) to make a stun blaster more than enough defense for him. Again, the risks of giving a saber to Ben before he is ready outweigh any benefits.

 

I don't know which one BobaMatt was think of, but I was definitely thinking about the Old Republic Novel Deceived about Darth Malgus when I was making my post about that scene.

 

Oh I meant the one literally named Sacrifice about how Jacen had to kill someone he loved to make the whole dark side thing real.

 

My problem with Luke in the ST is the fact that he goes into exile. I can accept he failed with Ben. He shouldn't have done what he did when Ben was sleeping, but I can see the reasoning why he did it, i.e. Luke is still impulsive and susceptible to the Dark Side like he was in TESB and ROTJ. Doesn't speak well about his character development in the last 30 years if he's still making the same mistakes, but okay...

But the exile after that? That's just bad storytelling IMO. Its obvious they just needed to get rid of Luke Skywalker somehow in the ST, otherwise he would completely overshadow all the new characters, especially Rey, as we wouldn't need a new Jedi hero if Grand Master Luke would be running around. JJ and Kasdan came up with the whole exile thing without actually thinking about the reason behind it and RJ had to come up with explanation. He did the best he could, but the problem was, Luke should never have been in a self-imposed exile in the first place.

People in charge of TFA decided that they want the ST to be primarily about their new characters, so they needed to put the OT characters more in the background and have just one in a prominent role per movie. If the Big Three would be together from the beginning of the ST, it would be the new characters that would be in the supporting and background roles instead. Which is actually exactly what I wanted.

When the ST was announced, I was hoping for another trilogy with the Big Three after 30 years, something similar to what we got so many times in post-ROTJ Legends. We would have new characters, but they would be there primarily to be introduced and help our main OT heroes. And then we would have Ep. X-XII which would be the trilogy for the new characters. At least that's how I would have done it if I was in charge of Disney/Lucasfilm.

They decided to go another way. In my opinion, that was a huge mistake and I'm not sure that even if Ep. IX is really great, it could save the ST in my eyes anymore, but what can you do. At least I'm still enjoying the stand alone movies, which so far haven't disappointed me.

 

Lucas came up with it.

Same as he came up with killing off Obi-Wan so as not to overshadow Luke, or Qui-Gon to overshadow Obi-Wan.

 

Another insight I hadn’t realized thanks again to Reddit - Luke’s journey begins with a projection of Leia asking for help and ends with a projection of Luke to help her.

 

Again, if it were the same mistake, Ben would be dead. Luke stops himself after a mere moment of instinct.

And the exile after that is him making the same error in judgment you are: "If I'm still making the same mistakes after thirty years, what am I even doing here?"

And I don't know why you'd expect another trilogy about Luke, Han, and Leia. They had their trilogy. The prequel trilogy wasn't about them, why would the sequels? The original trilogy wasn't about Obi-Wan.

 

I have to imagine the reason Luke had to do what he did while Ben was sleeping was because he couldn't do it while Ben was awake. He needed to probe Ben's mind, and he needed Ben to not be awake and resisting.

And, as @Jedi Princess notes, Luke describes it as "a moment of instinct." As I've iterated and reiterated in other versions of this conversation, we see Obi-Wan do the same thing in RotS when Anakin leaps into the elevator with him. We see Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon both do this when they sense the consular ship explode. This is a well-worn Jedi thing. In both of those instances, the Jedi put their weapons away again when they realize that the disturbance isn't a threat.

 

I never thought Charles Xavier would end up with more control than Luke Skywalker. If Xavier instinctively reacted every time he sensed darkness in an X-Man, they'd have been dead or mind wiped years ago, starting with Wolverine.

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Luke. Didn't. Kill. Ben.


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It was a joke. I should have put a winky face

And to be fair xavier did wipe wolvie and lied to rogue. But he also didn't read minds while asleep, otherwise gambit would have been expelled over his role in the mutant massacre.

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What's funny about it?