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

I think the Sith would note that Snoke was never more powerful than Kylo Ren, even when Ben was a teenager. Snoke was a mid-level Dark Side user like the Inquisitor at best. And when you play with fire, you get burned. The only thing keeping Kylo Ren from gutting Snoke like a fish was his respect and affection.

And Ren is a MASSIVELY angsty entitled manchild with a brittle ego.

Snoke was doomed the moment he insulted Ren's helmet.

 

I think a big source of seeming confusion in this discussion is the idea that the reason Ben became Kylo Ren is finding Luke in his room that night with a drawn weapon.

It's not.

The confrontation with Luke forced Ben's hand, but he's reacting to what feels like getting caught, not to some baseless out of nowhere accusation on his teacher's part. I think this might also be the source of the interpretation that Ben is blaming Luke for becoming Kylo Ren, whereas the movie tells us that Ben was already in deep enough with Snoke that when Luke went looking for answers he came away with the impression Ben was already all in. Rey references this.

I agree with this, though I'm given to the interpretation that Ren hadn't decided exactly what that would mean until after the throne room fight.

Anyway, this Akira tweet reminded me of Ben. Under a spoiler cut for foul language.

Spoiler

 

I'm inclined to think it really is a Greek tragedy.

Ben was a dark and angry young man. He was vengenful, moody, and has "too much Vader in him." Maybe some fascist sympathies. However, he hadn't done anything and wasn't studying to be a Sith despite the fact he probably knew Snoke quite well.

Luke senses the Dark Side in him and ignites his saber, worrying he'll become a monster like his father.

Self-fulfilling prophecy as Ben attacks, fighting Luke and the Academy becomes a Civil War of students murdering students.

Ben flees to Snoke and becomes Kylo Ren.

 

Luke says Snoke had already twisted and turned Ben's heart, before Luke entered his tent. Ben didn't need to slaughter the other students (and turn the rest) if he really only lashed out because he thought Luke meant to kill him.

 

Ben's friends defended Kylo.

Luke's students probably tried to defend him.

It's why he's justified joining Space North Korea and nuking Seattle.

 

Personally, I believe that Snoke and Ben are like crazy-level telepaths / psychics that we haven't really seen before (aside from Sidious being able to Force choke across the galaxy) but they can do incredible things psyhically and telekentically which makes them so formidable. Like Kylo had to basically stage a play with Rey cuz Snoke saw his "every intent". And Snoke can toss people across the room literally by flicking his finger, Ben is stopping blaster bolts and pulling things outta people's mind in a blink. So maybe the were able to commune / corrupt on that level which is why Ben had turned.

 

I don't think even Rey's more sympathetic analysis of Ben - influenced by Kylo himself - bears out that Ben wasn't already standing with a foot in each camp. Luke interpreted him as already having committed himself to the dark side, whereas Rey says Luke's mistake was thinking Ben's mind was totally made up. The fact that he ups and leaves - and that he seems to have sympathizers among his fellow students - likewise implies that this is something that Snoke has made available to him for a while.

I think with Ben we see someone whose great potential actually results in him dithering over decisions because he knows whatever he picks will be momentous. I do think Luke forced Ben's hand, made the decision for him, likely by confirming suspicions and feelings stoked by Snoke. Similarly I think what we see for most of TLJ is Kylo having decided he can't live like this anymore but not knowing what to do about it, and then going through the whole throne room fight scene before he stops to think what he's going to do after the last guard is dead.

 

This sounds like a whole lot of assumption and guesswork to me. There are so many interpretations of Kylo, perhaps because he's so very ill-defined. There's just not enough there for any of us to actually know.

It may be that the answers to these questions do not matter and are not actually part of the story. Perhaps only what we've seen so far and what comes of it is what matters.

The idea of it being a self-fulfilling prophecy is hilariously shallow. That's one short and simple prophecy, prophesied by no one.

 

It's not much in the way of assumptions:

Leia thought Ben was bad, so she sent him to Luke
Luke thought Ben was bad, so he debated killing him
Ben saw Luke trying to kill him, so he went bad.

 

Correction - Ben was already bad. Luke just forced his hand.

 

Source on that?

And its irrelevant what Lucas did or didn't come up with for the ST in the end. He wasn't the director, writer or producer. Or anything actually. JJ and KK were in charge and they made the final decisions that are in the movie now.

Though if Lucas would have made at least the first movie of the ST as he originally planned, it would be a very different movie to what we have now.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/a-not-so-brief-history-of-george-lucas-talking-****-abo-1750464055

But you can find tons of other articles that say the same thing, all you need to do is a bit of googling. I just posted the first that showed up for me.

You're right about Obi-Wan originally surviving ANH. He was supposed to die later after training Luke. But because Lucas decided to kill him in ANH for dramatic reasons, he had to invent Yoda for TESB. But Obi-Wan was always destined to die, his survival in ANH was a remnant of the original big script where the entire OT was one huge movie. When Lucas realised he wouldn't be able to make movie that big, he cut it down to roughly one third, which is ANH. Luckily, he realised during the production of ANH that he needs to kill Obi-Wan now and not later. We also got Death Star 2 because of that. But even Yoda (the new Obi-Wan) which is the new mentor figure in TESB dies in the end. Lucas himself talks about this on the directors commentaries for the OT, that both Obi-Wan and Yoda had to die for Luke to be able to grow and no longer rely on them. The whole thing is one big metaphor for growing up, becoming an adult and leaving your parents behind. Which is pretty much exactly the same thing we're getting now with Rey in the ST.

I completely agree with what you wrote in the second paragraph. But that's the thing. In the ST, we're getting another heroes journey, this time of a young woman, into adulthood. Its exactly the same themes as the OT. Why not something completely different? How about starting the movie with Leia as Chancellor of the New Republic, Han as General in the New Republic military and Luke as the Grand Master of a fledgling new Jedi Order. Sounds like the old EU? Yep, it does, but there's nothing wrong with that. For majority of people who don't read the EU it would still be something completely different and new, and for people who read the EU, they should like it, otherwise why the heck would you read all those dozens of novels if you don't like what they're doing with the characters?

 

I still want to believe it's what Leia said: that it was Snoke, and that he was influencing Ben longer than Palpatine did with Anakin and in more insidious ways (reaching out through the Force when Ben was a baby, slowly corrupting his mind). Of course, that would make Snoke's death very cheap indeed...assuming, of course, he didn't fake his death.

But otherwise, yeah, I agree that hopefully there's a valid reason that doesn't throw the OT characters under the bus.

 

The Art of The Force Awakens and The Art of The Last Jedi.

And yes, I would say it's irrelevant, except you specifically said Abrams and Kasdan came up with the idea, which I corrected.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/a-not-so-brief-history-of-george-lucas-talking-****-abo-1750464055

But you can find tons of other articles that say the same thing, all you need to do is a bit of googling. I just posted the first that showed up for me.[/QUOTE]

I don't see anything that suggests JJ himself ignored Lucas. And bear in mind Lucas is very sore about leaving Star Wars in that interview, and afterwards clarified some of his statements. The one about needing to either be in full control or having to walk away is very telling.

Personally I'd find that story dull, same as the prequels being dull because it focused on officials carrying out government duties instead of rebels going on adventures. I wouldn't want Chancellor Organa, General Solo, and Grand Master Skywalker. Star Wars tends to be at its best when it's some form of rebels vs empire, and the coming-of-age story is a big part of that. It's also an important motif to repeat, just like Lucas was doing in the first place by deriving it from older stories and sources.

 

It's like the moviemaker decided to created the perfect ground for non-constructive snarky comments about how they do not really have any real idea to why he tuned and give us different messages. But they could not have decided to do that, right?

True, first and foremost the dialogue would be more wooden

And TFA would not be a big love letter to just the OT, and lots of other stuff that would have made it different.

 

They were not making the movie he wanted, therefore from his point of view he felt like he's being ignored, so he simply left. It seems like later he came to terms with it and it doesn't bother him anymore, but we're talking about a time when selling Lucasfilm was still very fresh and he was probably used to people listening and following his every word from the time he was making the PT and TCW, so when the development of TFA started to go in different direction than he intended, he probably became very sore about it for a while.

Here we'll have to agree to disagree. I didn't find the prequels dull at all and politics is a large part of SW in my opinion and the political scenes are some of my favourite from the PT, though I know I'm probably in a big minority here In fact, all the politics and government stuff is something I'm terribly missing so far from the ST.

 

I also don't know that "debated killing him" is a fair way to describe what goes on with Luke.

 

(Whoops)

 

Fully agree

 

It's like Luke never got the lesson, "Control, control, you must learn control" from Yoda after seeing a particularly nasty vision of the future. Oh wait...

And all Luke did in that lesson was fall over from a handstand, not anything remotely shady and Yoda was already criticizing him. You think someone who should have learned to control his reactions to the point where he can maintain a handstand during scary visions would be a million parsecs away from igniting a weapon, but I guess not. Luke is supposed to be a Jedi Master, not a brand new FPS video game player who clicks the mouse on the first sign of movement only to find he shot down a friendly NPC.

Marvel literally had an entire story arc about scary future visions in Civil War 2, and Tony Stark of all people was able to keep his calm and not do anything reckless over them, unlike Carol Danvers. I think this analogy is ok since it's relevant to Luke's situation, but if Tony Stark of all people has more self control than Luke, I think it's understandable why people have issues with Luke's portrayal in 8.

 

I think the lesson here is closer to the dark side cave, actually.

This isn't a good analogy, because Luke doesn't kill anyone. He doesn't even move to strike. He ignites his lightsaber - like Obi-Wan nearly killing Anakin in the elevator - but doesn't get a chance to turn it off again.

 

Killing an NPC isn't remotely close to killing an actual person, that was precisely why I used that analogy. The person playing would lose the esports competition though.

 

Still an insufficient analogy - the player would be negligent not to be prepared to shoot, and would likely aim, even if he doesn't fire.

 

True, fair enough. I'm more an RPG player than an FPS one.

 

Luke's mistake is having his lightsaber on him. If you think he's a dummy or making the same mistake he made as a padawan, I guarantee you he also thinks he's a dummy, to an even greater degree than you do. He thinks it so hard he exiled himself on an island to die for it, and finds himself almost completely incapable of moving on from it.

 

Things come to a head in the hut, but Luke's mistake was training Ben at all. Luke admits that Ben was a ticking time bomb, but trained him in the force anyways because he started being blinded by his own legend and desire to pass on what he knew through "that powerful Skywalker blood.".

It's why he's so horrified when Rey immediately fixates on the dark cave. He doesn't think he can trust his own judgement and jumps right to, "oh lord, it's Ben Solo all over again."