ST If You Hated TLJ, Is there Anything That Could Happen in IX That Could Redeem TLJ?

Finally saw it today. What. The. Hell. Was. THAT?
- Luke Skywalker...the guy that went toe-to-toe against Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi in an effort to redeem him, who stood up to Palpatine with "I am a Jedi, like my father before me".... TRIED TO ****ING MURDER HIS OWN NEPHEW.
Then he drops this line: "I decided not to, and all I felt was shame". It's a bit too late when you're ALREADY STANDING OVER YOUR PROSPECTIVE VICTIM WITH A WEAPON IN YOUR HAND.
As much as he claims that he's a "fan" of Star Wars....jesus h. christ he has absolutely no idea who Luke F'n Skywalker actually IS as a character!
Even Vonda "Crystal Star" McIntyre didn't screw up this badly.

- All that potential that JJ Abrams gave us with Force Awakens....thrown into the garbage.
Who is Snoke? He said he witnessed the rise and fall of the Empire. Could there be some connection to the old Sith order?
Oooh, what if Snoke was the FIRST Jedi ever?
Rian Johnson says "Nope. He's just some random bastard."

Rey's parents? JJ Abrams showed us the flashback of them escaping Jakku after leaving Rey with Unkar Plutt. Then, when Snoke finds out about her Force abilities, he demands Kylo Ben bring her to him, ostensibly as a prospective new apprentice or as a means to find Luke.
Could she be Luke's daughter? Or what if she's the daughter of some of his ill-fated students who left her on Jakku before going to face Kylo Ben?
What if she's related to Obi-Wan? Or WAIT...what if she's a Palpatine?
Rian Johnson says: "Nope. They were just random junk dealers."

The Knights of Ren? We see them in a flashback being led by Kylo Ben. Who are they? What is their story?
Rian Johnson says "Umm. We have these red guys now."

- Cameos. Cameos everywhere. The majority of this film's characters exist as cameos that bear little relevance to the plot.
R2-D2? Cameo. Maz Kanata? Cameo. Admiral Ackbar? Cameo. Phasma? Cameo.
The one that hurt the most was YODA. Think about it....Luke was going to burn the ancient Jedi books, has a flare in hand to do it. Yoda shows up and Luke has a change of heart.....then Yoda sends down lightning to burn the books anyway before giving Luke the generic advice of learning from one's mistakes.
All of these characters could have been taken out of the movie and it wouldn't have changed a damn thing.


Ultimately this movie is nothing more but a "what if" version of Return of the Jedi; What if Darth Vader (aka Kylo Ben) had decided just to kill Palpatine (Supreme Leader Joke) and take over?
Rian Johnson obviously hasn't read any of the Star Wars comics because we already got a glimpse of that in "Boba Fett: Enemy of the Empire" in which Vader is given a vision of a possible future in which he does that exact thing.

 

In all honesty IX could be the greatest movie ever made and I'm not going to see it. But I am in no way mad about TLJ. Disney did not destroy my childhood and I don't hate Rian Johnson. In fact I'm actually kind of relieved. You see I was there day one, the first showing of Star Wars (before it was A New Hope), and I have been a nerd ever since. Now after TLJ, I'm no longer worried about being at the first showing, reading spoilers, or anything Star Wars for that matter. Yeah I'll come here and post from time to time and answer a silly question or offer my opinion, but I don't have any connection to it now. Luke is dead. I don't care about force ghost. The story I liked is over...and I'm okay.

 

@SithSense Interestingly enough during ROTJ Luke stands over his prospective victim, in the shape of Vader, with his saber in his hand ready to give into the darkside. However, like he does with Ben, he pulls himself in from the brink. Another strange point is that in ROTJ he gives into his anger because his sister is threatened. In TLJ he sees his friends and everything they've worked for being destroyed.

 

Personally, I thought Luke standing over Ben with the saber could've been effective. The main problem being we have only to take it on Luke's word that he saw something so eeeeevil and dark in Ben.

If they had cut to a Force vision Luke had of seeing Ben in the future impaling Han....then I can get behind Luke instinctively igniting his saber before almost instantly thinking better of it.

But the problem with that is, you'd actually be giving a reason for Luke to do something proactive to come to Han's aid in TFA, when apparently it was "decreed" that Luke was going to be an ineffective old duffer throughout these movies.

 

I love TLJ, but here's one simple improvement IX could make. Holdo was ridiculous; it'd be nice for somebody in IX to acknowledge what a massive bitch she was.

 

Yeah that's a big problem here, there's a massive lack of context:

Luke: "Well I did it because I sense EVIILLL in him."

Logical Question: "Ok, you want to elaborate on that a bit? I mean you refused to give up on Darth freaking Vader of all people, AND stared down Emperor Sheev himself. So you want to go into a bit more detail about what was so evil within Ben that your first instinct was to murder him in his sleep?"

Luke: "Umm? Well the writer/director actually didn't bother to give me any more reason for it, so nope."

(face palm).

 

I doubt it. Nothing I can think of. Certainly Luke as a Force Ghost won't.


@jofos I loved your post. Thats where I am but you said it so elegantly. Thank you.

 

To be honest, and while I too have problems with some of SithSense's arguments, we can't have it both ways.

We can't justify Luke's weakness by using both the argument that it's okay for people to change over the course of 30 years AND that he was already like this 30 years earlier.

Ultimately if the better argument is that Luke did the same thing in ROTJ, then that doesn't say much about the development of that character.

My biggest gripe with this is that the reason Luke ever considered killing Ben was because of a vision, when he knows and has known for decades that visions are unreliable. Now the last Jedi Master and hopefully wiser than before, Luke should be the one telling his pupils that "Always in motion the future is", not the one who needs to be hit over the head - again - with it.

This is not the Vader situation from ROTJ, where Luke was dealing with a full blown Sith Lord and mass murderer of men, women and children threatening to go after his sister.

For all we know, Ben had done nothing until that point. Ben's resentment towards Luke certainly seems to point that way.

 

I agree with your feelings about Luke 100%. But I have such a deep sadness for what LFL has done.

 

There's no way to make this morally justified, IMO, even if they showed Luke's vision in every gory detail.

Killing someone because they're having bad thoughts is just plain wrong. Bad thoughts don't, in themselves, make anyone evil. The Luke I knew would not have given up on someone he loved because they had wrong thoughts in their brain. Not like that.

Killing someone because you see a vision of them turning evil in the future is just you playing God and outsourcing your moral decisions to visions and premonitions. If you start down that path, you can justify anything as a pre-emptive strike to prevent future evil. In this case, it turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy; not to mention that visions are notoriously unreliable in the SW universe, and who's to say Snoke wasn't meddling here as well?

I also felt that the story lacked conviction by making Luke consider killing the nephew entrusted in his care, and then seeming to suggest it was okay (?) because he regretted it and wouldn't have done it anyway. It's like if you, in real life, hovered with murderous intent over your sleeping loved one, and they woke up seeing you hold a pillow over their face - there's no way to explain something like that away, even if you ultimately couldn't have brought yourself to commit murder. They have no way of knowing that. You already did a horrible thing to them. You took the first steps towards murdering them in their sleep, which means that you'd already gone through the process of deciding that they should die. With someone you supposedly love, it is the ultimate betrayal.

I wonder why the film purged this part of the story of its emotional component. It was almost like an abstract moral exercise, "could you kill a kid if you could prevent him from becoming evil? or would your actions inadvertently push them into becoming evil?" (Wait, that sounds like Looper.) And then you show how the guilt of that moral dilemma affected Luke. But what about the love? You know, the theme of family and all that? To me, TLJ did not convey any sense that this was the son of Luke's beloved sister and best friend, someone he'd presumably cared about since the boy was a baby.

One of the many weird things about TLJ is that Ben Solo is certainly justified in hating this version of Luke Skywalker, but in the end the film seems to give this version of Luke Skywalker the moral edge nonetheless. He redeems himself by saving the reborn rebellion and inspiring the broom boys of the galaxy, not by making any amends to the person he betrayed. Which is... curious to me. Unless it turns out that the ending is supposed to help Ben Solo after all, and the "see you around, kid" implies Luke hasn't given up on him. I really don't know what to think.

 

I don't think anything could save it in my eyes. I was skeptical about TFA, but gave it a chance. Once I saw the setup for some potential huge revelations about the force or about the Skywalkers, I thought, "Hey! I might learn to love these characters and the story!"

Then, it changed with TLJ. Rian completely urinated on the amazing setup he had, squashing everyone's theories and hopes by pulling the whole "Rey is a nobody. Snoke is a nobody. The force can do more than Hogwart's wizardry, and everyone is a Marvel super hero." I've never been so disappointed. All that setup, all that hype for two years, then absolutely nothing came of it. It squashed any interest I tried to put into the sequel trilogy. Like I said in another thread, I'm going to continue to believe it stopped at episode 6. Canon my butt... I'm going to continue to believe Luke became an amazing person, the galaxy achieved some sort of peace, and the Jedi order returned.

Besides, what's up with that? How do you have a title like "Return of the Jedi", then two films later make a title "The Last Jedi"? Did the Jedi return or not? Such contradictory. But I will say one thing... I was a prequel trilogy hater, but after the sequel trilogy so far, I'd say I love the prequels. Big time.

 

No it’s not. Luke signified the return of the Jedi when he redeemed Vader. Ben and his pupils turned against him, leaving him to remain as the last Jedi. No plot holes here.

 

That's just your opinion.

Many others see tons of plot holes.

 

The belief in the force is solidified in some characters in TFA. Remember, the Last Jedi takes place 30 years after Rotj. Han describes Luke was in the process of training a "... New generation of Jedi...". In the film(tlj) we see the incident with Luke and Kylo was somewhere between episodes 6 and 7 based on the more youthful appearance of both Luke and Ben.

I don't see how that's a plot hole.

... It does beg the question of the opening crawl calling Luke a Jedi MASTER. If he was unsuccessful in training a disciple, is he a Jedi master?

 

Luke seemed much wiser and serene 30 years earlier. Then when he's with Ben he acts like his ESB self. It's horrible writing.

Disney Luke.

 

I'm with you there - I have no malice, just feel my time in this universe is over.

 

That’s just your opinion. Many others appreciate TLJ Luke.

 

Actually giving me a reason to see the movie would be a good start.

The moment I left the cinema after seeing TLJ I was asking myself what on earth there actually is to maintain my interest to make me desperate to see episode 9?

JJ closed the TFA perfectly and set up so much for the trilogy which left us all desperate for Episode 8 while RJ did the complete opposite. RJ pretty much killed every storyline and every bit of momentum that was created in TFA leaving us with nothing but a few characters and the eventual showdown between Rey and Kylo which no-one really cares about.

It's hard to be excited about episode 9 when RJ left absolutely nothing to look forward to from a story line perspective.

 

JJ set up an amazing alley-oop and all RJ had to do was to put the ball in the hoop.

Sadly RJ not only missed the shot, but he totally destroyed the ball in the process.

 

After thinking about it, here's how TLJ could have been fixed....

Luke never ever thinks about murdering Ben in his sleep. Turns out that Snoke was one of Luke's students, who went egomaniacal and decided to take control of the Jedi for himself. Snoke discovers a Sith Holocron that contains the "Ren Heresy": the Dark Side is just as valid use of the Force as the Light Side, and gains a group of followers, including Ben.
There is a Jedi Civil War in which Luke and Snoke duke it out....Luke gains the upper hand and leaves Snoke missing half his face. Unfortunately, that's the only good news to come from it....the remaining faction of Luke's Jedi are murdered (save for one family with a young daughter *hint hint*), while Snoke's faction retreats and renames themselves the Knights of Ren. (p.s. "Kylo" is an ancient Sith word for "Vanguard")

Luke goes to the island, continually beating himself up that he failed his students and they were swayed away by Snoke.

The rest of the movie goes on as normal. Admiral Holdo (if "Hodor" is "Hold the Door", does that make Holdo "Hold the Doughnut"?) the First Order catches up to the Resistance fleet, they send out a distress signal......
AND LANDO CALRISSIAN SHOWS UP WITH HIS OWN FLEET OF CLASSIC IMPERIAL STAR DESTROYERS. That's right! LANDO SAVES THE DAY!

In fact, Lando owns Crait. The whole planet. It wasn't an old Rebellion base, but rather a fully-staffed salt mine.

Hux scoffs and says something about "That's a fleet of antiques! We'll cut through them in short order!" But Lando, being Lando, has a trick up his sleeve....

Poe Dameron leads his mutiny against Admiral Hold-the-Donut, and has her cuffed and thrown into the brig. Lando raises Poe on the comm and tells him that while his destroyers are functional enough, they won't be able to make a dent in Snoke's Super-Duper-Penis-Size-Compensator. Lando gets Poe to lead the evacuation....and has his technicians turn the Resistance capital ship into a drone. Once everyone is safely off of the ship, Lando's techie remote-operates it and sends it into its lightspeed kamikaze run and effectively castrates Snokes Super-Duper-Penis-Size-Compensator.

Ren and Hux decide that Lando is too much of a problem, and decide to go finish the Resistance and punish the miners on Crait. The Crait battle goes on as normal, but with Lando leading the defenses. The Falcon shows up and Luke gets off. No Force-Projections....the actual, living, breathing Luke Skywalker.
All of the AT-GGS (All Terrain Giant Ground Sloth) walkers open fire on him....only Luke is so powerful in the Force that he does the Darth Vader ESB thing. Yeah, Kylo Ben thought he was all big and bad for freezing Poe's blaster bolt in midair in TFA, but that's nothing compared to Luke effectively absorbing the turbolasers from a squadron of Giant Ground Sloth Walkers.
Luke then throws the bolts back at them, destroying all of the Giant Ground Sloth Walkers except for the one containing Kylo Ben and Hux. Kylo Ben decides to confront Luke and they have their epic duel.....and Luke is using his green RotJ lightsaber. Because duh.
The duel is meant to buy time for the Resistance to escape....and Luke fights defensively, trying to win Kylo Ben back to the Light Side. Luke can sense that Kylo Ben is getting tired, he just can't match the Son of Skywalker.....and Luke Force Punches him. Hard. Sends Kylo Ben miles away into the mountains of Crait. He then turns and walks away to join the remaining Resistance and Crait miners in their evacuation.

Final scene of the movie is Luke opening up to Rey and telling her he'll be her Master. Oh and he knows the truth about her parents...they were his students who left her on Jakku before attempting a last-ditch effort to stop the Knights of Ren and were killed in the process.

*roll credits*

 

More like he cut a hole in the ball and decided to make sexy time with it.

 

As some who thinks that TLJ is one of the best SW ever crafted, I agree with the overwhelming majority of this list.

 

So if you think TLJ is one of the best SW ever crafted can you then explain to me what you're looking forward to seeing in episode 9?

What did RJ give you that will carry your interest in the trilogy for the next two years ?

 

Well, I tried to tell myself that, but one reason I don't believe it is because the original name for the film was "Revenge of the Jedi". So they most likely intended it to mean the Jedi as a whole and not a single person.