ST Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) In Episode IX

I mostly agree with the top part.

Not necessarily in my opinion, particularly in interpreting art/stories. For example, I think I understand many of the reasons people have for liking TLJ: liking that it does it's own thing, showing Luke fail and give up then come back, Rey & Kylo, open ending, subverting expectations (many other things I've seen cited); or, not seeing these things and interpreting TLJ as a direct continuation of the PT/OT & TFA; or, writing is not the crux of their movie enjoyment (I only have problems with the writing here, so that's my focus); or, they like anything related to SW; or, some combination of the above. I likely interpreted what happened in the movie differently than the people who enjoyed it, we all saw the same flick, we just have a fundamental difference in how we interpret what we saw (and it's not a binary difference, many different ways to interpret something) and how this interpretation shaped our appreciation of it.

Outside of artistic interpretation, clarification SHOULD lead to understanding (at least when clarification refers to evidential reality), however that doesn't mean that clarification leads to understanding. Often our understanding of objective reality is reformatting said reality to fit our beliefs. Therefore, providing people with evidence contrary to a deeply held belief is unlikely to sway their opinion of said belief and more likely to dismiss the evidence which is contrary to it. If decisions were solely based off of evidence, then evidence contrary to prior beliefs should update our decision patterns.

 

My biggest problems are:
Canto Bight plot
Holdo not telling Poe the plan
Everything with Rose at the end
Luke dying after just coming back

 

If they aren't bringing Luke back to life at least explore the force ghosts more.

 

I’ve seen that even many who loved TLJ were dissatisfied with Canto Bight and Holdo not even telling Poe that there was a plan.

I think they showed Yoda thwacking Luke with his stick to demonstrate that FGs can directly interact with physical matter I think that’s really key, as it makes being a FG more like the “immortality,” which is what it is (according to Yoda in RotS).

 

If Rey is Luke's kid would she have been born before Luke started training students? Either way I'm wondering if we'll get a scene in Ep. 9 where Luke tells Rey that he and his wife were effectively nobody. Maybe he'll say something like, "to the galaxy Luke Skywalker was a legend who defeated the Empire but I only thought of myself as a farm boy from Tatooine, and...a father." Perhaps then he'd say something like, "after I thought I lost you I felt like I lost everything, including my identity and my purpose, so I embraced the only thing I had left...the legend. And that's when I started training students. I was trying to find purpose again even though I wasn't focused on what was right in front me...and that's how I lost everything again."

 

Reminds me of Obi-Wan's spiel in ROTJ. I like it.

 

My own view is that Luke only started to train Ben and other students after he lost his wife and daughter. I think he set up the new order to be like the PT order. Hence Luke complaining about the PT Jedi as if they were the only kind of Jedi one can be, and as if he had forgotten the Jedi he himself had been after RotJ.

Ahhh good point about “embracing the legend”! Coping mechanism.

Luke was *not* 100% when he was runninv his training temple. Dat robot arm...

 

Rey revealed to be Luke's daughter after the story told in TFA and TLJ would feel silly and cheap. Maybe there's more to her family than what Ben said -and im not even sure of that- but at this point we have to let go of all the skywalker / solo / kenobi theories regarding Rey. Her parents are either just drunken low-lives like Ben said or maybe -maybe- they played another part in the whole story but they're definitely unknown characters.

i'll admit that all the set up to Jakku in the novels (the eremite, laboratory and all other mysteries in aftermath) feels like a cheap trick from Lucasfilm to make us buy these books. That's rather disappointing (and the movies have nothing to do with it, the blame is on the story group and publisher).

Back to Luke...common sense tells me that he'll be back as a force ghost in e9, but i dont get my expectations too high as i think he'll only appear for a short scene or two à la Yoda.

But you never know...somehow i wouldnt be that surprised if there's no force ghost Luke at all...on the contrary there's a very slight chance that ep9 will "break the rules" and make etheral Luke a rather essential character in the story...

So Mark still has the beard...nice and trimmed...i read somewhere that he actually likes the beard now so it's difficult to tell if it's fo IX or just his new civil look. Principal photography starts in less than 2 months, i hope we'll find out soon!!

 

Yes, hard to tell from the beard. I would assume that if Luke appears in Episode IX, that he would keep the more dignified and stately look that he had at the end of TLJ, with the short beard and hair.

 

I don't think we will ever see any more of hippy Luke. No more long hair and beard. Probably the same look Mark features nowadays.

 

Agreed. I predict Luke will be awesome in 9 a smaller role, but it’ll be worth it. They just need to do it in a way that doesn’t make Luke outshine Rey.

 

What's interesting is how Leia describes sending Ben to train with Luke, like it wasn't the initial plan and like Luke didn't lobby for it or pursue Ben as his student. All that insinuates that Luke was training others before Ben and had his own life and plan. Ben was kind of foisted upon Luke by his frustrated parents.

What was keeping Luke so busy and distracted that he's not spending significant time and attention on his highly force-sensitive nephew? Clearly he had other students he cared deeply for, but perhaps there's more. Perhaps he was married or even had a child at one point. It's not out of the realm of possibility. Ben becomes Kylo Ren and destroys Luke's temple about 6 years before TFA, correct? So we have 24 years between ROTJ and TFA that we know very little about in terms of what Luke was doing exactly.

 

Yeah it seems like one of the novelizations suggests that Luke originally rejected the idea of starting up a Jedi Order. The fact that Luke ostensibly didn't call up Leia one day and say, "hey sis I'm starting up the Jedi Order! I'd love to train Ben to become a Jedi Knight! Send him my way!" suggests that maybe he didn't want to train Ben because even though he had eventually decided to start training students he wasn't doing it out of love of the idea of starting up a new Jedi Order but rather it was a vain attempt to give himself something to do and to take his mind off the loss of his wife and kid. So maybe when it came to Ben he was initially thinking that Ben would be better off not training as a traditional Jedi Knight because there was still some part of Luke that believed that replicating the Jedi Order was a bad idea.

Then Ben started going off the rails and Leia wanted Luke's training to help him get his act together but Luke was phoning it in so he dropped the ball with Ben and Ben and/or Snoke was able to turn some of Luke's students too because while Luke was phoning it in Snoke was not.

 

Hm. Not sure. One thing I’m sure of, though - Luke and Ben didn’t have an emotionally-close relationship. Recall Luke says “eyes of a frightened boy whose master had failed him.” Not “uncle.” Recall also Leia’s “Luke’s a Jedi - you’re his father.” Not “uncle.”

And yet Luke is this famously compassionate person who cared deeply for his family.

*Points to prominantly-displayed robot hand in the flashback.* “It’s all about the hands.

I think Luke only trains Ben and starts his temple after losing his wife and child. Personally, I suspect he was in no state to train Jedi at that point.

And if Luke saw, in Ben’s mind, say, a memory his wife’s death...now that would be something even Luke Skywalker could be forgiven for flipping out over.

Ah yes - a conspicuous lack of canon material on pre-temple tragedy Luke. But if you’re curious nonetheless, and want to get more into Luke’s head, read “Fishing in the Deluge,” then “Big Inside.”

 

So I re watched TLJ yesterday 1st time since December...

So Hologram Luke holds Leahs hand and gives here the dice... Can a hologram do this?

And... Kylo finds the dice on ground that disappeared in his hands...

Would Leah really leave the dice laying around that Luke brought all this way?

And... Why did hologram Luke show up looking like he did when he tried to kill Kylo... I've read the theories on this... But think there is more to it..

And... No metal hand on the rock after Luke vanished...

Just thinking out loud... Perhaps Roam Johnson a genius... And we are in for some major surprises in 9...

I still find it hard to believe that they didn't have the entire trilogy mapped out (for the most part) since day 1
..

 

They had the backstory laidout.

I think the presets were the priority.

 

Leia knew, when they held hands, that he was not really there. It's in the novelization, but you can see the dawning realization on her face in the movie too. The fact he wasn't there in person was like their secret from that point on. She most likely knew that the dice were not real either; there was no need to take them along as they rushed to escape.

Besides distracting Kylo so that the Resistance could escape, I think he wanted to provide some form of closure. So he appeared the way that he did on that night, apologized for failing him and let him vent some of that anger/hurt before revealing that he was a Force projection. Luke knew that he couldn't save his nephew, but perhaps by providing closure, someone else might be able to.

 

I wouldn't call that a hologram. Luke was there in spiritual form, he could see and feel everything that was going on. Seeing how Obi Wan moved vines as a force-ghost in RotJ, Luke giving something that didn't really exist to Leia (and the dices were not really real, else they wouldn't have vanished later on) wouldn't be a problem. Which leads to why Leia would leave the dice behind: again, they weren't real. They were basically a message to Leia, not the actual thing.

Luke never tried to kill Kylo during that "fight", he didn't even really fight at all. He was there to keep Kylo Ren from attacking the remainder of the resistance, so that those few people could escape. You can see that he doesn't really interact with the surroundings. His feet don't leave any marks on the ground, and the ash or whatever it is that is falling from the sky isn't landing on him or his lightsaber either. He evaded actually coming in touch with Kylo, because it probably wasn't possible for him to interact in such a way, and if Kylo had realized that earlier, the plan wouldn't have worked.

As for why Luke looked like his old cleaner self, I'd say there could be two probable reasons:
1) that's how he looked like when Ben last saw him
2) Luke the grand Jedi master looks a whole lot more inspiring to the galaxy then the run-down hermit did. Seeing how his act was all about being the legendary hero that saves the day, looking like the legendary hero makes a lot of sense

Maybe it would have been an advantage to have a clearer setup for the entire trilogy, but then again, no such thing ever really existed for the OT and PT either. Lucas basically made things up on the fly, even changing vital plot-points during shooting.

 

Force hologram Luke facing off against Kylo was a perfect demonstration of balance - of action + restraint.

Ugh I wish they hadn’t been so obscure about “balance” in TLJ.

 

Why can't Luke outshine Rey?

 

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Luke couldn't have interacted with or attacked Kylo. Afterall, in the previous scene, he touches Leia's head and kisses her forehead, so clearly he could have physically touched Kylo if he wanted to. To what extent, we don't know. His approach was intended to be passive and distract/anger Kylo to allow the others to get away, not to kill him.

I do think Luke chose the appearance and outfit that he had the last time Kylo saw him, since it would unnerve and anger him, and also make Luke appear more heroic. I think that's the reason he manifested with his original lightsaber too, rather than his green one.

Agree 100% that large chunks of the original trilogy were made up as they went along. Vader was not intended to be the same person as Anakin in ANH, Leia was not originally Luke's sister, etc. He had a general outline, but not specifics. Same as the current trilogy to a certain extent, yet people flip out about it now.

 

I might have missed it, but see that Mark Hamill tweeted a countdown to Episode 9, on the 5th. Trolling, or indication that he will indeed be in the movie? Surely he knows for sure either way at this point, with filming due to start at the end of the month. I expect Lucasfilm and Mark to play coy about it for a while, even if he's in the movie. He does love having fun with his fans...

 

I mean, there were already complaints about Rey's character arc being too defined by Luke's role in TLJ. Plus, he already had an entire trilogy of him being awesome. Rey is the main character after all.

 

Except now the story group exists to keep the story straight whereas the OT was written at a time before the story group was a thing.

 

Because Rey is the central protag of the ST and Luke isn’t.