ST Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) in the ST

When he meets R2 again for the first time we see the old Luke. Rey touching the dark side during his lesson made him revert to his grumpy self. R2 helped but Yoda truly brought him back.

 

I wish there was a little more Luke talking with Chewie and R2. So heartwarming.

 

Leia has always believed her primary value was to leading the Resistance movement. Han and her both went back to what they were best at following their separation.

Leia can’t just leave in the middle of her own Resistance movement being smashed. She knows these people who remain. She’s hoping her diplomatic ties will lead to allies arriving.

A silly aspect of the OT was how easily the OT3 leaders could up and leave the Rebellion for whatever reasons they wanted and drop back in later. It wasn’t defecting. It was just some brief martial arts training in the middle of a war. It wasn’t defecting. It was just hanging out in an old friend’s lush facility for a little while. We don’t care or ask too many questions of it because it’s the OT and we were kids when we first saw it the first dozen times. So, anybody coming and going as they please just seems totally normal without any subordinates wondering “Uhhh... guys.... where did our heroes go?”

Johnson aimed to address that a little more by even making the peer pressure to stay and fight and defections a concern in this world and then having it so Rose and Finn have to do it on the down low with some help from Poe and Connix. It’s still a less than realistic military world where the Resistance is desperate enough that if you’re the best pilot in the galaxy you can do more than take off for a bit and return later (relieve a Superior of command) and only face the equivalent of being tranquilzed/knocked out for that choice but that’s discussion more for the Chase thread.

Leia felt she had to remain and why she felt Rey might be best suited to the task since she can’t go. Leia hoped Luke seeing such a promising young person with Jedi potential again may also help rekindle and light a spark in him. Rey does briefly but seeing her with Ben leads Luke to rock bottom before Yoda helps him see the truth.

 

Yeah, I liked those brief moments.

 

The key to appreciating Luke’s arc is empathizing with him throughout it. Even when his mistake is revealed. Remembering his weaknesses and struggles and how those could add up if left bottled up inside once the War ended. If you leave things bottled up and don’t regularly revisit moments of weakness and failures and close calls that could have lead to failures to learn and stay humble... well, it can catch up to you eventually. Those who empathized first and had the reaction more like they wanted to give Luke a hug early on and who were the type of friends and fans who actually would have stayed with Luke longer to get him back were moved by his arc.

I honestly think the Rey and Luke fight is meant to showcase Rey continuing her flirtation (quite literally) with the Dark Side in the form of Ben Solo and that those who tend to like Luke’s arc (which is a huge aspect of liking TLJ) sympathize with Luke all way through that sequence and feel Rey is very much in the wrong for how she’s approaching this and is being inspired by the Dark Side. It doesn’t mean we don’t like Rey. We are worried for her too because of this slide she’s on with Ben Solo and her moment with Luke is a new low for her character (but it gets worse later) because Ben is influencing her big heart and all of her optimism toward him and away from Luke.

The haters see it differently and see it as a huge victory for her. It’s not. It’s her continuing to take steps toward the Dark Side. We know in the end she doesn’t accept but by this point in the film she’s already taken steps in that direction and this is her going further. She doesn’t realize it and some here won’t either but that’s entirely the point. One continues on the path until they realize it or become fully twisted toward it. Had she accepted Ben Solo’s offer of an easier life on the winning side that would have been it. She doesn’t. Back to Luke though.

I think one key to hating the Luke arc is the opposite of empathizing with Luke first and then turning on him fully as Rey does when the mistake is revealed. For some it’s self-entitlement first. Choosing to judge him first, growing angry that he wasn’t what you dreamed he’d become and hating him for not performing tricks like a dog on command to such a degree that you’re calling him by a different name early on. Ignoring that he realizes he was wrong. Giving his entire ending the silent treatment or reducing the greatest Light side feat seen on film in SW history to just a hologram, or reducing how he became what Rey wanted and how the two of them worked together in a way to save the remaining key people who will be huge parts in destroying the FO in IX (something Rey may realize later, which will also help her and Luke have a better and improved friendship via Force Ghost in IX).

Those who were most happy to see Luke reconnect to the Force and eventually find a path back that allowed him to become one with the Force and be with his father and mentors for an eternity realize how much worse things could have been had he never been found at all for him.

He could have died in purgatory and never found his father and mentors again. This arc is the end of the hero’s journey. The stakes even go beyond him saving the key players in the Resistance who will help light the fire in IX. The stakes even go beyond the public gaining hope. The stakes are spiritual in a saga that’s very much about that. He was having a crisis of faith. The stakes for Luke fans were whether Luke would reconnect to the Force in time to become one with the Force before he died. He’d shut himself off for years. Without him being found or rediscovering his connection to the Force he could have died at any point over that span (or later) and never found the Light and his way to Anakin and Obi-Wan and Yoda before he did.

Many who hate it seem to wish he’d never been found since his struggles invalidate him as a hero for them and can’t seem to let go of their attachments in the form of their own ideas for how his character could have been “better.”

In some ways it’s a little similar to the process some Rey fans are working through. Those who sympathize with her hard life and the effect of repeatly being rejected by people she’s trying to be with, along with these confusing future visions and mind probes and bridges, and powers, don’t seem to hate her for falling for Ben Solo’s gaslighting techniques. Many of us are disappointed and worry for her as a 19 year old but hope she makes better choices in IX following these events and learns from how close she was from the Dark Side in the form of Ben Solo. Many who seem to say she’s dead to them as a character have attachments to ideas of who she should be as a female role model or hero and seem to have wanted her struggles to be more physical and in battle and less psychological and in her mind.

 

Yah, Rey pulling the lightsaber on Luke and bailing is her definitely in the wrong, much like a lot of this movie is, people are so convinced they are right which fails. But even Yoda says "Failure, the greatest teacher is." But I don't think many people watched that scene and thought "Whoo, Rey! You show him who's boss!" Luke is actually handling her rather easily, one handed with the stick, it's when she pulls the lightsaber that makes him fall back because she officially just went off the reservation. Him telling her "This is not going to go the way you think!" has a lot of layers to it, first off what she wants with him isn't going to happen and what she wants with Kylo isn't going to happen because Luke has done the whole "seen a vision in the Force, I can save everybody" thing and it didn't turn out quite well.

 

But she didn't fail. Because she attacked Luke and ran off, Snoke is now dead.

 

She failed in "Kylo Ren will turn!" and come to the light and save the galaxy. She saw the Kylo turning part but he doubled-down in evil.

 

Yeah, but she didn't really suffer any consequences. The galaxy is better off now with Snoke gone.

 

Rian Johnson just didn't like it.

 

I don't think the galaxy is better off, as Kylo and Hux said
"The Supreme Leader is dead."
"Long live the Supreme Leader."

 

Well, it is. Kylo is unstable and childish, not a good leader. Also, not as powerful as Snoke.

 

Her setback is that the villain is someone she hoped would turn for her and that they could continue to learn the Force together. He tells her she’s not alone. She tells him “Neither are you” and he removes his glove and they touch skin on skin.

She has developed feelings for the enemy and he brought her closer to the Dark Side through that development than she did bring him to the Light side. She also couldn’t kill him and clearly picked up both broken parts of the sabers, meaning the other went in his direction. She could have killed him and didn’t. Consider how at odds Luke and Vader are at the end of TESB and where they ended. Will she fall for his ways again? Will he fall for her and show selflessness and Light side traits to be with her and give Skywalker bloodline fans some hope for a Rey and Ben union whose offspring could drive X-XII?

He also is aware of all of her weaknesses and values and what matters most to her and can use that against her if he, himself, feels angry at her rejection of his offer to become the equivalent of his queen. He seemed angry at the end of TLJ. Does he mean what he says there about wanting to destroy her or will he change his mind?

The setback is that our hero has developed feelings for the villain. She was intrigued when the mask came off in TFA and he’s felt their chemistry since back then too. They’ve occupied each other’s minds. She’s cut him badly. He doesn’t care. He seems to like her even more. He’s offered to teach her. She’s let her own parental issues let her look past what he did to Han. She feels she knows him and understands him. He thinks he does her. He’s the one with Force knowledge who had up to this point showed the most interest in helping her and wanting her. This from a girl who was literally abandoned and who didn’t find the answers she hoped for from Luke Skywalker. They’ve touched intimately. He saved her life. They’ve fought together. She didn’t kill him when he was knocked out.

The setback is Kylo Ren continues to make progress in his pursuit of Rey film by film and she hasn’t shown she’s willing to kill him. The setback is she isn’t a ruthless killing machine without feelings and that her feelings for him are a weakness now. She’s come closer to the Dark through him than he has come back to the Light for her. The setback is that we don’t know if there’s anything Ben Solo can do or say that will bring her even closer than she was in VIII in IX, or if she has the inner resolve necessary to kill him if he shows he can’t or won’t change to be with her.

 

Debatable. We don't know what kind of ruler King Kylo will be, but I can't see him being a stable one.

 

The question is whether or not he's stable enough to establish an Empire across the galaxy before the inevitable civil war within The First Order. If the First Order collapses before he can do such a thing, then Rey's actions helped the galaxy. If the First Order collapses after Kylo Ren establishes a near total control of the galaxy, then expect a full-scale war to end all wars.

 

Operation Cinder but worse, perhaps?

 

Can also see him being betrayed by Hux. Might be a bit obvious but it could serve very well as a catalyst to the ensuing drama that follows

 

Writers can write whatever they want. They have already created the space for themselves, showing they dont care about the character before the story rule, so they can write Kylo as succesfull and respectfull leader if the plot needs it. The fact it would be OOC writing is another question.

 

Kylo is more emotional, and thus he’s excessive. Look at how he ordered the AT AT crew to shoot at Luke’s projection. Kylo can be a huge risk if he gets agitated.

 

I had to check the thread title to be sure that I was in the Mark Hamill/ Luke thread, because Kylo seems to now be the topic of conversation in here...

 

Kylo Ren and Luke Skywalker are the same person! Do we ever see them both together IN THE FLESH? No! That projection was a ruse! That flashback is a result of unreliable narration! He is a master teleporter!

 

Indeed. Let's get back to discussing Luke, please...

 

Some interesting stuff in here about Luke that we’ve discussed.

 

Not much much going on in this thread...oh wait, Luke is gone
Is it still possible to post our thoughts about Luke in VIII in this thread?