PT [TFA Spoilers] Criticism of Anakin vs. Kylo Ren

So far, nothing really convinced me of the contrary. His relationship with his apprentice is basically the same as Palpatine with his, always waiting for a new, more powerful apprentice. Only difference is that he's not a Sith. Maul proclaimed not to be a Sith but he clearly want revenge against his former master.

 

I find it to be terrible writing if Snoke was just some guy sitting on the toliet, I mean throne, waiting for Palpatine to die for some 80 some odd years.

It's better writing to make him AN EX-Sith. Not necessarily Plagueis. Maybe Plagueis's first unsuccessful student?

 

How? The Sith are dead, but that doesn't mean that dark side users cannot emerge again. Snoke was around during the era of the films, but was not part of the problem until now.

Maul learned how to stop himself from dying, survived for another twenty years and is killed off by the time of ANH.

 

And that might be the intention; to catch us completely off guard in EpVIII!

I'm beginning to think that you've seen the whole trilogy already!

 

Snoke is the big bad of the ST, if they want to surprise us, it would be about Kylo's past to make his redemption easier.

Why do you think he wants Rey brought to him then? Why do you think Han tried to warn Kylo?

 

You seem to have a fairly cemented view of the story already. There's only room for one surprise and that must be about Kylo. Snoke has to be interested in Rey because he wants to replace Kylo.

I prefer to heed Yoda's advice: Do not assume anything.

 

Fair enough.

 

Aw, now I almost feel like a jerk
Sorry about that! ...and thanks for being cool about it.

 

You did nothing wrong. It's great to have a few heated debates from time to time. Imagine if everyone had the same POV as I do *shudder* and it would be quite boring if you ask me. Just have to accept sometimes you can't reach a common ground and it's okay, it doesn't mean you're wrong. It's when condescension and people insulting each other that things get ugly pretty fast.

 

At least we agree on that

 

This is one I agree with to an extend, although I liked the giant hologram illusion. However, IMO no CGI creation is going to beat a great classical stage actor. To this day I still feel that speech Palpatine gave to Luke about his pitiful little band is one of the best parts of the saga. "Oh, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational, when your friends arrive... God, I love that man!

 

I thought Snoke was a terrible name but I wanted to see his design and boy, what a letdown. They really dropped the ball with the giant hologram thing, it looked more silly than anything else.
Palpatine was such a troll, even better in TCW tv series.

 

I said this on another thread, even JJ said Snoke was an 11th hour creation. He would look stupid even as a puppet or prosthetics. He looks every part the last minute creation & it shows.

This first movie he should of totally be filled in shadow or filmed from the back. With a reveal (& better looking) Snoke in 8.

 

Not sure what your point is here? I have no problem with the narrative that played out in ROTS and with Obi Wan and Yoda changing the beacon. However, as I said in response to Dr. Dre's statement, that just because Obi Wan did change the beacon, this is not proof positive that thousands of Jedi had survived because of the beacon change.

Most died during Order 66, that was the point of it from both an in universe perspective and an out of universe, story telling, narrative perspective. Or does anyone really believe that Lucas went through the machinations of the Sith plan in the PT, just to have thousands of Jedi survive? Enough to take on the Empire? That is not what the narrative of Order 66 was set to portray, that is not what the narrative in the OT portrays.

The bottom line, to me, is that Order 66 worked brilliantly. Whatever Jedi that survived were spread out across the galaxy, and not enough to make a difference. It still doesn't change the fact that Obi Wan and Yoda had a different mindset that dictated that they needed to survive, that they go into hiding. Because if they had died, than there was no one left to train the New Hope. They knew there was more to the Empire than just a governmental instituiion that would crumble if the Rebellion was victorious militarily. Yoda and Obi Wan knew the Sith were behind the Empire, and that in order for there to be complete victory, the Sith needed to be destroyed just the same as the Empire itself.

That was the point of their self-exile. Not to hide from friends and family in shame or depression. Not because they felt like failures. They did so in order for the greater good.

I think you are missing my overall point. I would have a problem with any story line that makes Luke out to be a failure. It reeks of poor imagination in order to create a character like Kylo Ren. If the story turns that it is Luke's fault that Kylo Ren turns to the darkside, rather than any other hundreds of different narratives that could be explored to get to that same position. I would be done with the ST.

Once again, see my above statement. Anything that lessens Luke as a character in order to prop another character up comes across as a poor imagination. We already had this immensely powerful, evil force user, that doesn't do his own dirty work, but sits int he shadows while he gets others to institute his plan... We are going to get another one? For what purpose? To have another final confrontation where the immensely powerful, evil force user, is showing just how powerful they are... etc etc?

No.. just... No...

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No Luke didn't. Not according to the movie. Not according to the writer/director of the movie.

The opening scroll clearly states that the part of the map that Lor San Tekka has was discovered, and not given too him...



Something being discovered does not mean given too, or handed too, in order to be given to someone else later on.

As for Artoo, Abrams made it clear shortly after TFA was released that the piece of the map Artoo had was not from Luke, but, from when Artoo downloaded it when he was tapped into the Empire's files in ANH. Basically, the piece of the map that Artoo has, is the same exact piece that Kylo Ren has because they both got it from the same source. The Empire's archives...

So no, according to the movie and Abrams, Luke had no part in how either piece ended up where they did...

Kylo Ren from TFA:

Abrams quotes from this article:

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/12/2...-question-about-r2-d2-star-wars-force-awakens

At the end of the day, all we have is what Han says... Luke left because he felt guilty...

 

No Luke didn't. Not according to the movie. Not according to the writer/director of the movie.

The opening scroll clearly states that the part of the map that Lor San Tekka has was discovered, and not given too him...



Something being discovered does not mean given too, or handed too, in order to be given to someone else later on.

As for Artoo, Abrams made it clear shortly after TFA was released that the piece of the map Artoo had was not from Luke, but, from when Artoo downloaded it when he was tapped into the Empire's files in ANH. Basically, the piece of the map that Artoo has, is the same exact piece that Kylo Ren has because they both got it from the same source. The Empire's archives...

So no, according to the movie and Abrams, Luke had no part in how either piece ended up where they did...

Kylo Ren from TFA:

Abrams quotes from this article:

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/12/2...-question-about-r2-d2-star-wars-force-awakens

You say you are against any storyline that would make Luke a failure, yet many great stories, including TESB, use the butterfly principle: success through failure. Luke may have had what it takes to become a Jedi, but as far as training Jedi, he is a novice. Luke failed, and he struggles with this failure. In my book this makes Luke a stronger character, especially if he's able to overcome that failure. His story mirrors that of Obi-Wan, who failed in guiding Anakin, yet unlike Luke, Obi-Wan had a support system, and many Jedi masters who he could turn to for guidance. Luke had to figure it out by himself, making him vulnerable. So, while you may view Luke's failure as a regression from his hero status at the end of ROTJ, I see Luke's failure as a natural growth of a character who after struggling to become a Jedi, now struggles to become a teacher of Jedi.

 

For me the problem is not that this could be view as failure (I agree completely with you that many heroes failed before the triumph) but that is absolutely atypical for Luke to do that. Actually TFA changes (for me in a very bad sense) the character perspective of the heroes of the OT , ironically while pretending to save the day for OT.
What is the problem with Luke-in my opinion? Even in ANH after some hesitations Luke decided to act. I mean , his uncle and aunt are dead, so he need to do something. Yes, he retires in TESB, but in some 'quiet’ moment: first he helps for the evacuation of Hoth and then goes to Dagobah but when his friends need him, he immediately goes back. Not to mention ROTJ, where he refuses the idea of Lea to hide from his father and goes alone in the liar of the beast to save him. This Luke cannot hide from the problem , he would face him even if he fails (as in TESB, he prefers to go and fail with Vader instead of hide and wait). I'm completely OK with the idea that he refuses to be a Jedi teacher or even a Jedi knight after such tragedy with his apprentices. But even not a Jedi knight he could support his sister. But to hide from Lea: the most important person for him left alive? And also he broke his word: he said that she will know to use her abilities as Force sensitive, but .. obviously he didn’t nothing about it. I just cannot believe it. Lea is looking for him, desperately needing him and he just stay on some beach, meditating? No, this is not Luke at all. I think Ryan Jonson will have a very hard task to give some reasonable explanation of this behaviour of Luke. I hope he will succeed to do it.
Back to the topic of the tread, for me the most ridiculous thing in TFA are the Ben Solo tantrums: he wants to be bad for the seek of being bad (not to mention the utterly ridiculous line of 'the pull (!) of the light'. 'Being bad is cool and we have cookies in the dark side' is all I heard from him (metaphorically speaking). And he is not even a teenager to think like that. But he is not whiny, he is the cool guy. (a cool guy who cannot control himself at all and cut the hardware with his saber every times when he feels angry). On the other side, Anakin, who expressed some random discontent but who in the end tried to do something to change the things (actually he fell because he wanted to make some almost impossible changes) is whiny and annoying. I don't know, maybe I'm too old to understand it

 

Wait, the ST is about the new characters right? Not about the old? Luke had his learn from his mistakes arc, right? So now he has to go through it again in order to be that Obi Wan type character for the ST? The ST isn't about Luke having to fail again to succeed.

So yes, I am against a stroyline that puts Luke on the backburner, and because the writers can't find a reasonable answer to the question of why Luke ran away, they instead resort to him running away from everything because he was upset. He ran away from his family, he ran away from his order, he ran away from the Republic, he ran away from friends, he ran away from his responsibility, he ran away from everything!. It reeks of them having little time and little imagination to get Luke out of the picture. The same goes for Han Solo. He's a bad father, his son is evil and has joined an evil organization.. So what should a Father do? Throw his hands up in the air, run away, and revert back to what makes him happy. Living a bachelors life, going on adventures, hanging out in exotic bars, reluctant to face his responsibilities, so on and so forth. It's truly amazing to see people make excuses for Han Solo, when in our own society, any Father that would do the same would be labeled Dead Beat!

However, in the case of Luke.. He can't be a successful Jedi teacher who is simply betrayed by a misguided student?

No..! Luke has to be put down again to the level of a learner, or a "novice" in order to have him say the line: " I thought I could teach Kylo as well as (Obi Wan or Yoda), I was wrong"... He has to be reverted to something else in order to get him out of the way. No, he couldn't have grown, or moved forward as a person or as a Jedi, or as a teacher in those 30 years, he has to be put in his place, which is lower than where we left him in ROTJ, in order to get him out of the way...

However, None of what you said is in TFA. None of that is even hinted at in TFA. What is said is that Luke started a new Jedi Order and one of his students turned on him and wiped out the order, and Luke felt responsible and ran away, leaving everything behind. He doesn't tell anyone where's he going (there's only rumors)! Tells no one why! Tell's no one in how to get in touch with him! He doesn't make any attempt to come back when multiple planets are wiped out! No attempt at contact? Instead.. as I pinted out before, he reverts back to a former Luke that just sits and stares at the horizon? Woe is me... and all that pitiful stuff...

Rey didn't find Luke hard at work in some Jedi Temple Archives, looking for answers. She didn't find him in the middle of a training session with Yoda or Obi Wan, or Dad. No, she found him pouting, staring into the horizon, with him turning around with the face of a broken, pitiful man:





Who is in no hurry to embrace his old identity.



If the ST is truly about the new characters, than there is no reason for the old ones to have be touched, reverted, or treated in the way they were treated. That is my opinion. Maybe you don't mind. That's good for you. I did mind!

 

From what I have seen a so far & after reading many threads.

Luke just ran away!


I don't know what he was expecting to get or find at that pile of rocks but whatever it is/was dosent change the fact that he's been there for 6 years!

Looks like he took Leia's advise from Endor, ".........run away! Far away!"

 

I have the strong feeling that Abrams is a secret Sith and a fan of the Empire. Look, the emperor said in ROTJ that the rebellion is insignificant and actually it results that in TFA: the ‘heroes‘ couldn‘t handled with the Republic and it is weak and the Resistance is still resisting instead of changing the roles: the First Order should be the ‘opposition‘ and they should be the strongest. But no, the FO is so powerful and reach, that has an immense army and could built a weapon more deadly and bigger than the Death Star. The last Jedi and the big hero of the war just ran away, Han decided that smuggling is better than stay with Lea and both (or maybe I should add Luke also) were so bad example for the young generation that his son ran away to serve to some gigantic virtual dark side user. I‘m joking about Abrams, of course but for me is unexplicable how the OT fans like this saying that it stays true to the classic trilogy... I simpy dont‘ understand.

 

I don't understand either, TFA simply takes a big dump all over the 6 film saga in order to explain its existance. Lucas wote himself into a corner with ROTJ by shoehorning most of his ST ideas into that film. Of course JJ wasn't up to the task of trying to reconsile why ROTJ wasn't the end, perhaps a impossible for anyone really There was a reason why Lucas was dead set against a ST for over a decade.

 

ROTJ wasn't the end, in the same way that we had a WWII after WWI. There was no happy end after the defeat of the Central Powers. The German Emperor was replaced by an even bigger threat, Hitler, who called himself Der Fuehrer or The Leader. So, while the story could have ended with ROTJ, in the same way that it could have started with ANH, the ST is perfectly "realistic", as it is directly modelled after historic events.

 

By that very same logic, episode IX will definitively not be "the end" either if we try to be "realistic". Next generation will screw things up like their predecessors did like an endless circle.

 

The end of what?

The SW galaxy?
The story of some specific character?

In the LotR book, they say that even if they defeat Sauron, some new evil might arise.
But that isn't their concern, their concern is the here and now.

Same in Harry Potter, there were other Dark Wizards before Voldemort and there will probably be others after him. So the story of that world isn't over but the story of Harry Potter's fight against Voldemort, that is over.

Unless ep IX ends with the Force getting totally changed so that there is no longer an light and dark side, it is just grey. And as a consequence, there will no longer be light side or dark side users, no longer any Jedi or Sith, just neutral force users.
But somehow I doubt they will do this and I really doubt this will go over well if they did.

If ep IX ends with the defeat of this specific evil and the galaxy is a good place again, that is fine.
So what if something bad might come 20-30 years from now. A victory doesn't become meaningless just because something bad happens 50 years later.

@Slicer87

The Zahn books were set after RotJ and there the enemies were the imperial remnant and Thrawn etc. Did those books "dump" on RotJ?
I don't think so, overall those books are quite well regarded.
They showed that the fight didn't end with RotJ, there were new battles to fight against the darkness.
How is that "disrespectful" to RotJ?

Ex. Avatar, the last Airbender.
That show had several similarities with the OT and in the last episode, the evil Fire Lord was defeated and the war was over. But the story didn't end there. It continued in the "The Promise" were the heroes found that winning the war and keeping the peace are not the same thing.
It wasn't as easy as just defeating the bad guy and then everything would be fine.

Or take Babylon 5. For several season the fight against the Shadows was all consuming.
But they won that battle but it didn't end there. In that show they also say that the battle never ends, that there will always be new fights against the darkness. But they did win a victory, even if it wasn't complete and they lost many things as well.

In closing, the PT/OT and now TFA does suggest a kind of cycle.
In the PT we hear that the Sith used to rule the galaxy 1000 years before and this was not a pleasant time. They were overthrown and there was peace for a while. Then the Sith came back, took over the galaxy again and things were bad yet again. But they lost again and peace returned.
Now this seems to happen again. I know that JJ has said that Snoke is not a Sith but the film hadn't made that very clear.
So the cycle seems to be, peace, dark side user rises, dark times until they are defeated and then peace again.
As I said above, a way to end this is if "Balance of the Force" is more than just killing a bad guy.
That they somehow alters the corrupting influence of the Dark Side and form that point forward there can be no dark side users. There might be bad people but no Sith or those like them.
But again I doubt they are going to do this and I am dubious as to how this would be received.

So maybe it ends with a victory but also a realization that the struggle against evil never ends.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface