ST The Even More Magniloquent New Rumor Intellectual Thread of Seriousness for Sophisticated Discourse

Of course Luke is not the villain. Come on.

 

If it were intended to be a shock, why the heck would they *advertise it*?

 

Nightangel - please, just think. You can have drama with Luke and "shock" just to the fact that he appears to be having a crisis of faith. That was a shock to you and the rest of the hardcore Luke fans. They don't need more than that and that is where all the evidence lies - not LUKE IS EVIL NOW. There is literally no evidence of that beyond Luke looking moody on a poster. And the fact he's also looking heroic on three of the 4 options should tell you he's not going to be the villain.

You really must stop over-reacting like this at every little thing - Luke is not going to be the villain, lightsabers are not going to be phased out, etc, etc. I think the worst things you may have to face (may not certainly will) are that Luke does not come back into the fray until 9, or Luke dies in 8 or 9. Those seem reasonable potential outcomes - though equally, Luke coming back into the fray in 8 is also possible as is Luke surviving the entire trilogy. There is no point freaking out over things that will never happen and for which there is no proof.

 

nightangel Keep in mind that Rian Johnson has been pretty open about Luke being his favorite character, and although this is the "dark middle chapter" a la The Empire Strikes Back, Johnson stated he consciously infused it with Return of the Jedi's sense of fun. This isn't a guy who seems to like Star Wars because of its darkness, but because of its moral message of good triumphing over evil through resolve. I don't think he'd turn Luke evil; like Satipo said, Luke will likely be jaded, but I suspect where he teaches Rey the ways of the Force and a more complex way of looking at the world, she'll teach him to hope again.

 

That's a pre-season game. Audiences are usually pretty small for those, so I have a hard time imagining they'll use it to break a major trailer. The first regular season broadcast on ESPN is September 11, when they'll air their traditional opening weekend doubleheader. That seems more likely. Or maybe they'll just show it on GMA.

 

It's really not that different when certain elements of the build up to ROTJ (and even the opening of the film itself) wanted to raise the issue of whether or not Luke might have fallen to the dark side himself. I mean, "will Luke become evil" is one of the key dramatic issues of ESB and ROTJ and up until the final moments on the Death Star is still meant to be in the balance.

 

Are you saying you think the question was "Has Luke already fallen?" or "Will Luke fall?"

 

Well, I'm walking about a dramatic question that starts during Luke's training in ESB and runs until Luke throws his lightsaber down, so it covers the spectrum depending on what part of the film (s) we're at. When he walks into Jabba's palace in all black, we're meant to wonder if he's already turned dark. But that doesn't last long. But then the whole of the Emperor Luke Vader stuff hinges on whether Luke will turn to the dark side - which has always been Yoda and Old Ben's greatest fear (since he left his training early anyway).

 

Ah! Got it

 

Maybe you are right and they want to create the same tension and us wandering if Luke turned dark or not.

 

I don't think it'll even be that. But there will be a shadow around him. The grief, conflict, loss of hope. Those things are not what we've come to expect from Luke, but I think we're going to have the same emotions Rey does. "Hey, I came here expecting a legendary Jedi Master, what gives?" then when Luke does come around, it'll resonate even more, because we'll feel it as Rey does - doubly so if he's her father.

 

Exactly.

It's the equivalent of seeing "no, there is another" and taking it as confirmation that Luke will die. Or Old Ben's assertion that if Luke can't kill Vader "the Emperor has already won".

Stories are peaks and troughs. If the dramatic question is any variation on - can Rey help Luke Skywalker return and bring about the rise of the new Jedi, thus helping bring balance to the force?- it would be terrible storytelling if Rey was able to bring Luke back right off the bat.

For the arc to work, it has to be a journey filled with challenges and setbacks. One of Rey's challenges is going to be to do what she needs to do without the help of a master who is 100% convinced he can or should help her - or the challenge is to win Luke over.

 

Aw I was kind of getting excited at the prospect of a twist that crazy. At least now I realize I'm up for whatever happens. That's kind of a liberating feeling.

 

It will be interesting to discover why Luke felt responsible for the destruction of his temple and students when he didn't commit the act.

I'm not inclined to think it was simply "My best wasn't good enough and Ben turned anyway - I'm a failure!" (Although from what Han says to Leia, it sounds like Luke tried to get through to Ben at some point.) I think there's more too it than that. I doubt Luke did something awful to trigger anything. But I think that he either made a critical misjudgment/mistake or - as I've speculated - he was unable to cope with his own issues to the point where he couldn't give his nephew the guidance and support the boy needed.

 

Well, maybe there's more to it but "oh my God, it was up to me to pass on what I learned, and I failed in doing that to the point where history is repeating itself and my own nephew has become like my father, destroyed the order and is now seeking to take over the galaxy. I couldn't stop him going down this path because I wasn't a good enough teacher and my nephew is now consumed, my students are murdered, and my sister's family has been torn apart." That's fairly devastating in terms of guilt. I do think he went looking for answers as how to put this right, but as of the beginning of TLJ, I don't think he's found the answer he was looking for.

 

A Jedi turned and wiped out the entire Jedi order and helped enslave the galaxy.

A Jedi turned and wiped out the entire New Jedi order.

Luke thinks the Jedi should end.

Why is this hard for people to grasp? Pretty simple and straightforward.

 

Of course Luke should feel responsible. He was responsible for and training those young people and they were slaughtered under his leadership. It would be like a military commander leaving his troops for a while and coming back and finding them slaughtered because they weren't prepared for that possibility on that day.

 

I can see something like this and that Luke was not with his whole heart into the training of Ben and his students. He may even had a too pacifistic approach of his training, which lead to an easy destruction of the temple.

 

Yeah, I don't think he's found whatever final puzzle pieces he's missing. Which would be a reasonable basis for not heading home right away if he things such answers are instrumental to defeating Snoke/saving the galaxy/etc.

 

My theory is that Luke never knew about the C.O. prophecy (in fact no one tells him it the OT).
And that he found out about it not only after Endor but much later on, perhaps only in recent years.

However, whenever that happened, he first thought that killing the Emperor, his father did accomplish the prophecy.
and thus that his duty was just to rebuild the order (as he had promised to Yoda).

But...young Ben/Kylo is deceived by Snoke and Kylo's interpretation became
Balance = No Sith and No Jedi.
Thus, Jedi must be killed by Kylo to "finish what you started".

In that shocking moment, that became also Luke's interpretation.
The Jedi should have ended as well as the Sith.
But it's not that he's willing to end the Jedi.
That is heartbreaking for him.

And in addition... he feels guilty.
As Han said.

Had he knew before that Jedi should have ended, he wouldn't have trained other people.
And they would be still alive.
He wouldn't have trained Ben.
And Ben wouldn't had any reason to turn to dark side to "finish what Vader started".
Or to say it better, there woudn't be any "cosmic" reason for Ben to turn.
If that is the true meaning of the prophecy, somehow Ben/Kylo's free will doesn't existe.

You may also add to that that perhaps Luke now believes that he shouldn't have met Vader when he wasn't ready (ESB), thus he should not have saved Han and Leia, etc...

But... Rey enters (and with Anakin's lightsaber) showing him, that... he's wrong.

 

MSW (Jason) said about a new bad guy remember? probably is a new character (Admiral Holdo could be interesting but I think is DJ and Finn/Rose will end up in a bigger problem than they imagined)

 

They aren't waiting for September for the second teaser because the final trailer is coming either October 13th or 16th with ticket sales. There's a teaser in August.

 

None of this stuff regarding Luke sounds particularly interesting honestly. It feels more like "we've been there done that." Hopefully the movie executes it better than it sounds, because it ain't making me more excited to see that's for sure.