ST The Last Jedi clarification thread

When Snoke talks about Kylos equal in the light rising and says "Skywalker I assumed wrongly" does he mean he though Luke would get stronger or that Rey would be a Skywalker?

 

He just says that his equal would rise to meet him. Not that Luke would get stronger.

 

Yes, he thought Luke would challenge Kylo.

 

I wondered if they meant Luke or that he though another random Skywalker would rise

 

I think you would need "a" Skywalker or "Skywalker's son/ daughter" for that to be the case.

 

Skywalker = Luke. They've been calling him that since TFA. They = the FO, and even Poe.

 

As I understand, when Snoke tells that he already knew his equal in light would rise, he was talking about Rey.

Luke also knows this when he mention how the Force likes to balance itself, "powerful light, powerful darkness".

So Kylos's equal in the light is Rey.

"Skywalker, I assumed wrongly" as I understood happens when Snoke reads Rey's mind and discovers that Skywalker does not want anything to do with the Force anymore and will not rush to fight Snoke.

Snoke was assuming that by placing Kylo as a threat, Skywalker would be lured out of his hiding and try to fight him.

 

Well, Snoke says he thought it would be Luke, but instead the Force awakened in Rey and here she is to meet Kylo.

 

That actually happens before the mind probe. At this point, Snoke now assumes that Rey has at least been trained by Luke to confront Kylo Ren as his equal, rather than meet him himself. It's only after the mind probe that he realises that Rey is a free agent and Luke is deliberately out of reach.

 

I think whether Rey is a free agent or working with/ for Luke is separate from Rey being Kylo's equal in the light.

 

Yeah. The one who would rise to meet him is Kylo's equal in the light. It's assumed to be Luke. Then Rey sent by Luke. And then just Rey by herself.

 

To give credit where it's due, Snoke was right to fear a Skywalker. He was killed by one.

 

Why didn't the First Order send forces ahead to Crait so they'd be already lying in wait when the Resistance arrived?

 

Rey is essentially the ideal night-shift employee. Always ready to rise to meet the darkness.

 

Luke answered this himself when responding to Rey, about rushing out there and taking them all on with his laser sword. He felt it would not only be impossible but pointless. That the constant fight between the light and the dark was endless and repetitive without improvement to the galaxy.

 

I don't agree with you on this point. I think at the end Luke did go out to do a Jedis duty the best way he could: he bought his sister and her allies time to escape certain death by sacrificing himself. This is the very essence of the hero and what it means to be a Jedi.

 

Indeed. Snoke made the mistake of thinking he completely owned Ben. When he sensed strength and resolve it was moments before Ben killed him.

 

Why haven't they built up the background to the ST?
With so much either left unexplained or discarded what were they hoping to achieve with this movie?
Even the Prequels had a purpose this feels like an attempt to end the trilogy when that shouldn't have been the case.
Did they ever explain their reasons for this?

 

Based on 2 movies and half of the TLJ novel (haven’t finished) the galaxy is at war, the First Order rose from the dark side. Snoke took advantage of disgruntled imperial personnel that weren’t happy w the post Endor state of play. Snoke, with unlimited wealth, imperial remnants and the grandson of Darth Vader make their move on the new republic. The resistance, led by General Leia Organa couldn’t muster the support she needed within the NR. Her warning of the dangers of the FO fell on deaf ears, so she creates the resistance to face head on this threat.

After the destruction go Hosnian Prime, the FO gain the upper hand and their impending take over of the galaxy is commencing and it’s swift.

Meanwhile, the Jedi are no where to be seen. It’s a mystery to the universe, but Luke is in exile due to his personal failure.

The force has emerged in Rey from Nowhere.

The saga will end with the force always course correcting itself and bringing peace and justice to the galaxy led by the Jedi and the resistance.

 

This is going to be the overlying message of this trilogy: Even though the cycle of light and dark, good and evil, prosperity, loss, war and peace is balance and we must not shy from it ever but turn our shoulders to the wheel and roll with it.

Not as thrilling as the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker but true in a Daoist sense, therefore always relevant to the human condition.

 

Maz even pretty much spells it out for us in TFA:

"The only fight. Against the dark side. Through the ages, I've seen evil take many forms. The Sith. The Empire. Today, it is the First Order. Their shadow's spreading across the galaxy. We must face them. Fight them! All of us."

EDIT: That's actually one area where I think TLJ should have been more explicit. Part of Luke's motivation for staying out is that he recognizes this eternal cycle and the destructive consequences it has on the galaxy and that the Jedi play a role in perpetuating it. The Visual Dictionary states this, and RJ touches on it in the commentary track. But while you can infer this from what is actually in the film, it's not explicitly stated. I think it probably should have been.

 

1. The FO had no idea the Resistance was heading to Crait.
2. The FO got info from DJ that the Resistance was evacuating in shuttles.
3. The FO started picking off the shuttles one by one. They had no reason to believe they would not be successful in wiping them out.
4. Holdo does her lightspeed move, throwing a wrench in the whole thing.
5. The remaining Resistance shuttles reach Crait while the FO scrambles to get their troops together to head to the planet.

Where in that time frame should the FO send troops to Crait before the Resistance?

 

Agreed. Luke’s reasoning is sound. And I think you could slot it in during lesson 1 perhaps. It may have been in the script and been cut TBH.

 

Luke’s reasoning is also that goodness and positive energy will always endure even if the Jedi (him) end. It doesn’t have to be in the form of the Force.