ST What's "the hook" that Lucasfilm will be betting on, which sells Ep IX as a must-see blockbuster?

I truly want Luke back in person and yes it can be done. Easily.

I rolled my eyes throughout TLJ, so maybe I can roll them again for a redeeming reason

That movie made little sense and lacked credibility. You suggest nothing would be sacred, well I think TLJ proves that just fine. IX needs to restore it for me.

I doubt Luke will come back either, but I think something drastic must happen to win over those who dislike TLJ.

 

Yeah there's no reason JJ can't write that Luke's spirit materializes into flesh for some reason. Obi-Wan's ghost tells Luke that he cannot interfere in a confrontation with Vader. . .But perhaps Luke is now on a higher plane or closer to the Force than Obi-Wan now, and he's able to move back and forth between the physical and spiritual world...Either whenever he wants, or perhaps he can do this feat just once, and he uses it for the climax of Episode 9.

Think about what kind of statement that would make to Kylo and the mistakes he's making on his dark path, to see the power Luke has now to come back from death and face him in the flesh. And for Ben to see Luke wield this massive power with grace and without malice, still giving Ben the chance to return...Wow, that would be amazing. It would both give Luke an impactful, if smaller role, in 9, and also provide a credible trigger for Kylo's return to the Light Side.

Yoda tell's Luke "Lose Rey we must not" in TLJ...Well, manifesting physically again to help her and confront Kylo would be Luke's solution to that challenge by Yoda, and provide a nice mirror or rhyme to what happened with Luke's projection in TLJ. Kylo could even think at first that it's just Luke projecting himself again in 9, and JJ could have some fun with that when Kylo realizes Luke is alive and really there in front of him.

 

Then nothing comes of it so what is Yoda supposed to be referring to?

 

That's my point @Qui-Riv-Brid , JJ could write something in 9 that gives this part of TLJ actual meaning!

 

I loved TFA and TLJ but what would really sell me would be a trailer showing Luke, Anakin, Yoda and Obi-Wan all as ghosts and Lando making an appearance. It would make me feel that IX is truly wrapping up all the trilogies and I would gladly pay to see how the Skywalker story ends.

 

Either that or he could do to RJ what RJ did to him throughout TLJ with all those points set up from TFA and just drop them.

I don't love TFA. I think it has massive flaws but whatever else was problematic going on it was supposed to be the set-up of this "ST" so that whatever it did do was then relegated meaning TLJ was essentially rebooting the reboot and now it seems that there is going to be a third reboot in the same trilogy.

 

There is a reason why mentors do not come back to save the day. Obi-Wan returned to advise Luke, but coincidentaly he was a ghost, he could not intervene. The same happens in other sagas just like Harry Potter. There was a huge drama when Dumbledore died. I remember there was even a website called dumbledoreisnotdead.com that gave some pretty good arguments in favor of the theory.

But guess what? Dumbledore actually died. There was no trick. He could still come back to advise Harry when he needed him the most, but coincidentaly, he could not intervene either. There is always the same plot devide. There is always something that impedes the mentor helping the student. Simply because it is usually the student's story, not the mentor's.

It is not about Luke being a ghost and not being able to properly fight Kylo in a lightsaber duel. It is probably more about Rey being the protagonist now. Most likely Luke will tell her he is not allowed to interfere. Just read what you are saying, you are asking for the OT hero to come back and save the say. At the very last scene of the ST, the new hope could not make it. The previous hero, the lost master, had to come and do the task. Nah, you know it does not work like that.

Having said this, though, I would not see as a bad thing if Luke was able to hold Kylo for a brief period of time while Rey runs away from a collapsing are or something.

 

Luke wasn't a mentor character though, Han was. Luke was an exposition machine who got 3 damn flashbacks with slight variations, and was more of a main character than Rey.

 

Clearly not. Han was her father figure. Luke is the one who taught her about the Force. No matter how much you disliked it. It is also clear Rey is the main character. Which must be some kind of shock for part of the fandom who seems to have been expecting Luke to be the lead of these movies. But no, Luke was going to go either in TLJ or in IX, even with Lucas in charge. Simply because it was not Luke's story anymore. His purpose was clear from the get go.

 

I don't know how it can have that wow moment. The thing is that TFA had it, but TLJ didn't. Next year you have Avengers 4 which will be even more epic than three, and three is at already a towering 4th place all time with a little over $2 billion at the box office. Episode 9 isn't going to have all those super actors in the movie, but what it can have is a super duper battle between everyone. That is for sure a must. But everything is going to be between Rey, Finn and Poe, new characters and actors. It's tough.

Several months ago, when I told people here on the boards that Deadpool 2 would have very good legs as opposed to Solo, I almost got thrown out of the boards. Here we are on Friday, June 15th and its done what Solo should have done but didn't.

Episode 9 is going to have a tough time. It will be good and within the top three movies of the year, that's guaranteed. It may or may not beat out Avengers 4, but no matter what, that movie could well be either the push forward with the star wars franchise or its complete ending.

 

Completely agree with all you say here! Great post!

 

It's just dawned on me that Maz Kanata in TFA was a more positive, helpful mentor figure to Rey than Luke.

Maz could be Rey's teacher in the ways of the Force in IX! It's such an opportunity! Women mentoring women, so empowering, much progressive, wow. Need a Skywalker FG? Go pester Anakin's. Just leave Luke/his FG tf alone, for the love of god. Rey has grown beyond him on her own, she doesn't need him, it's all good. Let him rest.

 

Liking of disliking is utterly irrelevant. If Rey for whatever reason thinks Han was a father figure then she sure forgave Ren real quick for killing her "father" and Luke did not teach Rey about the Force. It simply did not happen. That was the point of the movie. Luke refused to teach her.

Again TFA would lead you to believe that she was the lead protagonist to Ren's lead antagonist (as in a personalized way as with Luke and Vader in the OT). In essence co-leads unlike the PT which was Anakin as the central character and the OT with Luke as the central character. TLJ framed the story clearly around Ren being central to the entire ST so far. All roads lead to Ren. Anakin and Luke were the object of attention of Sidious, Vader, the Jedi, Padme etc in their respective trilogies.

The shocker is that Rey was cast aside, undermined and regressed in TLJ.

The even bigger shocker is that for something not Luke's story anymore how much time they spent on aspects of his story over Rey to Ren while at the same time not taking advantage of what's Luke's place in the story should have been. To pass on what he learned to Rey. Except that doesn't work because the point of TLJ is that Luke learned nothing and is a massive failure on all fronts.

 

Rey is the protagonist and Kylo the antagonist. Had Vader been younger and had Lucas known his impact with fans, he would probably had shared a lot more of the screen time with Luke as well. The PT could not do that due to the evident weakness of its villains, starting with Maul and ending with Grievous. The problem here is you simply refuse to give the ST story any value cause it does not come from George and therefore you seem to dispise it. Believe me, it is not my favourite story either, but that does not make it silly and dumb as you seem to claim with every post.

Rey was not regressed in TLJ. He started the movie expecting Luke to return and save the day. The entire movie purpose is to show how Luke's time has passed. He cannot be the one who fights the battle, but can inspire others to do so. Rey ends the movie accepting her lineage and her destiny at the same time. She is the one carrying the entire Resistance in the Falcon now, not Luke. She is now the big hope.

That is a theme, a story. Some fans sincerely disliking might indicate the story is not as good as it should have, not that there is no story.

And it is not Luke was a failure who refused to teach Rey. Luke is betrayed by Ben and believes he has lead the Jedi Order to the same place it was before him. Which is true. Same teachings lead to similar endings. What Luke does is returning to the basics. Teaching Rey what Ben and Yoda told him. What the Force is and how it does not belong to the Jedi, but to everyone. Again, there is an intention there. One you clearly dislike, yep, but still.

Had all this come from uncle George, the description of it some have might be interestingly different.

 

I don’t think he should save the day, but he needs to come back and help a bit.

I think Gandalf is probably the greatest mentor of them all (alongside Yoda - pre TLJ, perhaps) and was sent back until his task was done. I have mentioned this point in other threads, and a bit of copying has never hurt Star Wars before, if it’s done well. Wishful thinking on my part, but I can hope!

 

Han was the one who offered her a gun and looked out for her, offering her a place on his crew, then taking part in her rescue and asking if she was hurt. Luke was the one who told her to go away and sucked up all her screentime with listening to him rant about useless fan theory exposition and repeated flashbacks, with nothing which Rey could actually use or even ask a question from. He wasn't a mentor, he was more like an antagonist, who was made more important than Rey.

 

Nope. And no matter how hard you repeat that to yourself. You disliking what Luke did not dismiss the fact that he was the master figure for Rey. Have you seen TLJ lately? Breathe and go for it. I have just watched the key scenes Luke shares with Rey. Luke teaches Rey what is the Force and not to be arrogant, which is what ultimately made him fail. Yoda was not nice to Luke either, what did he teach Luke? To feel the Force, that the future was always in motion, etc.

No one had any expectations about Yoda back then. That's why no fans were constantly repeating on some boards how terribly written Yoda was and how different he was compared to the PT. Maybe if the PT had come before there would still be fans who would argue that of course Yoda was different, the entire Jedi Order failed because he was not wise enough to see Sidious. Maybe there would still be fans who would argue that of course Yoda was not going to appear in Bespin to jump though the air with his tiny saber, it was Luke story, not his.

 

Right, because Star Wars was a new story with brand new characters so of course there would be no expectation for how characters should be. It's a different game in 2017. Lucasfilm wants to have it both ways where they get to capitalize on the Star Wars brand and OT characters, iconography, and plot lines, but at the same time admonish fans for wanting to see a logical continuation of various character arcs for Luke, Leia, and Han. Of course more people are going to be confused or upset by Luke's portrayal in TLJ, because there's nothing in ROTJ that would logically lead to the Luke we know in TLJ. Luke in ROTJ corrects the mistake of the Jedi Order by offering Vader love instead of emotional isolation and death and so saves the Galaxy. So to see Luke be a cynical old man with a failed JEdi Order, even though ROTJ strongly suggests that Luke will establish a new reformed Jedi Order is a bit of a slap in the face. Now the meta reason for this is to wipe away the accomplishments of the OT trio so that Finn, Poe, and Rey can do everything that it was assumed that the OT would do.

I can understand what Rian Johnson was trying to do and still dislike it for its laziness.

Anyhow, back to Episode IX's hook. Show Rey as fully formed Jedi, maybe a shot of a cool saberstaff. Finn and Poe in nice-looking military gear with a hint towards one or both of them being Force Sensitive. A voice-over of how Luke's sacrifice inspired the Galaxy, exotic planets, MONEY SHOT OF KYLO REN AND HIS KNIGHTS looking badass, finish with an implied clash between Kylo and Ren. Rake in the fan hype and billion+ dollars.

 

@Darth_Bertie , I truly wanted Luke to be the one with the Jedi legacy. I believe he deserved the honor of being the one to rebuild the Order. Unfortunately, the filmmakers decided to take this legacy away from him. In fact, they turned him into probably the worst Jedi teacher in history, by having Kylo and half his students fall to the dark side and the other half killed.

So then, I was hoping/ expecting that Luke would train Rey and then rebuild the order that was lost offscreen. Unfortunately, the filmmakers didn’t even allow that to happen. They didn’t even let Luke train Rey. All he did was give her two lessons about why the Jedi order needed to end, ( he promised three, but only gave two, two minute lessons). He was not Rey ‘s Jedi master or Rey’s mentor. They never had any relationship at all. Instead, Rey downloaded Jedi knowledge and skills from Kylo, and will, presumably, learn more from the Jedi books she stole from Luke. Sadly, Luke will have NO Jedi legacy at all, because he died without training Rey. I wish he had trained Rey, but he didn’t.

Luke lost everything and everyone in this ST.

 

Huh? Yoda was the same character? Did you make the same mistake Rian Johnson did, and mixed up Yoda's initial act as a madman to throw off Luke as his actual character? Not remembering all the scenes which came after the reveal twist about who Yoda really was? Where he was a very serious master who trained Luke? (which just a year ago seemed a really minimal amount, but now seems like a frikkin university master's degree compared to what Rey got, on top of Luke's several years of training, which took until the final movie for him to get remotely competent).

 

I am aware of how hard it has been for you and which were your expectations. I also believe a GFFA in which the Jedi were starting to flowish again and Luke had an active role on it would have been a better set up. But that would have been making TFA more similar to TPM than to ANH, which seems to go against what LFL wanted. Not even Lucas had the Jedi Order restored.

If it servers as consolation, I don't think Rey is going to have it either. They will probably restore the Jedi in a slower pace than most of us had anticipated. And regarding Luke's legacy, I would say he will be remembered as the one who restarted the Jedi Order, with Rey being the first of the new Jedi.

 

I don’t really think that it would have been closer to TPM than to ANH if there would have been a small Jedi order. I think it actually would have been its own thing. I wasn’t expecting a huge Jedi order in TFA. I was expecting an order of from 6 to 12. I figured Luke would start out slowly; then, later, ( after the sequel trilogy), as other Jedi became proficient, they could train new students too. This way, the PT could have had a huge number of jedi. The OT could have had only Luke, yoda, and Obi-Wan, and the ST could have had about a dozen. That would have made this ST very different, and it wouldn’t have been so similar to the OT story.

Why would Luke be remembered as restarting the Jedi order if he didn’t even successfully train a single Jedi? No, I think that legacy is going to go to rey, unfortunately. She hasn’t earned it as she never had to work to become a Jedi herself.She just got all of the skills and knowledge out of Kylo’s mind. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, and it makes me sad that they took this legacy away from Luke who worked hard to become a Jedi, and then spent time searching for all things Jedi and teaching others only to have it all destroyed. Unfortunately, this is what we have been given. And, since Luke didn’t teach rey, she isn’t his legacy either. As I said before, a complete demolition job was done on Luke’s character in every way.

 

Pretty sure that Force ghost will appear to Rey and give her knowledge.

Yoda and Obi Wan can't do that because she never met them.

So Luke's legacy will be with Rey. Hell, they've already given her Han's legacy with the Falcon and hanging with a Chewie.

And I'm sure Leia will have taught Rey stuff (probably to fight for what's right in the galaxy)in between films.

 

I always wondered what Luke would do next. It seemed he was trained to defeat Vader almost exclusively. Yoda and Obi-Wan never instructed Luke on how to start a religious order.

The other things is how precarious a fledgling Jedi Order would be. The Jedi had a lot of enemies. Not ancient grudges, but in living memory of Return of the Jedi. No doubt groups the felt restricted or policed by the old Jedi would go out of their way to prevent a new Jedi Order being established.

So yes, I'm disappointed that Luke didn't forge a 1,000 year republic of peace. What we got might be more realistic. The Emperor did say Luke's faith in his friends was a weakness. Interesting that it was his faith in his nephew that was his weakness later.

 

@cerealbox , I have heard that recent tweets from Mark Hamill are hinting that he won’t be in episode ix, so that would mean that Luke won’t be imparting any wisdom to rey if that’s true.