ST Ways TLJ Builds/Fails to Build Anticipation for Ep. 9

As I said before, either Finn went back to canto bight, or the story spread there within less than a year. Either way works

 

Agreed, and this brings in the other problem: the First Order's narrative is more compelling, and provable as propaganda. Our new Supreme Leader faced down the legendary Luke Skywalker in a one on one duel and killed him! As if that weren't enough, we killed almost every last one of the resistance and destroyed their fleet! But oh no, you see, Luke is the Spark of Hope That Will Light the Fire of Whatever. It sounds like a focus-grouped Pepsi commercial.

 

If only Luke could come back from the dead and validate the resistance’s story

 

So we're going with the Jedi Jesus angle huh? He's going to start appearing to people like the risen Christ? Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if that's what JJ does, and it would be an entirely new degree of stupid.

 

Well, you could put it that way. Or you could just go on the film lore and see that Luke already has an implied ability to come back from the dead.

It never needs to be shown, but it’s an obvious rebuke to the idea that “nobody would believe it”. If you can’t handle the idea of a Jedi returning from the dead, then I don’t know what series you’ve been watching.

 

No no no, let's be honest. What you just asked for is head-canon. Jedi have never demonstrated an ability to come back from the dead, only to appear as force ghosts. Also, they have never appeared to anyone they did not already meet while alive. It has never been established that a dead Jedi can appear anywhere and communicate with anyone, that is entirely new. And if you consider its implications for even a few moments you will realize how stupid it is and how it would destroy the film lore you claim to know all about.

Edit: .Not to mention the thematic departure this would represent. The quest for immortality has been portrayed as dark-side desire, while light-sided perspectives emphasize accepting death as natural, and presumably, immortality as unnatural. But hey, the ST hasn't shown it cares much about consistency with themes so who knows what will happen.

 

If (if) they'll do something like this..
It won't be Luke but the Chosen One second coming.
Like it or not, this could tie everything from 1 to 9.
It may be something like, everything went the way
it did because it was needed.

 

Still though, Ghost Luke having to run around the galaxy telling the story, or proving it, seems time consuming. I fall back to the belief that the destruction of SKB would hold more immediate, meaningful impact on the galaxy and on the growth of the Rebels. I mean, the destruction of SKB doesn't even depend on the 20 survivors telling any story. It already happened. Once that gets out, people will realize they don't need to fear the FO as much, and have a chance to fight. You could have rebel groups rising up, independently all over. Versus, a story that's spreads based on a few survivors telling a wild tale, of something some people believe is only a myth. Some would believe it. Some probably wouldn't. Some would go, gee that's really cool story. How many Jedi are around right now, how many can help us right now? By the way, did you hear? SKB was destroyed! We have a chance to destroy the FO.

 

Hmmm. So on the one hand you want an explanation for how something off screen happened. But any explanation would be head canon? Riiiight.

 

Then they shouldn’t have killed Luke after the force projection, and he COULD have returned in the flesh to not only validate the resistance’s story, but to continue to help them by restoring the Jedi order. There was truly no reason that Luke needed to die, and many reasons for him not to, starting with training Rey.

@DarkGingerJedi , I definitely agree that the destruction of SKB would be more likely to raise the hopes of people than a strange tale of some guy being able to withstand the fire from a bunch of walkers which sounds ridiculous even if that was partly observed by a dozen people. Even Rey’s rock juggling would seem to be more inspirational, especially since the survivors did see all of that feat. Plus there’s the fact that they have this living, breathing girl WITH them to continue to be an inspiration. Luke disappeared again , and he isn’t coming back.

I still maintain that the force projection was a pretty lame force trick anyway, because it KILLED Luke. Who really ended up the winner between Luke and Kylo? Kylo did, because Kylo survived. Kylo may not have literally killed Luke himself, but engaging Kylo in that force projection confrontation still killed Luke just as effectively.

Edit: and to actually respond to this thread’s title: I am not planning to see episode ix after what was done to Luke and the OT films in TLJ, but Even if I were planning to see it, TLJ caused me to care about and want to follow all of the main new characters less. I liked rey, Finn, and Poe in a TFA, but after watching them in TLJ, I really have no interest in them anymore. Rey, in particular was disappointing.

 

“I am not planning to see IX”

That’s an evolution from “I won’t go to see it”, which is what you’ve said up to now

 

Exactly - which is why it is such a brilliant moment in the entire SW saga.

 

Except isn't being a Force Ghost a kind of immortality? Isn't the point that in order to attain immorality you have to give yourself completely to the Force and forego earthly form - something the Sith could never do?

 

Yep, it absolutely is. It’s bizarre that people are framing the possibility of Luke being around after his death as a radical departure when both of his masters and his father have done exactly that.

 

So Anakin... The actual chosen one...cant/wont/didnt appear to talk to ben (HIS GRANDSON) about struggling with dark and light?
Anakin cant/didnt appear and talk to Luke after he lost everything he worked so hard to build?

Obi-wan kenobi... The man who spent his almost his ENTIRE life regretting how he failed anakin would then as a force ghost allow Luke to make the EXACT SAME MISTAKE?

But yeah Luke is definitely going to come back as a force ghost to train rey and travel around GFFA to convince people the stories are true. DEFINITELY more believeable than a grandfather coming back as a FG to help his grandson not make the same mistake he did.

Not saying he wont be back aa a FG but he wont be actively involved... Because if he is that would just add to the questions i asled above

 

Now who is indulging in head canon?
OBVIOUSLY the existence of force ghosts in canon has a;ways brought with it more questions than answers. And as the lore expands, that will also expand. But the fact is that regardless of “well if this, why not this?” questions, it is absolutely the case that if a FG appearance is appropriate to the story, then it could happen.

 

David French in NRO was basically right, I think, that if Rey had accepted an acceptable version of Kylo's offer and they were basically allied against Luke and Leia, we'd be on the edge of our seats wondering what the heck is going to happen. Instead, we're kind of sorting through ideas and thinking, "Well, maybe that could work."

 

I have used both interchangeably. Episode ix would need to be absolutely miraculous for me to go see it. For example, we would need to learn something like Luke didn’t die after all. He just teleported himself to Tatooine or someplace else. I doubt that will happen.

So, no, I won’t go to see it unless that kind of miracle occurs. It isn’t going to happen, so I won’t go to see episode ix. It doesn’t interest me at all, and neither do the new characters. In my opinion, Luke wasn’t the only character who was poorly written. He was completely ruined, in my opinion, but Rey, Poe, and Finn didn’t escape unscathed either.

 

No it was a contrived peace of nonsense and I didn't buy it for a second. I simply DO NOT BUY that saving 20 people on one ship when the rest of the Resistance was annihilated was enough to "give the Galaxy hope." Especially since he ran off for years and let this mess escalate in the first place, and waited until most of the Resistance were dead before showing up.

Really Poe and co destroying SKB and showing that the FO can be beaten wasn't enough to make the Galaxy rise up, but Luke saving 20 people and doing nothing to stop the FO at all, and then vanishing, is? Really, I'm supposed to find that believable, umm no.

The Resistance, is gone. As an effective fighting force, it's smashed completetly. So Luke didn't even "save it."

Sorry but it wasn't near good enough, especially given how they completely trashed everything that Luke built up and made him the most incompetent Jedi Master ever.

 

Thats not really adding anything at this stage, is it? What I said is a good summary of what the film was showing. You don’t have to like it, but your dislike of it isn’t a refutation or a counter argument.

 

What if ... there is no "Hyperspace Tracker"? The Resistance assumes this is something because.duh, the FO was able to track them through hyperspace. But what if it's something much simpler. something like a tracking beacon that was implanted into all Stormtrooper cadets at an early age.Something most didn't know they had or forgot about over time. And Hux merely tracked Finn, knowing he was with the Resistance, rather than a specific ship? So they were tracked through hyperspace, not by some new tech created by the FO, but rather a tracking beacon placed on the resistance command ship unknowingly.

Would've been a great plot point to screw with Finn's head in TLJ ( and can maybe be used in the future?). Aftee Hux slaps Finn, he then congratulates him for helping destroyed the Resistance, by leading them right to it. And to compound the horror of it, with Finn and Rose away on their mission, the fleet COULD have jumped to lightspeed and gotten away,saving countless lives and vessels. But they didn't know this.

 

I completely agree, Thrawn!

That Force projection should in no way have been what caused the galaxy to have hope, especially since Luke disappeared again right afterwards, and will never return again. If destroying the SKB and Rey levitating those huge boulders wasn't enough to give them hope, then Luke showing up for four minutes in a Force projection (which the survivors only saw a portion of anyway) certainly shouldn't be this huge hope motivator either.

And it certainly wasn't sufficient to redeem Luke for being the catalyst that started his nephew on the road to villainhood; for being the worst Jedi master who lost half of his other students to the dark; or for abandoning the galaxy for six years, which gave the First Order the opportunity to grow strong and annihilate the resistance (except for 20 people and one ship). If Luke would have stayed and confronted Snoke and then tried to turn Kylo and the other lost Jedi to the Light side right after his "mistake" in his nephew's room, the First Order wouldn't have gotten out of control to the point where they defeated both the New republic and the Resistance in less than a week!

 

Well, it depends on your POV. For me what Luke did was similar to the Resurrection. Whether you believe in it or not, one could ask the question, if Jesus came back from the dead, why didn't he just stick around? Instead, he didn't and an entire movement/religion came about because of that miraculous event. Same with Luke. What he did was something so extraordinary, much more so than toppling a couple of AT ATs and then being shot to pieces. His stand on Crait would have been reported not just by the Resistance, but covertly by the soldiers in the FO. Luke realised that the legendary Luke Skywalker is a much more powerful figure than the flesh and blood one who was fallible, made mistakes and harvested green milk. Star Wars is mythological, not hard sci-fi, so I like to approach it from that angle.

 

The problem is that what Luke did wasn't that amazing really. Yes, he stood out there in front of those walkers and withstood the barrage of fire, but those observing never saw the whole confrontation. And in the end, they KNOW that Luke died, as Leia and Rey felt his death. So why is what he did better and more memorable than the destruction of the SKB, the lifting of the rocks, the sacrifice of Holdo, or any of the things that Luke did in the OT with the death star and being the catalyst that led to the end (temporarily, apparently) of the empire? Why does THAT lead to hope when the rest doesnt'? It just doesn't work for me at all. It just doesn't seem like all that amazing of a feat. Now, if he had knocked down all of those AT-AT's, or done something that actually would have been helpful to the future new rebellion, maybe it would be different, but as I see it, Luke didn't really accomplish anything except get himself killed. And that makes him completely useless in the future. He can't help the New Rebellion. He can't train Rey. He can't rebuild the Jedi Order.

Even worse, before they killed Luke off, they assassinated his character. He is no longer the man of integrity, compassion, heart, nobility, and courage that he once was. And he was never given the opportunity to redeem himself, as he was killed off for no apparent reason except to get rid of him.