ST Luke Skywalker/Mark Hamill Discussion Thread [SEE WARNING ON PAGE 134]

Not just that but also the fact that he thinks Tatooine would have been the perfect place bury both Luke and Leia's lightsabers at, as opposed to their mother's grave and her unfulfilled wish of her raising her babies on Naboo. It's as if he's retroactively adding a reason for the meta-desire to have Rey visit where the films all started.

 

Why the hell they keep giving Luke completely uncharacteristic traits he never show even the glimpses of?

First him being depressing and suicidal in TLJ, now its him being arrogant and possessive (This place belongs to me because I'm the Last Jedi).

Can they stop with ruining him?

 

He's got the exact same attitude as his did at the start of ROTJ. And the line about it belonging to the Jedi is correct - why would he let the Temple fall into their hands?

 

But... wasn't that supposed to be the film's way of saying that Luke is straying closer to the Dark Side and it is legitimately possible that he could turn evil and become the new Sith Lord like his father?

 

He's meant to show glimpses (like choking the guards and pulling the gun on Jabba), but no, not the general attitude. For that matter Yoda has the same attitude with Dooku and Sidious.

 

I know it’s a miniseries and so it’s likely forcing Soule to be a little more on the nose with plotting by way of dialogue but that Ren dialogue is below his normal levels. Oh well. Situation is still fun and I can sense he mostly wants to plant the seed of the dark side growing in Ben and Ben’s exposure to the group.

 

Why do TPTB care now about Luke and Leia’s happiness now after three movies of tearing them apart? Why shouldn’t Luke and Leia also care about Han, who apparently just went to hell except for Kylo’s self-serving “memory”?

 

That attitude was shown in one scene and didnt set him as an arrogant character. It underlined that fact that he is still young and tease the Dark Side. Which he successfully defeated in the end of ROTJ.
Its very weird to see the same attitude when is grown man, especially him boasting around how Force is cool and stuff.
OT set Luke up as very humble and "bigger than he allow to be seen" man. The very dialogue was constructed poorly and made him sound like some "its my house, get out of there" annoyed neighbor. Whatever was the portrayal of Luke before, it wasnt that.

 

The problem seems to be that some want Luke to essentially discard all his characteristics prior to the end of ROTJ, leaving the character very thin. Even Yoda and Obi-Wan have these moments in battle where they quip and taunt their adversaries, yet Luke can't have those traits he literally demonstrated a few days prior to the last time we saw him. Notice however how Luke doesn't move to kill his enemies but specifically just takes out their weapons?

I don't even see it as that arrogant. He's describing how he is a tool of the Force. The dialogue is just awkward.

 

I had just hoped they would have given us some love for Luke in TFA. Show him interacting with Ben when he was young maybe even a minute or two with his sister and brother in law something good. Nope, straight to grumpy guy and to hell with it all. Such a waste, the momentum began to slow even before TLJ for me.

 

I agree that Luke can afford some arrogance once in a while. I think it’s mostly the bad dialogue in that comic that makes the character feel OOC though. Hard to imagine Luke uttering such eye-rolling macho lines like “Can we just skip to the part where you run away crying?” Ugh.

I had the same issues with Soule’s Vader comics and it’s also one of the reasons I dropped those. Vader often came across terribly OOC.

 

When Luke was confronted by jabba, vader or palpatine, he did show a few moments of arrogance.

 

Yes and with Jabba and Palpatine it was proven justified, ending with their deaths.
As with scaring the Knights of Ren away here. They were proven arrogant and overconfident, just like the badguys of the OT. Luke knew they would lose.

Look the dialogue wasn't amazing I guess, but Luke wanting to preserve the Jedi artifacts is out of character? This is reaching.
The verbal dissing is also pretty standard for SW dialogue... bravado when outnumbered and all.

 

I agree with you. Plus, in that scene from RotJ, was Luke acting a role. You don’t go into the den of powerful, evil crime Lord Jaba, like a trembling coward. You go in like you have complete and utter confidence in yourself. Luke was presenting a powerful, confident persona that he likely didn’t feel, in order to try to sway Jaba to see things his way. He obviously wasn’t successful in getting jabba to bargain, but he tried.

 

"I warn you not to underestimate my power" =/= the machismo attitude of that comic. All arrogance isn't the same. Luke wasn't taunting Jabba in RotJ. It's its own kind of cockiness, but stated as a fact, like a patronizing warning. It also serves a purpose in his negotiation. In that comic scene, Luke is just smack talking over and over for no reason. It's so cringe, but whatever. The comics don't matter anyway.

 

His arrogance may also be a sign of this continued successful training as a Jedi and the equal confidence boost that comes with mastering those traits. Obi was pretty calm in his scenes in ANH too and the audience could well have related it.

 

I'm actually pleasantly surprised that this didn't turn into a Benny power worship hour. And I much rather have this Luke than that cowardly wimp in TLJ. However, the writing style and the dialogue is still pretty bad and juvenile. Maybe you can take that as meta because the comic is about Kylo and, well, IMO he is just that, whether he is in his Ben or Kylo phase.

 

But Luke did it quite abit though in ROTJ. not only did he demand Han Solo from Jabba all high and mighty, but even as he was about to be pushed into the pitt he was all "this is your last chance jabba, free us or die!"

Then with Vader it could be argued Luke seemed abit arrogant with him too. infact Lukes personality really did seem like a PT Jedi at times. its that being so in tune with the force that it makes you seem too sure of yourself.

Then with Palpatine he was almost having an arrogance argument.

As much as people wanna highlight Luke as some saint... its hard to argue he did give as good as he got. even if its easy to forget that.

 

He didn`t act like a limp noodle in ROTJ but he wasn`t Mr. Over-the-top Machismo either. He acted more self-assured in that movie which is what you would expect from the protagonist in the final movie. Otherwise, where is the arc? He was still the most-easygoing personality out of the OT3. Which, everyone has to fill a ´character niché.
That doesn`t make him a saint but not overly arrogant either. As I said, I don`t mind the general attitude in that comic panel (I didn`t mind at all when in Legends he had a "compassion is for those who deserve it" phase as that was sufficiently set up) but the dialogue is pretty clumsy and on the nose. Still, I`d rather have seen that Luke in TLJ and having dealt with those flaws than what we got. So while the stan-fanfic for Kylo seems worse than in the movies even, Luke seems at least marginally more entertaining.

 

Hard to imagine it’s the same guy who conceived ideas like this.

 

I envision post-ROTJ Luke to essentially be like Qui-Gon. I feel like that was the whole point of Lucas creating that character, a Jedi set apart from his more arrogant and bureaucratic peers. The Jedi weren't evil, but had lost their way after centuries of complacency; Qui-Gon saw this and did his own thing, remaining calm, using rational thought, and listening to the will of the Force.

Sure, I don't mind Luke having a sense of humor or whatever, but he shouldn't come off as an annoying jock itching for a fight, getting into a ****-measuring contest with some dudebro he doesn't know.

 

He told them to "leave with only their lives" first. Regarding not stealing all the Jedi artifacts. Ren seemed to be the overconfident one.

And he breaks the last two KOR's weapons so they don't have to fight him.

 

I don't mind the fight itself, I love how he can easily destroy them but simply holds them off and incapacitates them. We got miniscule tastes of that in TLJ, but not enough IMO, so a fight like this on-film would've been great.

I take issue with the dialogue.

 

The problem with Luke's character in the Sequel Trilogy is that it dumbs him down. Mark Hamill's performance in it is excellent. He did as best he could with the mediocre material. I was not asking for Luke to be as overpowered or wise as he was in the Expanded Universe. I wasn't asking for him to be settled down and taught by someone as Mara helped him. But what I was asking for was for him to be written in such a way that betrays the George Lucas version of Luke Skywalker, which I feel was (decent) in ANH and excellent in TESB and ROTJ.

I will say that I like how Luke was able to help the rebels escape at the end of TLJ with the power of total nonviolence and illusion. That was impressive, and that was just fine. But the way he is bashing the Jedi and talking like Palpatine would want him to talk in TLJ is very off-putting. If you look at Luke closely in ROTJ, you can see that he takes a couple of hours overcome Sidious Palpatine's manipulations. There's an argument to be made that Luke would have slain Vader if Palpatine had said...nothing. But Palpatine defeated himself in that way. Luke had that simple wisdom. His father chose forgiveness and love toward his son to redeem himself...despite everything he had done as Anakin/Vader. But Luke chose to be a Jedi (Grey Jedi, orthodox Jedi, whatever). He chose to believe in the power of redemption when it was available.

That's why the sequel trilogy betrays his character. There is no need to make Luke a saint. None of that. But it dumbs him down considerably. As problematic as Luke's character could be in the EU, at least it was cohesive and consistent (excluding Waru and things like that).

I don't hate on the performances of Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, or any of the actors. But the problem is that neither JJ Abrams nor Rian Johnson empathize with the core aspects of the original characters. Luke is the most obvious example of this malady of writing.