Saga Why does Disney seem to hate Luke?

Out of all the baffling things Disney has done in my view, the destruction of Luke Skywalker’s character is the most befuddling. I just don’t get it. Luke Skywalker IS Star Wars. He’s someone that is recognized throughout society even by people who have never seen the films. Someone who embodies the best traits of his parents. And someone for kids and adults alike to aspire to be.

And yet all that has been taken away by Disney. The Last Jedi changed Luke from a hopeful, optimistic hero into a cynical, depressed loser who cut off all contact with his friends and family because of his failures. He contemplates murdering his nephew in his sleep because of a bad vision. First off, Luke should know that visions of the future aren’t always perfect. Second, he would NEVER contemplate killing his nephew over a bad vision of the future. This is the same guy who was able to redeem the seemingly unredeemable Darth Vader.

Book of Boba Fett further destroys Luke’s character. Here he repeats the prequel era Jedi’s mistakes, allowing for no attachments, even though his attachment to his father allowed him to bring him back to the light. Ironically, he criticizes the prequel era Jedi (wrongly) in TLJ for being responsible for the rise of Sidious, but he makes the same mistakes as they did. He doesn’t even bother to bring Grogu back to Tatooine himself, so he basically sends a child unsupervised to a planet he of all people should know is dangerous.

Now in the Obi-Wan Kenobi show, Luke is given barely any focus. I don’t even think he has a single line. Instead, Leia, who never was implied to have any sort of personal connection with Obi-Wan before ANH, is the one who forms a bond with him. The Obi-Wan show would’ve been a great opportunity to see young Luke’s life growing up on Tatooine and how he became the character we first see in ANH, but instead he’s only used as a cheap plot device in the final episode to show Reva’s change of heart. Oh, and now Obi-Wan canonically failed to protect Luke, and he would’ve died if not for said change of heart. But hey, at least we got a token “hello there” from Obi-Wan to Luke before it immediately cuts to a different scene.

It’s so sad to see what has happened to perhaps the greatest hero in film. George Lucas wanted his movies to send a positive message, and Luke emanated the positive energy into each of the originals, and I believe he would have in George’s sequels as well. Even at his lowest points, there was always a sense of hope. Now that hope is gone, and for what reason? As Mark Hamill perfectly said: “He’s not my Luke Skywalker. Maybe he’s Jake Skywalker.”

 

To address this point specifically:
I chalk this up to simply that they could not do much with him in Kenobi without retconning ANH too much.
When we meet Luke in that movie he is ambitious if somewhat naive farm boy, which not much has happened to.
I guess you could have had filler scenes with Luke going to Tosche Station to pick up power converters, or going to moisture vaporators and pick off mushrooms, but that's all they'd be, filler scenes.
Having Obi-Wan going on adventures with Leia does somewhat make the dialogue in the holo-message awkward at best, admittedly, it doesn't outright break canon.

 

Michael Arndt has discussed the difficulty of writing Luke in the ST:

"It just felt like every time Luke came in and entered the movie, he just took it over. Suddenly you didn’t care about your main character anymore because, ‘Oh [expletive], Luke Skywalker’s here. I want to see what he’s going to do." Source: https://www.cinemablend.com/news/24...rce-awakens-had-used-the-michael-arndt-script

To an extent I sympathize. When you have a character who is more powerful and more capable of dealing with the villain than the main character, it begs the question why he doesn't just take care of things. Luke is also a beloved character, so as Arndt pointed out, there was always going to be a risk of the audience not caring about the new characters because they were paying too much attention to the old fan favourites. They needed to find a way to sideline Luke so that Rey could take center stage. That isn't inherently Luke-hating. Star Wars tends to be a generational coming-of-age story, so it makes sense for the newer, younger characters to be the main focus. The problem was they dealt with this in the worst way possible in TLJ imo.

The Book of Boba Fett is something I'm still trying to figure out. I don't think it's ever made clear in the movies whether or not the "no attachments" rule is a problem or not. I've heard multiple interpretations of this and I don't know what to think about it. I will say, though, that even if Luke is wrong about the Jedi having no attachments, I hardly see his portrayal here as throwing Luke under the bus. He's very uncertain about training Grogu, even asking Ahsoka "What should I do with him?", and ultimately lets Grogu decide for himself whether he wants to forgo attachments and become a Jedi or return to the Mandalorian. He doesn't attempt to guilt or coerce Grogu into accepting the Jedi path. It's as free a choice as you can get. I thought Luke was portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate Jedi in that episode. We also don't know how Luke's story in this timeframe will play out. He might rethink the "no attachments" rule in the future as a result of his experiences with Grogu.

And, yeah, I agree with @Dandelo about Obi-Wan Kenobi. I don't see any way of having Luke be a major part of that show without being inconsistent with the OT. Heck, they had to bend over backwards to ensure young Luke never saw Reva's lightsaber.

 

Because Disney and modern day Hollywood in general doesn't believe in the morally righteous and altruistic hero anymore. There always has to be some kind of flaw or imperfection, or there has to be some morally ambiguous ending.

You have a Superman movie where he's partially responsible for destroying Metropolis and killing thousands. You have a Captain America movie called Civil War that ends on a downer and with the Avengers totally at odds.

Superman can no longer save the day, Cap can no longer rally the troops and Luke no longer believes in the force.

 

It was pretty click-baity for them to show young Luke in the trailer only for him to barely be in the show at all. And Ewan saying "But he still has one mission, at least, and that's protecting this boy". And then... Leia appears and everything is about protecting her (and she likes... looking at ships fly? That sounds more like something young Luke would do, but OK...)

I do like that Luke was introduced to Obi-Wan briefly though. It does align more with him seeming to know about ''Ben Kenobi" slightly in ANH, and recognizing him.

Still, I think you could've involved young Luke more in OWK without it being filler or breaking canon (not that the show seems terribly concerned about either of those). But yeah, at this point I think it's obvious that Disney favors Leia over Luke. There's just been too many things that have had her be involved and looking cool and heroic, and him... not. Even a 10-year-old Leia has to be a rebellious princess, and be super smart and super brave. Girl power. Yay.

The only point I really don't agree with (granted I haven't seen Book of Boba Fett), is that Luke is ''repeating mistakes'' by practicing some form of the no-attachment rule. The Jedi who practiced that rule kept the peace for centuries; it's not what led to their fall or the fall of the Republic. If in post-RotJ, Luke has found this out, I could see him adopting this philosophy, albeit taking a less strict approach. The only thing I absolutely don't see him adopting is the idea that a person can't turn away from the dark side.

And I don't buy the whole "the new characters can't shine if Luke is around" excuse.

 

There's some truth to this. There is a lot of cynicism in current pop culture, even in light hearted things like the MCU as you pointed out. I remember a common defense of Luke's characterization in TLJ when it came out was that times have changed and audiences can't believe in heroes like Luke Skywalker anymore. I thought that was nonsense then and I still do.

 

I feel like it's just Kathleen Kennedy's agenda to discard white males and push for female empowerment...

Kinda joking, kinda not.

 

I didn't want to be the one to say it...

I did think it was kind of amusing that Rey sought out Luke to learn the ways of the force, only for HER to end up teaching HIM. They even brought out Yoda's dead corpse just so he could reiterate how stupid Luke was how wonderful and smart Rey was.

I also get the sense that KK has been making a strong push to retroactively make Leia just as important as Luke. Not only is she the only OT character that entered the ST with her dignity intact, but her placement in the OB1 series felt like nothing more than an excuse to worship her and put her on an even higher pedestal.



It's like Obi-Wan is speaking on behalf of the writers here, all because they're upset that Luke was the hero of the OT and not Leia.

And I like Leia, she's a great character... but she has been built up to be something she never was. This is a character whose entire story arc in ESB is about coming to terms with the fact that she's smitten for this dirty scoundrel, something we know Disney would never even consider today.

 

It's almost like TLJ takes place after the Book of Boba Fett. Do you guys even watch this stuff?


Yes, I'm sure Disney hates Luke and all white men and its a giant conspiracy theory. Is this some kind of act or are people actually this dumb?

 

I dunno. They did break Han and Leia up. But then again they okayed the Reylo kiss... so I guess Rey can be the only one to fall for a bad boy and turn him good. Kinda aligns with making Luke a sucky failure so Rey can be No.1 Jedi.

But yeah, I think it's hard to deny that Disney has been more interested in making Leia look good than Luke. Which sucks.

And we really don't know much about what Luke considered to be the flaws of the past Jedi. Other than some vague lines about them not sensing bad things were about to happen and thinking they own the Force/ the light side. But nothing about the non-attachment rule.

 

never mind.

Accidently posted. (stupid keyboard)

 

I don't think that they hate white men, but you could tell that they feel obligated to push them aside for the time being.

Not only that, but because they are unable to make their own female characters cool and interesting, they must dress down and emasculate the men around them in order to prop them up.

If you don't notice that this is happening, I really don't know what to tell you.

 

Oh, I'm gonna have so much fun...



First off, Superman has been responsible for a lot of destruction in Metropolis long before Zack Snyder came sniffing along. See "The Death Of Superman", "Justice League Unlimited: Clash", "Justice League Unlimited: Destroyer" and "Superman: Doomsday". Second, "Civil War" was based on a comic from 2006 that ended the same way and was before Disney bought them.

Spoiler

And like the films, there was a later story where the Avengers put aside their differences and saved the day once more. Cinematically it was "Avengers: Endgame", comics wise it was "Avengers: Siege". Marvel itself developed both stories, not Disney.

Third, Lucas had told Hamill in 76, that eventually Luke would turn over saving the galaxy to a future group of Jedi. Regardless of how Johnson did it, he did keep to Lucas’s original concept.

No, it wouldn't work. The show kept consistent with the old EU and the OT by having Luke craving adventure, but living a dull life before the droids show up.

Attachments lead to the dark side. The ST kept to that, as did the OT.

"This is obviously a very pivotal scene for Anakin because this is reuniting with his mother and his youth and at the same time dealing with his inability to let go of his emotions and allow himself to accept the inevitable. The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that he can't hold onto things which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn't willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he'd have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn't have this particular connection as strong as it is and he'd have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them. But he has become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village. The scene with the Tusken Raiders is the first scene that ultimately takes him on the road to the dark side. I mean he's been prepping for this, but that's the one where he's sort of doing something that is completely inappropriate."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"And Dooku is kind of the fallen Jedi who was converted to the Dark Side because the other Sith Lord didn't have time to start from scratch, and so we can see that that's where this is going to lead which is that it is possible for a Jedi to be converted. It is possible for a Jedi to want to become more powerful, and control things. Because of that, and because he was unwilling to let go of his mother, because he was so attached to her, he committed this terrible revenge on the Tusken Raiders."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

Abrams was consistent with that with Rey's connection to her parents and her actions when she thinks Chewbacca was killed. Just like it was with Luke's relationship to Han and Leia. If Grogru continued his training while having an attachment to Din Djarin, the danger would be greater. Kanan also worried about Ezra in the same way.

Wow, this reminds me of YouTube. You and Tony need to get a grip.

 

DC

Comics can be stupid too. There's no rule that says if something happened in a comic once then we aren't allowed to criticize it. Death of Superman was popular because of it's shock value, but it wasn't a great story. If you're rebooting Superman on the big screen and you're trying to establish a new film series, you probably shouldn't introduce him as a harbinger of destruction.

Marvel

Yes the Avengers do put their differences aside in Endgame but they do it out of necessity. Tragedy and the course of time just happened to heal all their wounds.

The way I see it, if they already planned for Infinity War to end on a downer, I don't see why they couldn't at least give the Avengers one last hurrah first when it came to Civil War. Unlike the comics where it was a general Marvel story, Civil War the movie is billed as a Captain America story. You would think the story of a team divided would serve as the perfect opportunity to showcase why Cap is truly the head honcho of the Avengers and why he's the leader we all need.

A story that ended with Cap uniting both sides and forging an even stronger bond as a result would have been too corny and optimistic I guess. Nope, the movie has to end with Cap failing and everyone hating each other. All so they can lose again in Infinity War.

Star Wars

Of course Luke would eventually pass the torch but only after instilling in them the wisdom to succeed. That's not what we get with TLJ. Unlike in ESB where the teacher is wise and knowing and the student is arrogant and cynical, TLJ attempts the opposite. It's Luke that needs to be taught the lesson.

 

If I recall ROTJ correctly, part of her story arc was finding out that she had a brother and that she had "that power too." I've spent 40 years disappointed that George refused to allow her to be a Jedi. And when we finally got a female Jedi protagonist, she was not at all relatable nor a well written character but that's another topic. Leia being made a Jedi in the ST didn't work for me since it went against George's intention to keep her a Senator. Her being a Jedi at the last minute was ridiculous and frankly a little too late for me.

There have been female fans of Star Wars since 1977 and while some of them can absolutely appreciate Luke's heroes journey and relate to him, there are those of us who who loved Princess Leia's take charge attitude from day one. I have no problem understanding Luke and have zero issues with the character but to say that Leia has no importance to the overall saga sounds like you think Star Wars should be all male, all the time and Leia needs to stay in her box.

Lucas, whether you like it or not, made her a Skywalker. She's the child of Anakin and Padme. Why shouldn't she get her own stories and further development? She is and should definitely be just as important as Luke. Remember ESB? "There is another...Skywalker." That certainly didn't mean Rey in 1980 and to me it doesn't mean Rey today.

I haven't seen anyone say that Leia should have been the hero of the OT so that claim is coming out of nowhere.

 

You can say whatever you want, but her importance to the larger story has been overblown by modern day writers. Yes in the original film she is central to the plot, but from that point she really isn't and she becomes a supporting character.

In ESB she isn't just Han's love interest, but that is her character arc. She has no larger role in the story and her fate is not consequential to the rest of the galaxy. Luke is the one that matters. With Leia it's all about her coming to terms with the fact that she's in love with someone she knows she shouldn't be.

 

Winner winner chicken dinner!

 

I get that they were trying to give Kylo a reason to turn but to do it at the expense of Luke was awful.

 

@wobbits
@anakinfansince1983

Hey guys I appreciate what both of you have to say, even if we sometimes disagree.

But I want to ask you both a question that I hope you can answer honestly. If Empire Strikes Back were released today, do you think that people on Twitter would have a problem with the way the story handled Leia? Or do you think they would be perfectly satisfied?

 

This isn't about popularity. The point that went over your head was that Doomsday was so powerful and destructive that Superman did try multiple times to move the fight away from civilians, only for the beast to turn around and keep going towards Metropolis. In the end, much of Metropolis wound up being destroyed. Zod in MOS already trashed half of the city with the World Engine. And because he wanted to punish Clark for stopping him, he was going to kill as many people as possible, until one of them died.

"Age Of Ultron" was the last hurrah before the team went to hell. CW, like the comics, was about two sides in conflict over the morality of the government being involved in dictating the heroes actions. Like the comics, it begins with a tragedy during a hero vs villain skirmish. In both stories, neither side is right or wrong. Like the comics, it wasn't about being corny. It was about the long term fallout of the conflict. If you really read the comics, you'd understand the films.

Even the teacher still has much to learn. That's the lesson in TCW, when Yoda meets with Serenity on the Force planet and what Obi-Wan understands in OWK.

What? Lucas didn't do that. ROTJ ended there. We know Luke was going to train her. Regardless of the ST's direction, that was always a given. He wasn't going to make another film, and by the time he did, he decided to not make the ST.

 

lol what nonsense

first of all Disney donates hundreds of thousands of dollars to conservative politicians who promote conservative policies that largely benefit white guys, mostly rich white guys but still. I know that’s some what of a separate topic but I think it’s worth noting

second of all it’s not even remotely accurate, look at the top films of the day, the new Top Gun features Tom Cruise, the new Jurassic Park features Chris Pratt, and there’s a new Elvis film out, as far as Disney goes the last marvel film was Dr Strange featuring Benedict Cumberbatch, the next one is another Thor film featuring Chris Hemsworth, the most recent Star Wars content features Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen, there’s no shortage of films that feature white guys

and sure a handful of more films in recent years, including some of what I just listed, do also feature a handful of more characters who are not white guys, but let’s not kid ourselves here, it’s really just a handful of characters, and if people are so upset about a handful of characters not being white guys then I’m sorry but to ******* bad, the idea that we have to think of the poor oppressed white guys, or that they are being discarded is complete bull crap

as for Luke, I do think there’s also a general issue in writing and directing that tends to portray heroes, like Luke, as failures, it’s annoying, but I think unfortunately it’s just part of blockbuster films just being mostly unoriginal, and mostly just badly written, as long as they make lots of money it’s probably not going to change

 

Luke is what makes all this confusing. He didn't start training as a Jedi until he was 19 (ten years after Anakin!), so he should have attachments just like his father - and as you mentioned, he did in ESB.

It is very easy to read RotJ as Luke having an attachment to his father and rejecting Obi-Wan and Yoda's pleas for him to abandon attachments and kill Vader. I've seen whether or not Luke has an attachment to Vader discussed a lot and it still seems unclear to me. It might depend on how you define "attachment". He certainly seems to favour his father. When he goes to face him, I don't think killing him is an option: he will either save him or die in the attempt. This is an approach that is unique to Vader. He has no problem killing stormtroopers without trying to persuade them to defect.

 

I think it’s made very clear that Luke loves his father, and that Obi-Wan and Yoda disapprove of him saying he intends to either redeem Vader or die instead of accepting the possibility of killing him, which they would consider attachment. But they ultimately approve of him after he proved their was good in Vader. The clearest answer for me is that they consider this in keeping with the Jedi spirit