CT Analyzing Luke with Yoda in Empire Strikes Back

He was certainly that ...

 

Yes and no.

1. It did weaken his faith in them, which we see. That was Vader's intent.

2. But it actually spoke to something more which was that there was a crack in Vader's armor. This is the same crack that Luke senses on Cloud City and he sense again with Vader on Endor. The Sith are anti-family. Vader would have not utilized his familiar connection to him, unless there was a reason to do so. Note that Palpatine does not do so with Anakin, in order to turn him.

The part where they are shown to be fallible isn't so much not telling him, but underestimating how strong he was mentally to get through it as he did. That's why Yoda says, "No, unfortunate that you rushed to face him. That incomplete was your training. Not ready for the burden, were you." He realized that he was ready, though we do see the scars from that revelation, which carry over into the rest of the film.

 

I wonder how long Yoda intended to train Luke on Dagobah. He was there for weeks with him, as we may glean from the novelization. Yoda most likely planned some of this out ahead of time, though he may have made intuitive decisions during the training itself on the basis of whether or not he felt Luke was ready for specific lessons. He was, at times, quite grim and unforgiving with Luke, in contrast to Obi-Wan's demeanor in ANH. I believe this may have been due to the dark side presence on Dagobah, given that the Dark Jedi died there. Yoda apparently chose the world as his home because his light side aura and the dark side-fueled Cave of Evil would cancel each other out among the many life-forms of the planet. Dagobah is one of those worlds strong with the Force, much like Felucia, the planet Shaak Ti chose for her exile. Yoda was also strict with Anakin, but from what I saw in TCW, he was concerned about him.

The concern Yoda and Obi-Wan had for Luke when he chose to abort his training in order to help his friends is understandable. He was not ready to fight Vader. However, neither Luke nor Yoda were fully correct about that situation. Luke was right to want to help his friends, but he was also charging in there unprepared to deal with Vader's cunning and dangerous ways. Many people underestimate Vader because he is, for different reasons, holding back in the three entries of the original trilogy. He was basically toying with Luke in TESB, and after Luke grazed his shoulder, he ramped up and quickly severed Luke's hand to end the duel. I don't think that Vader killed thousands of people as Darth Krayt did, but I imagine he killed more Jedi than Krayt. Given how Luke survived and did not join Vader, Yoda urged Luke to confront his father again in ROTJ, but at the price of being half-trained. Yoda and Obi-Wan were wrong that Vader could not be redeemed, and I believe that the fall of Dooku as Tyranus embittered Yoda to believe that Sith rarely or never find their way back to the light. (I believe Yoda: Dark Rendezvous is the best representation of Yoda besides TESB.) We can see that Yoda was mostly right and that Luke was not quite Jedi material in TESB. This wasn't his first rodeo. The last Jedi he had successfully trained himself was Ki-Adi-Mundi, and he had trained many before him. However, I do think it's unfortunate that Yoda and Obi-Wan did not think that Vader could be redeemed. They failed to comprehend his psychological complexity. Luke had become a Jedi with more profound wisdom by ROTJ, and he could sense how emotionally conflicted Vader was. I don't think Yoda sensed it because he wasn't looking for it. He was about to pass on, anyway. Obi-Wan was traumatized in life by Vader's betrayal, violence, and by the very act of defeating him, and I imagine he did not believe anyone who had done those terrible things could redeem themselves. Which is understandable. Many in the real world don't learn from terrible mistakes. But Luke saw that there was more inside Vader. I honestly found Vader eerie and mysterious in ANH when I first watched it as a kid, and I didn't know what to think of him, but seeing him in TESB made me frightened of and intrigued by him. I did not expect him to grab Sidious and save Luke in ROTJ, and I remember that I essentially concluded, "Oh, so this is what this character is about," when I saw that. Never expected a villain to have an arc like that and redeem themselves as a kid.

 

I agree. I saw ROTJ in the theater and Vader's turn took me by surprise until a few seconds before it happened.

 

All of this goes to show why TESB is the best Star Wars film.

 

I wouldn't call those "excess," as they serve to explain how Luke improved in his saber skills enough to hold his own against Darth Vader, which otherwise is a bit of a stretch. The reason they were cut was reportedly budgetary.

 

If you go with the novelization, Yoda administered lightsaber training to Luke. But if you ignore that and prefer the film only, Yoda focused only on training Luke with the Force. I agree with the novelization, though it should be noted that there are some mistakes in it, such as Yoda having blue skin, since Lucas had not yet changed his mind regarding that.

 

Likely also due to the difficulty of choreographing them on the swamp set and the fact that filming had fallen seriously behind schedule.

 

In short, it was a busy few weeks for Luke and Yoda. However, this is important, for we actually are afforded the opportunity to see Luke's Jedi training. We didn't see Anakin's, and I'm not going to go on about the problems with how Rey is depicted here.