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

Luke's lightsaber toss is one of his only moments that doesn't jive for me. I understand his choice to reject it, but the execution immediately struck me as an SNL/MTV Movie Awards moment. Perhaps a toss similar to ROTJ would have carried more weight to it.

 

I laughed but not because it was funny.

 

To me, all those elements from the build up to the wind definitely served to produce surprise, shock, and dramatic irony, just not in a humorous way. To me it was like the horse’s head from The Godfather, except intriguing instead of horrifying.


[edit]also, quicker

 

I just think the whole throwing it over his shoulder thing is a comedic act in general. Like when do people do that in a serious manner in movies.

 

Now that was funny.

 

Does the music drop out just before Luke tosses the lightsaber over his shoulder? I would rather not have to rewatch any part of TLJ so if someone could provide the answer, it'd be appreciated.

 

I think just as he tosses it, the music cuts to wind sounds, and then its silence as we watch Rey's reaction, and more silence as Luke stomps away.

 

Rey stares at him with music slowly building, it then cuts for just a couple seconds and then he tosses the saber. It seems like a gag both because of the way Luke tosses it, as well as the music cutting out right before. The whole scene plays straight out of a parody. If the music had stayed and Luke either tosses it to the side like in ROTJ or simply drops it, it would have been a dramatic scene.

 

If Luke had stayed true to the character that was being set up, and it wasn't a parody, I think a person in that frame of mind, would have just let go of it. Or handed it back to Rey as he walked by her.

 

The problem is that his feelings towards the lightsaber are more aggressive than that. The more reminders he has of what he loves, the more difficult it is for him to stay out of the fight. He doesn’t just need to reject it, he needs to get it as far away from him as possible.


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Then toss it back to Rey. Has anyone ever seriously thrown something over their shoulder in a serious manner? It's always kind of ... jokey. Playful.

 

Well the LS isn't as sacred to him as the island. He also knows the place like back of his hand. I don't think he was trying to fool around too much either hence the disdain toss;he knew where it would land. Actualy all throughout the island scenes he isn't completely devoid of emotion either. Even when lights up the torch he still can't go through with burning down the tree.

To me the best part of Luke's role dealt with the way he showed Leia, Han's dice.I think also there is a double meaning with "no one's is every really gone". He's also referring to himself. Not just just only being about Han (who is dead) or Ben (becoming Kylo Ren).

MJ

 

Yeah, the lightsaber toss definitely had a trollish vibe to it, both character-wise and to the audience.

I've only seen TFA, TLJ, and Solo once and never saw TROS, so I still don't know what the dice thing was about. Something tells me it's pretty pointless and a shortcut for having actual story and relationships that make sense, but that's just a hunch.

 

I love how Leia just throws them on the ground because they're pointless. No one's ever really gone. Here's some fake dice that were given to Han by his first love, not you Leia, because some of the writers never liked the Han and Leia relationship and were trying to do better in Solo. The real ones are on the Falcon with Rey, about 100 feet from here. These ones are just fakers that I'm making up right now. Doing this projection is probably going to kill me, but why not go the extra length and project some dumb dice to give to you when you're going to be on the falcon in 10 minutes. Anyway, he apparently cherished these. Welp, time to go troll Ben. See ya in the afterlife.

The dice are kind of like when an old relative stops by for your Xmas party, who you haven't seen in years, and their gift is just something they picked off their bookcase and wrapped. Thanks for the ... dice...Uncle Luke.

 

I had forgotten a lot about the dice. I just remember TLJ giving them attention like they were this special thing, like "Am I missing something? Is there a story behind these?...'' I'm not a Han/Leia fan either, but a trinket from Han's ex-girlfriend is such a weird thing to bring into the Skywalker Saga.

 

I actually think the LS is incredibly meaningful to him, which is why it’s liable to change his mind about staying there, which is why he can’t bear to look at it. The entire fundamental justification for him being there is because he thinks that the galaxy has to find a new path outside of the Jedi. In order for that to happen, he has to remove himself from the picture. It kind of mirrors the justification for the writers taking him out of TFA until the very last teaser moment. They wanted the audience to forge a relationship with the new heroes. In order for that to happen, they had to remove Luke from the picture.




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No, they didn't, just as they didn't have to remove Han, Leia, Chewie, Artoo or Threepio. They could have made better characters. They could have, as apparently was the original intent, had them as cameos, or even had them only in movie 1.

Instead, they made a Frankenstein's monster of a reboot. They removed Luke, Han and Leia from the picture by blaming them for Kylo and then killing him to serve that character that they all thought we'd love. They thought that Luke, Han and Leia were expendable and everyone would instead love their new characters - well, let's be honest. They didn't want the old fans around either, forgetting the fact that old fans make new fans and have more disposable income to support the franchise. Some old fans were perfectly happy to see Luke, Han and Leia trashed and will insist that they weren't destroyed. The rest of us don't agree.

Luke tossing that lightsaber over his shoulder was an indication, the way that Han being regressed and treated like a comedy act in TFA was an indication - they didn't want to honor the past, they wanted us to think that the past was a joke and to embrace their new future. No thanks.

 

My source for that sentiment is the Arndt interview here: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.in...ns-a-much-larger-role-for-redacted-95887/amp/

”Early on I tried to write versions of the story where [Rey] is at home, her home is destroyed, and then she goes on the road and meets Luke. And then she goes and kicks the bad guy’s ass,” Arndt said (via EW). “It just never worked and I struggled with this. This was back in 2012.” Apparently the issue was Luke’s presence was always upstaging everyone in the script. “It just felt like every time Luke came in and entered the movie, he just took it over,” Arndt continued. “Suddenly you didn’t care about your main character anymore because, ‘Oh f–k, Luke Skywalker’s here. I want to see what he’s going to do.’”

 

I have zero sympathy for him. Zero. He was paid to write Star Wars and couldn't manage it, they all were. And want to whine about how hard it was to deal with the old characters - really? Some people would have trampled their own grandmothers to write Star Wars.

 

I think the mentality or fear that Luke is upstaging the new class is inherently the problem. From the get go, they viewed the OT as rivals, not allies. They should welcome Luke's upstaging. They paid $4 billion for that. And if Luke appears and suddenly no one cares about your new main characters, that's on you to write better new main characters. Not hide the old ones out of sight.

And I really think this is false duality anyway. There are ways to make Luke part of the journey, and not have him upstage everyone else all the time, or immediately. There are ways to make him a Jedi Master Mentor to Rey, without it all becoming about him. (And that's really what happens in TLJ anyway)

There are many creative ways this could have gone. But ultimately it seems like they didn't know what to write, or how to write it.