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

It doesn't make sense for ANY Jedi really, with the possible exception of Mace Windu.

All the Jedi value and encourage compassion and joy. What a ****show.

 

I think it feels like a bunch of people either watched the case against the jedi youtube video and took it as an absolute, or are still not happy with the jedi being portrayed as people with rules against attachment in the prequels.

Then again, there's also always that these things are actually being considered in any case, but this comic is just trying to justify the ST, even though it's not connected to Luke at the end of OT or even in the actual TLJ movie, where Luke's big flawed action, on screen, is him letting his emotional attachments control him, to the point where he wants to murder his nephew in his sleep.

 

These are the people who formed an opinion about the Jedi by listening to Palpatine and thinking he is right about the Jedi.

 

It's just insane to me that this book ended up being yet another example of Luke being a complete failure as if that horse hasn't been beaten into a thin, bloody paste by now. I know one thing though, "strict, by-the-book authoritarian" is definitely the first thing that comes to mind when I think Luke Skywalker, yes siree.

I don't get why THIS would be the "fatal flaw" they chose for Jedi Master Luke, rather than something like being indecisive due to a fear of making mistakes with no guidance, or trying not to show Ben special attention over his other students. They keep shoving the little brat into every post-ROTJ book so that he can cameo as an innocent little cinnamon roll that his family failed to love properly.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about all of this. This cheap and shallow storytelling might appeal to a certain audience in 2022, but it won't always be like this. These stories will not age well. They are not timeless, and they will be looked upon with disdain if not disgust in the future. There has already been a significant course correction by Disney LFL in many ways, and in any case, an Expanded Universe novel is only some ancillary material at the end of the day, and is very easily even retconned, as we have seen with other comics and novels. To me it's just amusing at this point.

 

Yes… we shouldn’t confuse badly conceived and badly written material, with a broader strategy as to how to portray Luke or the Jedi. Luke’s legacy will always be his adventures in the OT, and the trails and tribulations of his parents in the PT. The ST, and the ancillary material, is as irrelevant to the Lucas era as the Ewok movies were to the OT. That’s the thing I’ve learnt over the last couple of years… especially with the advent of the TV series.

 

Luke shows plenty of compassion in the book. There's a strong implication that he's trying to adhere to "PT non-attachment values" - but it's also clear that he's very little like Mace, with plenty of compassion even for his enemies.

 

If they had more confidence, courage, and bit more creative insight, they could have made Luke the 'orthodox' Jedi, who's trying to pass on what he learned to a new generation, because the new generation sees him that way and perhaps they're fighting that urge to just remake the past. They see the galaxy in a new way, a post Old Republic and Empire way, maybe almost in a Kylo-ish, no Jedi, No Sith. No empire kind a way. And that creates some drama and conflict with the older Gen who grew up in the Empire, and that's their entire POV.

So you have Luke who's steadfast and determined to create this Jedi Order that he sees is needed, but maybe it's no longer exactly needed for the new age they're now living in. And you could have some of those ideals change, maybe less dogma, less taking kids from a young age, less rigidity to having attachments, the coldness, whatever, while some others are still factored in.

And I don't even think that old v new, orthodox v new age, should lead to Ben being a dark sider. Just that when the older generation hands them the baton, it really is up to them to figure out what it all means and how it's going to work...for them.

And that could have naturally worked with RJ's deconstructionist desires, while still holding to a galactic sandbox, or 'ruining' characters or changing them so much they're hardly recognizable.

And i circle back to the old idea that maybe Ben shouldn't have even been a force user or dark sider at all. Maybe the drama is that Luke and his family expect him to be their heir and he simply wants nothing to do with it. Maybe he wants to follow in mom's footsteps and be political. He rejects his Jedi destiny in the same way Luke rejects the dark side. And because there's no heir apparent, there's no new Jedi Order, yet, when the dark side stuff rises once more, Luke is forced to go looking for someone new. Enter the ST

 

I would not have enjoyed taking Luke’s dismissal of the Jedi further in that way. Cant we have Star Wars where Jedi dont form attachments and train students from a young age again without it having to be deconstructed or criticized. That world building from the prequels was showing the rules the Jedi had created over thousands of years to keep things running, their rules were a necessary result of a world where one in a million people can move objects and kill with their minds

https://web.archive.org/web/20120601143547/http://www.lardbiscuit.com/lard/shroud1.html

This old article on Attack of the Clones goes into the purpose of it

 

I don't have a reason to doubt any of that. I am not going to read this book anytime soon anyway, since it involves a bunch of stories that are essentially non-canon in my mind. Be as that may, I will say that Luke's effort to disassociate and be at a distance with his nephew, is problematic regardless of his other actions/ideals in the book.

Why would Luke be emotionally cold with Grogu? There is nothing to support that.
In fact, all the interactions we have seen between them show a very warm and caring Luke.

"Come here little one, don't be afraid". He even carries him on his shoulder in the elevator.

Luke was patient, willing, and caring enough to train Grogu. The reason Luke returned Grogu to Din Djarin is because Grogu was too attached to the Mandalorian.
And because he wanted to give Grogu the option. Luke did absolutely nothing wrong.

And how does portraying someone as emotionally cold honor Lucas? When did Lucas ever show us any Jedi other than Mace Windu being emotionally cold?

 

I dont think Mace is cold as some fans think of him. He has been shown to have plenty of emotions. And Luke is all about his emotions, but also tries to be like the Jedi were.

 

Well he's not a robot, yes, but I was thinking of a spectrum, and he is definitely less compassionate than most (if not all) other Jedi

But that's my point. The Jedi were never cold. So, what does that even mean?

 

Nope. All stories have to feature some Jedi falling to the dark side cuz of their teachings.

I look forward to the time when the stories can focus on Jedi, just being Jedi, and the bad dark sider aren't former jedi gone wrong because of the hero.

Unfortunately that might be never.

 

Well so far we have gotten:

Darth Maul going to the dark side because he was literally raised for that purpose
Dooku going to the dark side because of his personality and Palpatine's manipulation, against the Jedi teachings
Anakin going to the dark side because of his unhealthy obsession with Padme and Palpatine's manipulation, against the Jedi teachings

As you said, this may never happen. Or it might take a very long time.
Disney LFL feels compelled to whitewash all the darksiders and make them feel relatable.
At least Lucas redeemed people while telling us at the same time that they are an example of what we should NOT do.
Anakin's entire arc is about what can happen to a person if they let themselves give in to fear, anger and hate.
The dark siders and the Sith in the Disney era are never responsible for their atrocities, they are always the victims.
I am almost expecting a novel or a prequel show that whitewashes Palpatine too eventually.

 

Hey, you must have seen the charming Kylo fan post on Tumblr about how Han and Leia sent Kylo off to fundamentalist preacher camp when they sent him to Luke (I'm fairly sure it was the same fan who said that Han reminded them of someone dragging Kylo to conversion therapy when he tried to talk him down in TFA). There is a vocal strain of Kylo fan that blames the OT 3 for everything even now.

 

Those were 25 years ago lol. I'm talking now. I think DLF is just gonna copy Anakin's fall for most dark sider stories.

 

As a master, I see Luke as being Too Nice (his character has always been that of a nice farm boy) too loose, too informal, too forgiving (stemming from Vader's redemption), and that leading to obvious problems like a lack of discipline, requiring him to become a little stricter, striking a balance between the informal fly casual training he received and the more structured training in the prequels. Baby making is okay, because they need more Jedi, but duty still comes first, even if that requires some hard decisions.

I don't see Luke being too controlling. I think it's best demonstrated in ESB when he lets Yoda have the flashlight. Oh, R2, let him have it. Let the baby have its bottle. This would be his early approach to students. I don't think discipline would come naturally to Luke, it's not inherent in his character. After some bad outcomes, he'd learn the value of disciplining his students. The next part of Luke's journey as a man is basically learning to be a positive archetypal Father: guiding, protecting, and strong. Loving, but also firm, tough love when it's needed. The discipline is to help his students grow up, instead of becoming 30 year old children like Kylo.

Luke teaching his early students in the PT style doesn't make much sense since he never learned that way himself. How can he teach in a way he never learned? Why would he even try? If anything, I think it's pretty obvious early master Luke would be the opposite of the prequel Jedi.

 

I need that thank you GIF here. Yes, how would Luke even know to teach in that way - even if Yoda told him these things or he found them out, he would have discarded those teachings since that's not how he learned. It's like watching Kylo and Rey (and now Luke) fight like the PT Jedi when that isn't how he fought!

 

Luke learned the same basic Jedi lessons as all the original Jedi from Obi-Wan and Yoda, and as his mission was to pass on what he had learned and restart the Jedi he is consistently shown as being interested in learning more Jedi history so he can properly fulfil his duty. obviously he wasn’t trained since he was a kid, but in George Lucas’s treatments his new students were trained from youth by him, and he would have to learn how to be a teacher but just because he didn’t have that experience doesn’t mean he wouldn’t or couldn’t train students.

obviously he wouldn’t be a controlling or a strict guy, that’s not his personality. But he would not be the opposite of the Jedi, he is a Jedi

Lucas never saw the story as being about Luke reforming the Jedi to be more palatable to audiences who disagree with them, he even calls the Jedi the most moral people in the universe. But it’s not about whether the Jedi are right or wrong, In real life I wouldn’t support governing religious orders like the Jedi , and if I lived in the Star Wars id join a revolution against the Republic, but I think the Jedi are a really interesting organization in their setting and when writers try to reform them it’s just boring, this franchise is about adventure stories

 

Pass on what you've learned isn't just recopy the PT. The Jedi failed for a reason, and Luke learns more than his mentors did (HA, a TLJ theme that actually works, look at that). So obviously Luke's teachings would differ than the teachings of the PT era, which he really never experienced in full.

And even Yoda and Obi-wan are a little different than their PT selves. Yoda in the PT is all about the cosmic force, the future, the big picture, while Yoda in the OT is in the present with the living Force. And this is one of his major lessons to Luke. Stop worrying about the future, get your mind off the horizon. Which is something QGJ believed but was ignored by the PT council. Yoda is already teaching Luke new things.

I could definitely see Luke going back to research the PT era after ROTj, trying to learn more about the Force, the Jedi, and his father. In fact, that's sort of how I view the entire PT movies. Luke is looking through the archives and finding out what really happened with his father, or maybe it's the story his Ghost Dad is telling him.

So I see opportunity for changes, but not outright ditching the last 10,000 years of Jedi-ness. Just remove the PT-hubris, their focus on the future and bigger picture, and get in touch with the smaller daily stuff. That along with the important realization that dark side is not necessarily a forever destiny. That we always have a choice. And see where that goes.

 

Since when did Luke not receive the same lessons as the PT Jedi did?
He was literally trained by Yoda and Kenobi in the exact same manner.
They even gave him lessons about attachments. Sheesh.

Yoda literally gave the same lessons to Anakin.