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

That's not relevant to what the person said. The post didn't say anything about the actions and choices of Luke in accordance with his character. It spoke on theme and point of the story and why it was dumb.

Luke never once gains anything from Rey that would change his mind. And

The legend is a lie in this movie. He lies with a false of himself that's not a reflection of what he really is. What, I'm supposed to just forget the last 2 or so hours of how Luke utterly disregarded and dismissed the lives of his friends and family, because he did something at the end while lying about who he is and never admitting to his sister how he broke her and his friend's trust in seeking to murder his own nephew for apparent thought crimes? No actual resolution to what the real problem is. Just the illusion of one. Like "the greatest teacher failure is" nonsense, which has no actual meaning to why and how he failed. Like most of the supposed meaningful lines in this movie.

This is why the legend thing in TLJ is stupid and pointless. Because Luke doesn't and shouldn't be a legend. He'd already lived up to it by not being that and just being a jedi. TLJ is the movie that in garbage and tries to force that Luke has any meaning at all to this situation to anyone other than the immediate individuals involved. It's stupid that anyone else would really care enough to do anything when they didn't care enough before. "Guys, Luke Skywalker showed up, got blasted at, didn't get hurt and then disappeared! Oh my goodness, we need to take down the first order now!"

 

I know the legendary status would have come after ROTJ. I just mean he earned it in the OT.

Besides, it is TLJ that arbitrarily claims he was supposed to live up to being a legend… not just, you know be a Jedi and face Kylo and the FO in less than six years and without dying.

eta
Rian Johnson also claimed the complaints from Luke fans reflected the inaccurate way we had built him up in our heads, and that he was true to the original character. So Luke mocking that “legend” himself was a slight at fans that idolised him.
RJ clearly didn’t know what he was on about.

 

Not according to the movies.

The evil lord Darth Vader, obsessed with finding young Skywalker, has dispatched thousands of remote probes into the far reaches of space
​

That's in the crawl of ESB. Luke become famous, or rather infamous, for destroying the DS in ANH. His name got out there. Vader realized that the pilot was actually his son, that he actually had a son, and started chasing him down. The Empire is also interested in those around him, including his allies and friends. Turning Luke is both Vader and the Emperor's primary goal now. Even before destroying the Rebels. And even during the events of the movie, Luke's name becomes more known, when Lando is told that Vader is a setting a trap for someone called Skywalker.

But no. Luke didn't have to try to live up to some legendary status in the OT. In fact that's frowned upon and he realizes this. His arc ultimately included resisting and defeating the dark side within himself, confronting his father, and becoming a Jedi. That's it. And Yoda says Jedi don't worry or aspire to be legends, or adventure, or excitement. That's not their way. Luke failing because of his anxiety around being a Legend is a dumb idea invented by a writer 40 years later making a meta statement about the franchise and the fandom, and making Luke forget most of what he actually learned in the OT. (With a lot of help from JJ as well) A statement he totally whiffed on, because he couldn't even end the movie following his own meta theme.

 

Oh no, he failed. He absolutely, unequivocally, spectacularly failed as a master charged with apprenticing a student. He pulled a lethal weapon on someone who posed no immediate or discernible threat and guilty for what basically amounted to thought crimes while unconscious. He let the fear of what he saw and what he imagined he would lose guide his actions as a Jedi. That's a big fail. Recognizing this doesn't mean Kylo has no responsibility for his actions or that Luke "made" him do it but that he lost him. There's nothing within the film to suggest that Luke "made" Kylo do anything. That's simply not supported by anything within the text.

The entirtey of TFA is about finding Luke because he is believed by both sides to be the key to winning the war. Luke himself, not the student or students he would train but Luke. Luke is the last jedi. Snoke fears him, Leia is seeking him, Kylo wants to end him. The next movie needs to deal with that before passing the baton onto the next generation. There's really no analog for it in the prior movies since Luke didn't seek out Yoda for him to join the war. He specifically went to Dagobah to be trained.

 

Please show us where embraced his failures. The movie and its fans like to insist he does this. They seem to say so all the time. I'm asking where and when.

Is it the ending on Crait? The part where he doesn't pass on his failures, and hides behind a Legendary Luke mask all so that he can finally inspire the galaxy? He literally does the opposite of what Yoda tells him to do, but the movie ignores that part.

Please also show what part of Luke's legend was stretched beyond reality, as you put it. When Rey recalls his legend to his face, it's exactly what he accomplished. No exaggeration. Not stretching. No reality bending. What part was the part he couldn't live up to again? The movie says a lot, but it certainly never shows a lot.

TLJ desperately wants its audience to believe this lie, but the actual story, when paid attention to, says something far different.

The whole legend stuff is crap. Poorly written and inconsistent crappola. Just like the rest of the movie. Luke failed because he didn't pass on his failures to his students. That's what they actually needed from him more than anything. Luke's mistake was thinking he needed to be Legendary Luke, aka Mr. Perfect Jedi and only pass on his successes to them. Which is what he did. And when he made a mistake, one mistake, almost killing his nephew, he decided to quit and have a pity party for 6 years thinking about the wrong answers. Luke's failures taught him the wrong answer. Yoda had to literally bonk him on the head with the correct answer, thus showing that even Yoda is full of it. Failure wasn't Luke's greatest teacher. Yoda was.

That is, until RJ decided to pull a switchawoo in the last act and say 'yeah, Legendary Luke is better', and then had Luke not pass on his failures (literally what Yoda tells him to do next) and again only concentrate on what he thinks makes him look legendary to everyone else. He dawns a mask of youthful brown hair and spiffy beard so no one sees the real Luke, the one who failed. He hides behind this charade, all so that he could live up to that legend that he once again he thinks he needs to do. This is literally what the movie just spent 90 minutes saying is WRONG. And its fans somehow think the opposite.

Where is the passing of all the failures to Ben? Where is it? Is it the "I'm sorry"? That doesn't even begin to cut it. For the movie to actually pay off this narrative theme, Luke should have told Ben a story of when he failed. Not the admittance of Luke failing Ben. But a story how when Luke failed during his lifetime. Something that Ben didn't know about. Something that relates to that moment. And then at that moment turn off the fake Luke light show and reveal the real dude. The old and gray one. The one who then apologizes to his nephew, as himself.

As is, everything about the ending is fake and disingenuous. It completely ignores the movie before it.

What's even worse is that Luke's failure has nothing to really do with Ben's fall. Which we still to this day have no information about. For Luke's failure and realization about that failure we're missing a vital part. One that RJ is too busy or uncreative to ever conjure up.

Seriously, it's like two different people wrote TLJ, and they didn't discuss what they were writing with the other.

 

Luke never admits to what he did, without first it being known and himself called out by someone else, never admits it to Leia, and projects the false image of himself, not the one that represents his failures.

 

So I don't necessarily disagree with that, but that Luke's 'failure' (whatever that is) is not a significant and focused part of the entire narrative of the ST, results in it being opaque. To better serve the themes of 'failure' and living up to 'expectations', this really needed to be a major component of the first film. We really needed to see Luke's failure in real-time and get the wider context around it for it to make sense and be believable. Given the status of the character, this is not something that can be presented (and represented) in flashback.

 

No immediate discernible threat?

Wow. lol. That's amazing. The defense of poor innocent Ben Solo never ends.

Ben was a threat. Ben is a force trained dark sider who sleeps with a saber under his pillow just in case. Just because he hadn't yet committed evil, doesn't mean he's not a threat. He was. Clearly. And Luke could sense this even before entering his hut.

And leaving out what Luke did, incorrect or not, what is 'no discernible threat' Ben Solo's first act? Oh that's right? Murder half the school. Take the others with him. Set it all on fire. Destroy the school. Run off to join the Fascists. Plan genocide. etc.

Wow. So not a threat eh. lol.

Whatever mistakes Luke made that night, it didn't create Kylo Ren. It didn't push Ben over the edge. It also didn't give Ben an excuse to be evil. Ben already turned long before that night. Long before Luke confronted him, or made the mistake of entering his room while he slept.

Luke made a mistake that night. But it had nothing to do with creating Kylo. Luke's job is to protect his students. It's his job to protect them from the dark side, even if that dark side was now sleeping at the school. Even if that dark side was his own nephew. Sensing the dark side in Ben is not a crime. Thought crimes don't really apply here like they do on earth and defenders who continually bring them up to defend Ben, only do so at the expense of the rest of the saga. Sensing the darkside is how Jedi and the force operate. Just the same when Yoda and council were sensing fear and darkness in Anakin. Or when OWK and Anakin sensed the dark side in Padme's bedroom in AOTC and then acted. Or when Mace sensed the dark side in the Senate. Or when Luke sensed the dark side in the cave on ESB. That's how the force works. You reach out with your emotions and you feel all around you. Sometimes you feel the dark side reach back.

Ideally Luke should have walked into Ben's room and said "we need to chat, Young Solo". And then told him that he senses the dark side around him, and knows what he's planning. And then gives Ben two options; leave now, in peace, or they can work on this together. The fact that he choose to act based on his fear is a failing of Luke, as a Jedi. But not as creator of Kylo Ren.

Ben Solo created Kylo Ren. No one else did. And just because he hadn't done anything yet, doesn't mean he wasn't a threat to that school. Guilty? No. Not yet. But still a threat. And one that had to be dealt with in the correct way.

 

Here's the thing. A story where Luke doesn't care, and struggles - or is even antagonistic - with how the rest of the galaxy sees him, and his legend, and is waiting for him to save the day, rebuild the Jedi could have worked. One where the rest of the galaxy has a lot of misconceptions about Luke, the Jedi, etc, turns him into something idillic and perfected, could have been a great hook. A story where Luke constantly has to remind people that he's not meant to be a savior. Because he's seen exactly where that leads; his father, could have been very intriguing.

But a Luke that fails because HE himself is consumed with living up to a legend that HE himself fears he can't live up to, all while he actually lived up to that legend 40 years ago ... not really Luke. And worse, not really interesting. And it demands too much focus, and deconstruction and reconstruction on his character, in a story that should be centered on Rey, and possibly Kylo.

In this scenario the concept works only if Luke isn't consumed with how the galaxy sees him. The galaxy may be, but Luke is not. They all want him to return because they expect the legend to save the day .. and he's on Ahch-to doing what he knows best. Leia is desperate for him to return and is hunting him down, but he's doing his own thing according to what the Force wants. Luke should have showed us that a Jedi doesn't care about his own legend and when found, upsets the galaxies expectations around what a Jedi even is, or what they must be doing. just as Yoda does to Luke and his ignorant glorified expectations of the legendary Jedi Master. Yoda tells him in the first few minutes that he messed up. Nothing is new here. We could have largely had the same Luke we saw in TLJ, going about his daily routine, uninterested in training Rey, if they had just dropped the whole anxiety about not living up to some perfect standard and then quitting because there's no point in being imperfect.

The Jedi were never perfect. Luke knows this. Even TLJ Luke knows this. But instead of actually understanding that they don't need to be perfect, RJ does the uninteresting thing and bogs down Luke with unnecessary and uncharacteristic qualities. And then steers the entire trilogy into a ditch as a result.

Of course JJ set up this path for us. But a more skilled and careful writer, who wasn't just trying to break SW, or insert meta themes, could have shown us a Luke that is doing his own thing and doesn't care what the galaxy thinks, or what their time line even is. He could have shown that while TFA Han believes Luke just quit, something else was going on. He could have shown us that Luke already realized his mistakes, his failures, and was on to the next step. Because that's Luke too. That's what real Jedi do. Fail and then start again.

This way the focus is squarely on Rey and her journey of discovery. (Not Luke's) That way Rey, above everyone else, sees that legends don't matter. The galaxy desires legends. Kylo is consumed with being legendary and with living up to Vader. That's the dark side. The Jedi don't care about such things. Or shouldn't.

RJ missed the point.

 

Was watching TFA last night and I noticed for first time in Luke’s face how worn, in pain, and sorrowful his face is:



At first I thought his face was indignant, but in the eyes you see the heaviness of woes. Hamill is such a great actor.

 

Hamill is a very underrated actor IMO... and was the best thing about the ST (although his characterisation was awful). And I agree that Hamill in TFA is showing great sadness and regret in that moment... although having a sad and regretful Luke was absolutely the wrong path to take IMO.

 

That's just the face he makes when he's about to troll someone and stomp off angrily.

 

According to Rian Johnson.

TFA expression - “There is so much I have to tell you.”
TLJ 5 seconds later - “I have nothing to say to you, get off my island”.

 

No one can gaslight as well as Rian Johnson.