ST Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) In Episode IX

Honestly, a lot of this in hindsight just further shows the sheer difference in quality between Lucas and everyone else who would go on to work on the trilogy when it comes to actually coming up with a good story. It brings back that issue that was being discussed on this very forum about people supposedly caring more about Luke than about the main characters. It says a lot more about the main characters if people just ended up caring about Luke more anyway. If my ideas were being rejected on baseless concerns that are entirely based in the other person's inadequacy to write a compelling new protagonist, then I would have also left in his position.

 

The boy was always a Solo, and always fell.

The girl? Not necessarily. Certainly not the way Zahn understood things, circa 2012.

And yeap - there was a 12-movie-plan at one point. There are scand online, I believe.

 

You don`t think there would be a significant difference in a story where say Luke wasn`t around for the temple massacre night and no immediate responsibility for doing something stupid to instigate it himself? For me that would be a huge departure to what we got already. Because noone said that Lucas scripts were so detailed to excuse the fallen student at the expense of Luke. That backstory was very specific to RJ.

Furthermore, if Luke was proactively, even if grumpily, training a student compared to just wasting away, going woe-is-me and be lectured by Yoda like an idiot, if that student didn`t beat him in a skirmish etc, that all would change things significantly for me.

Now I know you believe there will be a related reveal for Rey which could kinda be seen as Luke having a legacy through her. Which is still kinda more like a parent of a celebrity that is the real star but the parent acts as if they have any claim to the glory. But okay, it`s more than we have now. However, do you think Luke on his own will have any meaningful contribution in TROS (of course the definition of that also can be heavily debated) and what that would or could be? Do you for example think he as FG will have an action scene? Help out in a big fight? Show force powers? Or have a heroic scene? Or do you believe Crait was supposed to be it, and too bad for those who thought it sucked?

In short, what do you think the character will actually do onscreen? Now granted, if there was a related reveal, you would have at least one emotional talk between the characters. But beyond that?

 

My problem with Luke's role in TLJ is not that he's depressed or exiled or even that he dies, but that he's comically inert. They took this to an extreme level by literally saying he's cut himself off from the Force. He really has been doing *nothing* for years. It's just boring, and when his ruminations on the Jedi, Sith, the Force are all snide and evasive, I wonder what's even the point? His character is serving a commentary project on SW as a whole, but that project isn't particularly insightful. That's why I feel that TLJ isn't actually interested in progressing the saga at all.

 

I can't. These are supposed professionals who were paid a lot of money to write a script. Ardnt couldn't finish (apparently Toy Story 3 was all Lassiter) and then Abrams and Kasdan walked around some capitol cities, ate a lot of nice, expensed meals and apparently came back at night to their nice hotel suites to watch New Hope again and again. Who knows what Johnson did. These folks were paid a nice chunk of change to basically reboot superior movies and they couldn't even manage that.

Except he didn't teach Rey and Finn anything, at all. If Luke taught almost nothing, Han taught less than nothing. Rey knew it all - how to fly the Falcon, how to fix it - oh, right, he showed her how to take the safety off and made some bad jokes along the way with Finn, after Finn didn't take Han's help to get the hell out of this mess, which was the right instinct. Of course, TLJ shows the problem of getting rid of Han and not replacing him, in scene after scene.

 

I get the logic but it's the end result which makes the complaint absolutely comical as the actual main characters were taken into directions in which they never actually progressed in a way that was interesting or a good hook into IX. Especially as it makes a lot of Lucas's own statements surprisingly appropriate after a wide consensus that he supposedly should have stayed as far away from the project as possible.

Hence why I mention it as Star Wars has kind of ended up being incredibly adept at making great stories that are far removed from the immensely popular characters that jump-started it after the original trilogy, even during the Dark Times/Galactic Civil War periods.

Which is logical but the problem is that despite that key difference, there is still something that must remain: a sense that his involvement in the story of the protagonist actually had lasting effects. Rey's story in TLJ does not fulfill that in the slightest. Hell, Han is practically only brought up once and you're really just left wondering as an audience member if she even actually cared about him in the first place. That's just not a good look.

I don't think it's necessarily that difficult. You just have to be really disciplined and actually write him and develop him as a mentor and from the protagonist's own prioritized perspective in the narrative. It's just as you've said for how Rey should have been handled in TLJ.

His ruminations aren't just snide and evasive but also blatantly inaccurate. He entirely eschews his own experience from the equation and what remains of his "ideals" is basically just a bad version of Kreia's philosophy grafted onto a character who is basically the antithesis of her.

 

From what I can tell, Luke’s action that night is the one addition to the backstory RJ made.

And I think Luke felt responsible even prior to that addition.

That flashback gives a superficial reason for Luke to feel guilty and responsible without delving into the actual root of the issue ie what Luke saw in Ben’s memories that made him flip out.

Presumably, if Luke were that prepared to train someone, he wouldn’t be in self-imposed exile to begin with?

I also think the idea was to make Luke’s dynamic/relationship with Rey ambiguous and get people wondering. He’s certainly not a father figure. Not much of a teacher. So what *is* he? He does teach her *something,* so why does he say he “can’t be what she needs me to be”?

Well, I think the backstory is important, and I think Luke raising Rey for 5 years and the trauma of their parting is extremely important. It’s the opposite of “obsession with lineage” that many like to accuse Reyskys of, really.

I don’t know why you think that what Luke learned/discovered about the Force during his travels won’t turn out to be relevant? The backstory exposition rather hints that it will, imo.

Hmm!

See, prior to 2 years ago, I never speculated re movies/shows/etc. The only reason I got into ST spec was that I realized there was a mysterious backstory LFL was building off of, and so my theorizing has been more trying to figure out what was established bts long ago rather than actual forward-looking plot prediction. Even now, I haven’t made many specific story predictions for 9.

But as for Luke in RoS? I think it quite possible that the Achoo Luke/Rey/KoR scene reportedly filmed during TLJ production was what CT asked RJ to film for his version of 9, and if so I think JJ will use it in RoS, as it would have nothing to do with Leia’s plot/scenes. I do think Rey will return to Achoo, anyway (and, in fact, one leak reported a small Achoo set being used), and that she’ll revisit the cave, this time at high tide (when the cave called to her during the first lesson in TLJ), and get answers this time. Even if that reported scene isn’t used, I think we’ll see Luke in an action scene. We saw Yoda *call down lightning* in TLJ, so yes, I think we’ll see Luke doing something more impressive!

I still expect Luke’s screen time to be relatively brief, and the focus to remain on Rey. I think that Luke’s treatment in TLJ was a very lackluster and pretty awkward attempt to not upstage Rey, actually. There remains the problem that although Rey suffered a terrible tragedy as a child, the audience would likely more readily fixate on the event from Luke’s perspective (him being a legacy character and, as an adult, having more agency and ready relatability).

(Although the issue of Rey not being center stage in her own story is baked-in when you consider she was lost at the tender age of 5 and in something of a “stasis” for the next 14 years. This is a problem no matter Rey’s parentage!)

I very much expect substantive and compelling gap-year Luke content post-RoS. The ST is not Luke’s story - actually, more like, it’s his epilogue, and the real meat-and-potatoes is content we’ll have to wait for, as the movies are supposed to represent 3 generations.

On a tangentially-related note, I can’t wait for the SDCC LFL publishing panel, as I’m hoping the RoS novelization author will be announced there. I’m REALLY hoping for one particular author to be announced, because if he is, I think my theory regarding who mom is is more likely to be correct

 

It's interesting you bring up Kreia because I agree that Rian Johnson was trying to use Luke to explore similar themes to KOTOR2, namely, moral relativism and the expiration of ideology. But what's weird about TLJ's execution is that it feels more like a commentary on the way fans consume SW stories than vehicle for story telling. I'm not sure how much of that was intentional on Rian Johnson's part, because the factual inaccuracies/revisionism from Luke seem like they could be a mistake from a writer who didn't understand his source material.

 

Yoda`s lightning was, while technically an impressive power to display, more wasted on a goofy comedy moment with a faux-deep meta message. It`s not like FG!Yoda showed up on Crait and destroyed the entire FO troups there with a giant display of force lightning. So context matters to me. IF Luke does have an impressive scene, it should be in context with some gravitas. The character desperately needs some heroics in my book.

Now I believe that rumored Ahch-To scene is ultimately like the Snyder Cut of Justice League: it doesn`t exist.

The problem with the gap year content is for me the ending. Unless TROS turns Luke from the loser TLJ made him into, more content would have no appeal to me. If I already know the ending is something I totally hate, I don`t bother catching more of the story. Not to mention that so far the writing for the novels has been so meh. Everything so vague, mundane and small-scale. Even in the Legends of Luke book, the only story that was actually enjoyable was the one that was clearly fake. Him floating through space and crushing Star Destroyers with the Force. At least that had some panache.

Overall, I just expect mainly his disembodied voice, likely one flashback that is all about LFL`s Prince Kylo, one talk with Rey where he generally imparts some "wisdom" (this will be the intent of the scene but if you made a character into the village idiot in the previous movie, that doesn`t work too well for me) and that smiling FG scene at the end that just makes my teeth clench even imagining it. No scene I ever want to see but all with 95 % chance of being in the movie.

 

I just used that example as a flashy FG action we’ve already seen.

Well...plenty of folk believe nothing about the ST aside from what they actually see onscreen.

Not sure what to say other than that I think there’s a good case to be made for that particular leak being real (at least in its fundamentals).

When I mention gap-year content, I’m speaking only in the context of my general theory being correct.

I mean, I know you don’t buy into my theory, but I admit I have a hard time relating to critiquing a series for years *while believing there’s little/no hope it will end up ok.* I’ve done a LOT of TLJ complaining, but ultimately I can continue to do so because I believe the overarching story will be amazing and my favorite character’s arc will in fact turn out to be fantastic. If I still felt as I did when the leaks first started appearing online after the premiere, I wouldn’t be here, torturing myself - I’d be doing something else I enjoy and turn my mind back to SW only after the Ep 9 reviews started coming in.

I don’t mean that’s what you/others *should* do - just that I don’t grasp the mindset. A big reason I still post here is in the hope that I can impart a perspective that will give others hope for the ST, despite TLJ.

 

The true meaning of The Rise of Skywalker - the truth awaits at the end of this intensly entertaining Conan/ Hamill meet up.

 

I am still confused about Luke's line ''Balance, powerful light powerful darkness'' because from all we've learned from GL and the movies (and TCW, Rebels and other media) is that balance means that the light is dominant. Because the Dark Side is cancer and imbalance. So how is both sides being equal as implied in TLJ balance?

Or is my my flawed understanding of english not making me understand what he's actually saying? I need opinions on this

 

Just disregard the philosophy of any Jedi/Force talk in TLJ. Stick with what the PT and OT told us about it....Moving on haha...

 

the balance thing has always been a bit confusing to me too. Because when Darth Vader brings balance to the Force he tips it in favor of the light side of the Force. Balance would suggest them both coexisting with neither being dominant.

 

To me, the thing about that is that the dark side inherently seeks greater power, and must be kept in check. The only way to do this is to keep the dark side from accessing channels of greater power (Palpatine, Kylo Ren, etc). The light side, on the other hand, exists to preserve and limit the dark side's ability to dominate, because the dark side is never content to remain in equilibrium.

 

I always understood, even when GL made the movies, that the intention of the Jedi was never to eradicate the Dark Side (that is just impossible), but to keep the Dark Side under control, that is not to let it overshadow the Light. I don't think that balance meant Light only, even in the PT/OT.

Mark looks good! I hope we'll see him more like this during the TROS promo. He looked quite depressed during the TLJ promo tour.

 

That's not necessarily the case.

 

It’s definitely not the case...

 

The whole cancer thing is a misunderstanding of what Lucas said. Essentially a Sith using the dark side exclusively is like cancer to the individual Sith. Just look at Palpatine or Vader or Snoke who have used the dark side extensively for a long time and their bodies are starting to decay.

But that has nothing to do with the balance of the Force. Balance means that neither side is dominant. They're equal. This is what Palpatine upset in the PT and why he needed to be destroyed.

 

But if there were thousands of Jedi during the old republic and no sith/ darksiders, how is that considered equal? Wouldn’t the light side have been dominant? And everything seemed to go so well for thousands of years while the light side WAS dominant. So, I’m not sure that your explanation works either.

 

You're thinking of it in terms of Force users. That has no impact on the balance of the Force. As Luke says, "To say that if the Jedi die the light dies is vanity." Or to put it another way the Force is way bigger than the Force users who wield it.

 

It's true. Even if the Jedi die all the Force sensitive trees throughout the galaxy will rise up and photosynthesize the dark side to death.

 

And the Force Worms!

 

Sometimes the worm will turn...to the dark side.