ST The Island: A "Luke in TLJ" Teeth Gnashers Perspective (see warning on page 9 before posting)

"Forelock tuggers" is, I believe, more apt than "teeth gnashers".

 

That's true and nothing can be done to correct the character assassination done to Luke. TLJ was Luke's last movie and I don't care for a fg cameo in IX. I won't go to the cinema for Solo or IX. I also won't buy any bluray for either of these movies or any merchandise. I'm just over it and more or less out of this franchise again.

 

Do you really want RJ to put his hands on poor Revan?

Well, if you don't like none of the new characters, you don't like them, and that's it. You don't have to force yourself to pick a new favourite...

 

Judging by how he also handled Rose, Holdo, and DJ, Rian cannot even write his own characters well, let alone other people's.

 

Harrison Ford already said he regrets about wanting Han's death in OT and just JJ Abrams decided to kill Han

"In those drafts, Episode VII ended with the reconciliation between Han and Leia, but Abrams rightly pointed out that this iteration of the story made Han Solo a superfluous character:

“I had thought Han’s story and Leia’s story was just about them coming back together. At the end of the movie they would have reconciled and gotten over their differences. And you would have said, ‘Okay, bad stuff happened, but at least they’re back together again. J.J. rightly asked, ‘What is Han doing in this movie?’ If we’re not going to have something important and irreversible happen to him, then he kind of feels like luggage. He feels like this great, sexy piece of luggage you have in your movie. But he’s not really evolving. He’s not really pushing the story forward.” Arndt"

Well, JJ Abrams, a character will not evolving if the writer don't evolving him. Making an old Han Solo a smuggler again after OT didn't evolve nothing

 

One of my issues with TFA which TLJ doubles down on with Luke.

 

But at least old Han kind of felt like Han, and got back into the action relatively quickly when given the chance.

Old Luke feels nothing like Luke and was a pouty coward until like 5 minutes before he died. Han TRIED to reach Kylo, Luke didn't bother, etc. Han helped save The Resistance as a whole, Luke saved 15 or so people onboard ONE ship, etc.

So TFA Han>>>>>TLJ Luke imo.

 

Luke ignited a spark of hope across the galaxy with his sacrifice. Or something.

 

That's exactly the main problem I have with IX, I don't care for anyone there who is still alive. No single character I did bond or care what will happen to him/her.

 

Which really doesn’t work when you think about it. Those 15 to 20 resistance survivors saw Luke when he arrived, but they never even saw the confrontation between Luke and Kylo as they were beating a path to the back door. So, how did they even know what happened??? And Luke died right afterwards, as rey and leia know, so that would kind of extinguish that spark of hope rather quickly and sadly, wouldn’t it?

Plus, Luke was already a legend/ myth for taking out the Death Star; being the catalyst that led to the fall of the empire; being the galaxy ‘s only Jedi and starting up a Jedi school. If those things weren’t enough to spark hope, I really don’t see how a four minute force projection confrontation that no one saw and that resulted in the death of the very Jedi that they had been searching for for years to help them, would qualify. Plus, even IF this was the big deal in universe that I have a hard time believing it was, how did those kids hear about it almost immediately afterwards? The falcon would have been on the run from the first order for quite a while.

If anything, I would have thought that holdo’s sacrifice or new, living Jedi Rey’s Impressive boulder juggling would have been more likely to trigger that spark of hope than the four minute unseen Crait encounter which ultimately killed Luke anyway.

When you think about it, it’s SO mind-boggling that Luke would be killed off four minutes after he decides to help (and then is really only a distraction to allow 20 or less people to run out the back door), when the premise of the whole of TFA was to find Luke Skywalker. They didn’t want him found to be a four minute distraction. They wanted him to be found to “ set things right” as San Teka said; to help the resistance and to restore the Jedi order. Luke did neither, so it was all for naught.

 

I still feel like Harrison wanted his character gone now, and if he wanted to stay he could have. He could have signed on for three movies beforehand if he really wanted to be around. He had the leverage before TFA. And even if he was still killed off then at least we would have been gauranteed flashbacks with him and Luke.

 

@nightangel, I agree with you. There is no character left that I care about anymore. I didn’t like Kylo even in TFA. I saw him as a weak, whiny, emo villain given to 30 year old toddler tantrums. Now that I know that they are putting a huge amount of the blame on Luke for his fall and for not doing something about him for six years, I really hate the character. The force Skyping between him and Rey, which seemed to be appealing to teenage girls, was off-putting for me. Though I won’t be seeing episode ix, I hope Kylo dies without redemption in the film.

I liked Rey, Finn, and Poe in TFA, but liked them much less in TLJ. Rey random, in particular, I now dislike and actually resent. She is too perfect. She doesn’t need to earn anything through struggle, sacrifice, hard work, training, or testing, but she can do anything and everything the plot requires. She didn’t train as a Jedi and wasn’t guided by a mentor, but by the end of TLJ, she is more impressive with force skills than Luke was at the end of rotj. ( and Luke trained under two masters, if briefly, and he had three years between ANH and TESB to practice , and another year between TESB and Rotj. ) Rey could do all of this in less than a week with no training. Why? Just because, I guess.

I resent that the legacy of rebuilding the Jedi order was stolen from Luke so that it could likely be given to Rey. I also resent that Luke’s character was brought to ruin and never really redeemed in order to service Rey’s story and to make her shine at his expense. If Luke has to be deconstructed in order to make Rey look good and heroic, then, as I have said before, Rey’s character was wasn’t well conceived or developed. She isn’t a strong enough character in her own right.

So, I am like you. I have no interest in what happens to these characters in the future or to following their stories.

 

You taking potshots at other fans is off-putting to me, and you don't speak for all of us older fans who've been around Star Wars for the full 40 years.

 

Yes, Han's situation is a bit better than Luke's. But they all still died without any legacy (I thought maybe Finn could be Han's legacy but he never mention Han again).

In OT Han is mentioned by general Rieekan & Princess Leia as a great rebel and a natural leader. Yet he because smuggler for 5 years, abandoned his wife and was killed by the only son he has

In OT Luke faced the dark side and prove to be a jedi and someone who will always be in his friends's side. Yet he decided to go to a vacation for 5 years while his students are making mess somewhere and died after 4 minutes of "fight" agaisnt Kylo

In OT Leia lost her entire family and planet but start to make a new one with her friends and brother and find out she is Force Sensitive. In ST she lost her family and planet AGAIN, almost died, was in a coma, almost died again when her group was trapped by the FO and probably she will die in IX. While this, her only son is now the new supreme leader

 

I'm sorry. You're right. When a company buys star wars, gets on a bullhorn and announces that carrie, harrison, and mark have all signed on to reprise their roles, one would expect a reunion. I wouldn't pretend that thats an unreasonable or unfair expectation. It is not even remotely factual to say its "likely" (how does that even work?) that they focused on story. They clearly did not. By their own admission, they did not. They haven't done anything creative on any level, with leia, han, or luke. It feels like they got them back, simply to get interest up. As if they needed to do that in the first place. As Hamil pointed out, two brand new character with no history and barely any emotional attachment witnessed han's death first hand. Then moving forward, leia and luke are barely shown reacting, much less mourning the loss.

 

“One would expect a reunion”

I expected a reunion. What we got was better

 

What I actually expected when the OT cast was first announced to come back was a little nostalgic cameo. And I thought: "hm, too bad, they`re only making sequels now, I would have loved to see more of the OT trio than a cameo".

Ha, that will teach me. I mean, I now WISH it had just been a swift little cameo done in ep 7 instead of a long, drawn out slaughter of the characters I loved. TLJ managed to combine all my worst case scenarios for, well, anything. Luke being on that island for a cowardly and stupid reason? Check. Him dying without being allowed to redeem himself? Check. Everything handed over to Rey who is still flawless and without any crucible? Check.

Luke being kinda responsible for Kylo Ren in such a tangible way, being the worst teacher in the galaxy and him not having any kind of relationship with Rey weren`t even on my radar as worst case scenarios so the movie went into nightmarish scenarios I didn`t even think of.

If anyone knows the South Park episode after the kids saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Granted, it was a very visceral metaphor they used in that episode but, yup, I`m pretty much there.

 

I have to respectfully disagree with some of fellow posters here. I think there's still some glimmer of hope for Luke. I don't agree that Rey is perfect in TLJ. She was far from it in this film. I perceived her as weak, gullible when it comes to Kylo. I didn't see her as necessarily stronger. She had drive, but a lot of naivety. She is far from perfect Rey.

One thing is I have to disagree with: I still care about Luke the character. I've had years to build that. What's unfortunately the fault of LFL and RJ is that I really don't care for Rey anymore. Frankly, I think Ridley has lost interest completely. It's a pay check and a way to other projects. Which is sad.

Finn, Poe. I really liked. Now, unless JJ pulls a rabbit out of a hat (which I hope he does)

I think Luke is completely ruined is "cutting your nose off inspire of yourself" a bit. But that's my opinion.

 

In what way? I know that it is your opinion that it was better and technically opinions aren’t wrong, but how is it better that a reunion between the original characters didn’t take place?

 

I do as well. Actually, I think most people do, otherwise the anger and disappointment wouldn`t be that strong. That only comes from passion.

And yes, there would be a five percent chance they can redeem Luke in the ST continuity. Some creative writing, it could be done. I just don`t expect it.

That said, I still have the OT-Luke. Who has done nothing wrong and nothing to deserve loving him any less. There is either Legends-Luke who is a pretty good continuation from the OT and whom I can embrace wholeheartedly. Or, if I feel like something else, there is also my imagination. T

The only thing that doesn`t work for me in terms of Luke is the movie TLJ (and okay the new canon novels aren`t really setting anything on fire either) . Battlefront 2, the Luke scenes were splendid on the other hand.

 

I still care about Luke the character. This movie has no place in my Luke Skywalker’s story. I play BF2 and get excited to see and play as post-RotJ Luke. I read comics and root for him. I don’t see him ever considering murdering Leia’s child for struggling with the dark side or setting out to make Order 66 complete. That stuff doesn’t compute in my head and it has no place in the story I enjoy. It’s all fiction anyway, and this is just one movie easily disregarded.

 

Because the reunion I pictured in my head but that’s impossible to get adds a real bittersweet feel to the ST. It makes the brief moments between Han/Leia and Luke/Leia more precious, and shows that this isn’t a series where we’ll necessarily get what we expect

 

What I find difficult about this is that, yes she can be gullible/naive. But she is 20 and was thrown into this mess a week ago. That she is weak sometimes in normal. She is still way more capable than anyone in these series ever was in that time. And when compared to Luke, who should have been older and wiser and instead is still failing and learning the same lessons from Yoda of all people again, she is miles ahead of him.

..Maybe she better be, otherwise the next trilogy is going to be about how she @#%^%$@ed up too.

 

I hear what you are saying. I still think she has a lot to learn. She even says herself that she doesn't quite understand what is inside her and she needs help. In nine, I think she'll still need it unless JJ makes her completely flawless.

 

Rey was flawless ind TFA and she was flawless in TLJ, so I don't expect her to face any flaws in IX. Just the most boring character ever sadly.