Saga Why does Disney seem to hate Luke?

Luke lets go of his attachments in ANH, because the Lars are gone. But he's still subject to them with Leia and Han. And when it comes to his father, he's trying to save him. An act of compassion, which is unconditional love. He's doing what Anakin failed to do with Dooku, which was showing him compassion by not killing him.

It's about a young boy leaving his world and going off into the unknown, to a great adventure. [...] Star Wars, carries that story on to what happens after you leave and in this particular case, there's a slightly more classic edge to it, in that the fates are there to kind of help Luke realize that, in certain cases you don't have choices. You know, if you choose not to fight evil, eventually it'll just push you up into the wall and you just don't have a choice. It's an inevitability that you can't escape from. And in this particular case, he torn between what he really wants to do; which is go off and join the academy and fight for the Rebellion and have excitement; but then he's also committed to helping his uncle, and to help his uncle build his farm, and his uncle's raised him, he's like his father, and he has his obligations to help put the homestead together.

It's very clear from the beginning here, that Luke's fate, even when the aunt and uncle are talking, is not to stay on the farm. A future that's just not in him, his destiny lies in a grander scheme of things. Even they know that. I mean they know it for other reasons, that we don't know about yet."

--George Lucas, ANH DVD Commentary.

"What Luke is doing in the beginning of Star Wars is finding his own responsibility for his place in the world. He thinks that his responsibility is with his aunt and uncle, and to do his chores. His ultimate responsibility is much larger than that because it deals with a much larger base of humanity—larger more cosmic issues. He is unwilling to look up and see those as something that relate to him. He’s much more looking at the ground and plodding along in his everyday life. So it’s that awakening, first of all, that is the performed by the insider, the magic of Obi-Wan that sends him on the path to self-discovery."

--George Lucas, Laserdisc Commentary, Star Wars Trilogy Definitive Collection, 1993.

"This scene where Luke deliberately gets himself captured and confronts Vader sort of defines the rest of the movie in terms of the fact that it’s not a chase, or one trying to escape from the other, but it’s an emotional competition between the two of them. And Luke isn’t going to run away from him, he isn’t going to fight him, you know it’s a whole different twist on where you might expect the movie might go. It becomes a direct challenge that Luke has with his father to say “I dare you—I’m not going to run away from this,” which makes it very different in keeping them as villains or in a villain/hero kind of situation. It’s “we’re going to sit down and talk about this.” And again on a lot of levels there are some nice twists in their relationship and how they confront each other. But it’s not just like in The Empire Strikes Back, where it was actually a physical confrontation and a real, you know, cutting arms off and things like that. This is a more emotional, talking kind of confrontation."

--George Lucas, ROTJ DVD Commentary, 2004.

"Luke is therefore urging Stoic wisdom upon Vader when he tells him to let go of his hate. Unfortunately, hatred has had such a viselike hold on Vader for so long that he tells Luke: "It is too late for me son. The Emperor will show you the true nature of the Force. He is your master now." For servants of the dark side, the true nature of the Force is servitude to evil, enslavement to hate. Like virtues, vices tend to control one's behavior. Vader has used fear and hatred to achieve his ends for so long that now the superior hatred and aggression of the Emperor use him. That is how Vader's mastery of the dark side is at the same time servitude to it."

--Star Wars and Philosophy, page 27.

"In the end I had a problem in the fight between Luke and his father of why he makes the final turn--Luke makes the final turn to the bad side of the force and tries to kill his father. Richard [Marquand] was trying to block out the fight between Luke and Vader and we got down to that point underneath the throne room there and he said, 'You know the script sort of says that Vader says something that upsets Luke,' or something vague like that. I can't remember exactly what the script said but it was a very vague...spark. And we didn't have that actual moment that we needed where you got the sense that Luke is hiding. He's not going to fight him. He refuses to fight. He'd rather die first and then something turns him around and makes him fight. And I never really came up with a satisfactory answer to that of what he could possibly say to set Luke off. And in the process of evolving the script and evolving the importance of Leia as the sister, it was sitting right there in front of my face and it became obvious that turning her to the dark side would be the thing that would set Luke off again."

--George Lucas, ROTJ Annotated Screenplay; 1999.

"It will be about how young Anakin Skywalker became evil and then was redeemed by his son. But it's also about the transformation of how his son came to find the call and then ultimately realize what it was. Because Luke works intuitively through most of the original trilogy until he gets to the very end. And it’s only in the last act—when he throws his sword down and says, “I’m not going to fight this”—that he makes a more conscious, rational decision. And he does it at the risk of his life because the Emperor is going to kill him. It’s only that way that he is able to redeem his father. It’s not as apparent in the earlier movies, but when you see the next trilogy, then you see the issue is, How do we get Darth Vader back? How do we get him back to that little boy that he was in the first movie, that good person who loved and was generous and kind? Who had a good heart."

--George Lucas, Star Wars Trilogy VHS Boxset 2000.

"You learn that Darth Vader isn’t this monster. He’s a pathetic individual who made a pact with the Devil and lost. And he’s trapped. He’s a sad, pathetic character, not a big evil monster. I mean, he’s a monster in that he’s turned to the Dark Side and he’s serving a bad master and he’s into power and he’s lost a lot of his humanity. In that way, he’s a monster, but beneath that, as Luke says in Return of the Jedi, early on, “I know there’s still good in you, I can sense it.” Only through the love of his children and the compassion of his children, who believe in him, even though he’s a monster, does he redeem himself."

--George Lucas, “Star Wars: The Last Battle,” Vanity Fair, 2005.

 

What I worded poorly, is that at the end of ROTJ Luke tells her "you have that power too" which as a kid, always made me want to see her as a Jedi. I read somewhere years ago that Lucas was asked about whether or not she ever became one and his answer was that she never did, she was just going to continue being a Senator.

 

I don't think it would fly today.

For one there's only a single female in the main cast, which is a huge no-no. Second, her entire arc boils down to will she or won't she say "I love you".

I think the Twitterati would have an absolute field day.

 

How am I not right about her arc? What else does her character have going for her in that movie outside of her inner conflict involving Han?

 

Alright, well I will completely ignore the comments that are flirting with misogyny and sexism in the first 2 pages, because I find this conversation very boring quite honestly, at least in this topic. I am sure there are better topics for LFL's agenda and whatnot.

On topic, I don't know if "Disney hates Luke", but the truth is that when one thinks all the types of media that have explored Luke since 2013, the stories that come from offices with posters that have crossed out Luke (this was confirmed btw and then whitewashed as a bad joke between certain employees), and the ancillary material that loves to enforce the idea that Luke didn't do anything special for the Rebellion and failed as a teacher and an uncle (novels that supported Rogue One and now Rise of Skywalker), it's not looking good.

I doubt anyone in DLFL would actively think or say "let's burn Luke to the ground", but the pattern of "I don't know how to write Luke so I will either ignore him, remove him from the story or deconstruct him" is very old at this point. The good thing is that pop culture heroes are remembered by fans as the heroes they are supposed to be, so whatever content tries to diminish Luke as a character, is not, and will not be very successful.

This must be one of the worst takes I have read about Johnson and what he did or didn't do with Lucas' original concepts.

This is like me saying that Spaceballs is true to Lucas' vision because it has lightsabers, the Force and a dude that is a Hutt, ignoring that this last dude is made of pizzas, that the lightsaber fights are ridiculous on purpose, and that the Force is called the Swartz, and is being mocked by Mel Brooks.

Where did the ST keep to that? You were responding to a post that mentioned Luke's behavior in the Mandalorian with this response. The Mandoverse has kept indeed with that. The ST? Nowhere. The topic of attachments and how they can lead to the dark side is not even touched in the ST. Kylo Ren turned to the dark side because (A) the ST presents his parents as failures, (B) because he is a toxic and spoiled nihilist - which is not cool, unlike what RJ thinks and (C) because he thought his uncle was about to murder him in cold blood, and with good reason apparently. Snoke is Palpatine's clone. Palpatine is back from the dead. Rey flirted with the dark side because (A) Kylo Ren has impressive abs and (B) she doesn't know what her role is in this story and has to ask the white men, breaking the 4th wall in the process.

There is not a single character in the ST that either turned to the dark side because of attachments or risked doing so, and all the themes of the Force and the Jedi explored in the ST are irrelevant to the themes presented in the PT and the OT.

 

I'd agree that, aside from admitting to having romantic feelings for Han, Leia doesn't really change or develop in the OT, or really, throughout the entire saga. Traits and accomplishments aren't the same thing as character development. And even that romantic relationship with Han, and finding out about her family, and what happens with Kylo and Han, nothing really seems to change Leia. Of the OT 3, she develops the least.

I see Leia as more of an ideal / role model character than a character-character. Which probably explains why I've always found her the most boring.

 

Really none of our heroes show much growth in ESB, but that is part of what makes it so bold and original. It completely subverts the first film. Luke and Han do a bit, but they are mostly suffering defeat after defeat. I fell in love with Vader in that movie; he just dominates the film and our heroes are constantly on the run and being defeated by him. He gets his comeuppance and redemption in ROTJ, but ESB is Vader's movie imo. He is the perfect villain.

 

Well, I suppose you could say K/B followed the old Jedi idea and renounced his attachments in TFA and TLJ. Murdering his father, and trying to kill his mother and uncle show that he's rejected his family connections and embraced his commitment to following the Force as he sees it. Then, in TROS, his commitment to Rey impedes that pursuit and it all falls apart.
Okay, I don't believe any of this makes sense, really, but I'm just putting the idea out there. In any case, I still feel that the Original Six demonstrate that attachments were really not bad. It was the misuse of them that was bad. Ani loving and wanting to protect his wife & child/children was not bad. It was deciding the best way to do it was mass murder that was bad. And Luke, in the nick of time, realized that standing in defense of his friends was good, but using the Dark Side to do it was bad. The only attachment Luke rejected was to himself, not his friends and family, and he was prepared and willing to die rather than throw them overboard in the name of the "big picture". Now, if the new stuff wants to have him go back to "attachments always, repeat always, lead to the Dark Side", that's their call.

As for Luke, if the above quote is accurate and the staff were really intimidated by Luke's presence, they should've worked harder to make their own characters equally interesting, rather than tearing him down. But, then, this is really nothing new. Before Disney took over, the books were already reducing the importance of Luke and his fellow OT heroes. I didn't read all of the post-Vector Prime books, but they basically showed the New Republic as falling apart, the heroes efforts coming to naught, and a Solo kid turning into a murdering Dark Sider. So, you can't really blame Disney for just following a path that was already there.
I do find it interesting, though. I haven't heard any commentary on this from the production team or execs, but it seems like an idea behind reducing Luke and the others is what's been noted previously. They may figure we now live in a darker, edgier, grittier world where true good guys are just unbelievable and unacceptable. I remember when ANH was released in 1977. It was during another time when present day society was divided, downbeat, cynical, morally relative, and a major slog. (For adults, anyway. We kids didn't notice it too much.) And one reason ANH worked and was embraced was how it featured real good guys (not perfect, but good) who stood up for what was right against bad guys who were clearly bad. One gets the feeling that, if the current regime could remake the original, it would be presented in a far more downbeat way. And I seriously doubt that's what we want or need.
Or maybe Disney LFL is just like any other new production team that decides to toss anything the previous bunch put in place in favor of their own personal vision. And the next group in charge will do the same to the current stuff. Happens all the time in the entertainment world.

Well, over to you...

 

Right, but then you must remember that Lucas didn't spend as much time developing the ST as he did the PT. Certain ideas became ROTJ. Other ideas were even more vague. He also said there was no real conflict that would drive the narrative. He had to really sit down and commit to finding one. Which is what he did in 2011.

I didn't say it was a good take. The thing is we don't know what Lucas would have done fifty-five years ago. We don't know what all he wanted to do eleven years ago. We're attached to the idea of this kind of Luke Skywalker...



But instead got this...

Rey. Attachments are just to people, but moments in time. She is attached to her parents who she believes had abandoned her. She is afraid to leave Jakku because they might come back and miss her. She'd rather stay on Jakku, which is an attachment. Later, she becomes attached to Chewbacca and it is that attachment that fuels her rage when she thinks him dead. This anger continues when she learns who she really is and why her parents died. Her true fear and thus her rage centers around her identity. She is attached her to identity or lack thereof. That is why she takes the Skywalker name. She is forging a new identity and letting go of the attachment to the past.

 

So do you think Obi-Wan and Yoda were wrong and that Luke didn't have an attachment to his father?

 

No, Obi-Wan and Yoda were right that he did have an attachment to Vader. He has an attachment to him right to the end “I can’t leave you here I’ve got to save you”. I said that I think he loves him in and in Star Wars love has a selfless side of compassion and a selfish side of attachment. Luke demonstrates earlier that he has attachments to his friends and will not let them die for the greater good, and his refusal to kill Vader is similar. Obi-Wan and Yoda think it’s impossible to redeem him, and foresee that Luke’s attachment to him will lead to his death.

and in the final battle the conflict is whether Luke will give in to his fear and anger because of his attachment to his friends and family and wanting to protect them from the dark side, or remain unswayed by these emotions. And its the other side of love, his compassion for his father, which inspires Vader to save him. And when that happens he’s already demonstrated detachment by throwing away his lightsaber and accepting destruction.

 

Luke did have attachments, and we see what happened when he acted on his attachments and when he lets go of them.

Attachment is the inability to let go of someone or something, the fear of loss is a consequence of that. Luke has first and foremost compassion for his father, and a touch of attachment that makes him reject initially the possibility that he might have to kill his father (in self defense). But Luke's real attachment is for his friends, particularly Leia. Even more so when he learns she's his sister. And it's that attachment that the Emperor and Vader use to make him turn to the dark side. In TESB, Vader used Luke's attachment for his friends to bring him to Cloud City. In ROTJ, the Emperor taunts him with the inevitability of the destruction of his friends, which makes Luke give into his anger and attempt to strike Sidious; and Vader threatens to turn Leia to the dark side, which makes Luke almost kill Vader in anger (his father, who he was trying to save).

In the end, Luke is able to let go of his attachments and fear of losing them. Between dying as a Jedi and living having fallen to the dark side, he chose to remain a Jedi and face death. And it's that ultimate stance of altruism and integrity that inspires Anakin's return.

 

There’s been a persistent rumor going on for a while that LFL is internally divided over the handling of Luke, with the Story Group favoring the nihilistic Rían Johnson approach while Filoni and Favreau going for the classic take on the character. Don’t know how true it is, but this seems vindicated with how abominably bad the comics are with relation to the ST (somehow making everything worse) and how well handled Luke has been in BOBF/ Mandalorian.

 

Don't believe rumors.

 

Wow! Ouch! So sorry to make such a controversial statement. There are some great stories in the EU(Legends) about Leia's Jedi training. Kennedy discarded great(female lead) stories, when the de-canonized 40-50yrs of some incredible books by great authors. Yeah sure, they are using it as inspiration... but, you aren't getting Leia training with Master Sebatyne either. It isn't just Disney hating on Luke, it's Lucas' named replacement at the head. Right now I only trust Lucas, Filoni, and Favreau to uphold the integrity of the galaxy far, far away

 

Perfectly said in everything

And I don't even think that happened. It's a Kenobi show, they focused on Kenobi because he is the protagonist.
Anakin/Vader was supposed to be the protagonist in the prequels, no reason to be mad about it.

PS. Oh yeah, I now see how you meant it. You were essentially saying the same

 

Nah, I just read your post really fast and missed a couple of key words there initially

And it was about time to see Leia's character fleshed out more, even as a kiddo.
Where the ST failed miserably in 3 movies, OWK did it in a few scenes of a TV show. Leia deserved this.

Making her a General and constantly promoting the idea via Twitter that being a Princess is demeaning while being a General shows power, did **** for her character. Developing a character and succeeding in making people fall in love with the character is a little more complicated than just giving titles and telling people who react to a poorly developed concept that they are toxic and/or sexist. Leia has been a dynamic female character since 1977, and now thanks to OWK she is viewed even more dynamic and people talk about her more. I am sure and I would bet all my money that there is a whole new generation of kiddos who have watched or will eventually watch OWK and say that they want to be like little Leia when they grow up, and that's a major win.

Little Luke got his spot in the limelight in the finale of the show, and it was plenty. I was not expecting to see much of either of the two kiddos anyway, this was not the show that will fix whatever DLFL has done wrong with Luke in my opinion. They already started fixing it with The Mandalorian and TBOBF, and something tells me they're not done.

PS. I already liked you as a user since you first joined the forums, but now that you have my favorite GoT character as your avatar, I like you even more

 

The problem with Leia getting so much screen time over Luke in the Kenobi show is that protecting Luke is Kenobi’s job, and Luke is the one who has familiarity him in ANH. Leia has no such familiarity:

“Years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars. Now he begs you to help him I’m his struggle against the Empire.”

Does that sound like someone who has any familiarity with someone, never mind someone who went on a grand adventure with you less than a decade ago? Remember, Leia is an Imperial Senator at this point, so she has no reason to act as though she’s only heard of him through her father.

Which is why it’s so bizarre that the show shunned Luke in favor of Leia. I mean, I don’t even think he gets a single line of dialogue. It’s mind boggling to me that Disney seems to have such disdain for Luke that they’d bend canon to keep the focus off him. Nobody for 45 years of thought Obi-Wan and Leia had any personal relationship, for good reason.

Not to mention Obi-Wan completely and utterly failed in his job to protect Luke, and if Reva didn’t have a change of heart he’d be dead.

It would be like if they made a show about the Imperial Senate and the rise of the Rebellion, but chose to focus on Luke instead of Leia.

 

Luke talks when he and Owen go to get the replacement belt for their speeder. Anyway, the reason for it being about Leia instead of Luke is continuity. Obi-Wan cannot use his Lightsaber in front of Luke and he doesn't know anything about the Jedi and the Force. Leia is aware of the Jedi and the Force as we saw in "Rebels". She sees Kanan use his saber and Ezra use the Force to move objects. Luke has never left Tattooine until ANH. Leia goes to multiple worlds due to her upbringing.

This isn't rocket science and there is no hate on Disney's part.

 

He also talks later on when they tell him to hide and run.

But yeah, everything that @devilinthedetails said. White males are not being marginalized. Marginalized groups are beginning to get the representation that they deserve.
And Luke is not Star Wars. Luke is Luke. Star Wars is much, much more.

 

None of what you said can be found in the actual movies...
It''s nice to have imagination, it is not so nice to project yours onto other people.

a) The ST did not present Han and Leia as failures. A marriage breaking apart at some point is perfectly normal. As is parents not always being able to get through to their son. There can be tons of different reasons for that, including lots in which neither is really at fault for that. The ST presents the two as what they actually are: normal people who aren't perfect. Sometimes things don't work out. That's called reality.

b) in no way, shape or form does TLJ present being toxic and nihilistic as cool. Nor does Rian Johnson think that. Stop lying about the movie and the person who made it!
The movie does in fact show the exact opposite of what you constantly claim. Kylo Ren is shown as been wrong entirely. He fails at what he wants to achieve. Rey shuts the door on him (literally and figuratively), he is so hellbent on killing Luke that he gets tricked by him, causing the otherwise doomed resistance to escape. And most importantly, he is all alone in the end. There is nothing cool about that.

Luke, on the other hand, starts off in a bad spot, caused by his own actions. And no, contrary to what the opening post tries to claim, Luke at the end of the OT was very very far away from being "a hopeful, optimistic hero". Just because he had some naive optimism in ANH doesn't mean that he stayed that way throughout the OT. Luke was no optimist in ESB, and by ROTJ he was 90% pessimistic, somber and keeping to himself, always worried about endangering his friends. Heck, there is a whole scene where Leia goes to talk to him over this exact issue.
In TLJ, his encounter with Rey, plus the talk with Yoda, remind him to look past his mistake. He learns from failure, THAT is the actual message of the movie, a constant in all the arcs that get told. He proceeds to save the resistance in the most Jedi-like way possible: by not actually fighting. The movie then goes on and presents him as the spark that unites the galaxy in the fight against the First Order. To the point that children talk about his heroic act of standing up against an entire army on his own (it's not TLJ's fault that Abrams somehow forgot about all that).
So we have the villain presented as a failure. The person who doubted himself rising from the ashes of self-doubt to become THE message of hope to the galaxy, and all of the main new heroes moving past what held them back. That couldn't be less nihilistic and toxic. It is in fact the complete opposite of that. How on earth anyone could look at that movie and think it glorifies nihilism or toxicity is beyond me. It couldn't be more obvious about learning from mistakes and gaining new hope.

c) is nothing more than a moral question being asked. Is it right to kill someone because he will commit atrocities in the future? Or does someone deserve the benefit of the doubt until he has actually done something bad? Or is it even a self-fulfilling prophecy in that the attempt to stop him is what is causing it in the first place?

That obviously doesn't even cover the fact that reacting to something is perfectly normal and not preventable, and that the darkside will always try top lure someone. The idea that Luke shouldn't even have such a moment is ridiculous and goes against everything the movies - and other stories - have ever said about the force. The issue has never been that a Jedi couldn't have these feelings - it is in fact impossible to achieve that - but that he should never let emotions be the driving force. He needs to be able to overcome them and not act on the impulse. That is exactly what we see in TLJ. Luke sees the dark future, an impulse rises, and he stops himself in the next moment. That is as quickly as it could possibly get. What causes a problem, is that there is a second person around who also has to make a decision. You only control your own actions, you don't control how others perceive them.

The sentence about Rey is just pure ignorance. No, she doesn't flirt with the darkside because Kylo Ren has nice abs, and no she doesn't need to ask white men about her future either. She tries to learn from THE mythical figure of the time, that is no different than what Luke did in the OT. Asking a teacher for advice is what young people do, because that's what they are for. All that becomes rather obvious in TROS, when Leia (most definately not a white man!) is her teacher. But why stick to facts, right?

And no, the themes brought up in the ST are not "irrelevant" to the themes presented in the OT and PT. In fact, Luke's dilemma with Ben mirrors Anakin's in ROTS, in that the very attempt to stop a crisis is causing it in the first place. Though it is more pronounced in ROTS, as it is an active decisions that Anakin had mulled over for days, while Luke's was just acting on impulse.
Not all the themes are the same. Then again, neither were they between the OT and the PT. It would indeed be rather wasteful if they just repeated the exact same themes again. Lucas never did that, so why should anyone else?