BTS Why I think the Star Wars saga ended in Return of the Jedi

The Last Jedi trailer validates Lucas' idea that the Jedi are a dogmatic cult, always wrong about everything.

For example, in Return of the Jedi, ObiWan wanted Luke to kill Vader.

 

^This

We've had 5 Star Wars films since ROTJ and the adventure of ANH, the mystique of ESB, and redemption in ROTJ hasn't been diluted by those films. I still love them very much. 20 years from now, we'll look back and there will be a few clunkers. But you know what? There will also be fantastic expansions of the Star Wars universe (got a good start with TFA and RO) and I can pick and choose which ones I'll watch.

 

Where did he say, "I want you to kill Darth Vader?" He didn't. Luke implied that was the only way their fight could end. Yoda and Obi-wan both tell Luke that he must confront Vader in order to become a Jedi. Vader does have to die, but how he dies and in what manner, is more important that just killing him. Luke understands that. As to what he says in TLJ, we don't know what is the context of what Luke says. It might be at the beginning of the film and Rey changes his mind. Seems to be that way.

 

"I can't kill my own father"

"Then the emperor has already won"


Not sure how else to interpret that

 

they implied he had to confront Vader for sure. Of course you can defeat someone without killing them, which Luke ultimately did in battle.
but to the original question, for so many years it was the end and for me there's nothing that's going to be added to it that will be original. it was the basic happy ending, that's not longer happy.
so for those around lucas that wanted han to die and luke to go off by himself scarred, congratulations you got your way in the end.

 

I'm happy for the story to continue beyond RotJ. I'm not sure if they can ever replicate the magic of the OT and some of what comes out may not be that great, but as others have said I can choose to watch those I enjoy. I've also enjoyed listening to the passion behind those now directing the newer movies and hearing their love of the SW universe.

 

He never said you must kill him. Luke wasn't even going to confront Vader, much less kill him. Then he decided to confront Vader when he realized that he had no choice and that he should at least try to save him. Obi-wan couldn't tell him what had to happen. He needed Luke to figure it out on his own and his first reaction was an emotional one, that he would have to commit patricide. He jumped to that conclusion on his own. It's only when he's calm and thinking more rationally that he comes up with a different solution.

 

"Vader. You must confront Vader. Then, only then, a Jedi will you be. And confront him you will."

This is before Yoda even admits Vader is Luke's father.

And in the previous movie:

"Only a fully trained Jedi Knight with the Force as his ally will conquer Vader and his Emperor"


I can see why people might think Ben & Yoda want both Vader and the Emperor dead.

 

Ben tells Luke if he cannot kill his father then the Emperor will win. In fact he's already won.

Luke says he can't kill his own father. Ben tells him that this means the Emperor has won.

Whether Ben instructed Luke to kill his father or not is irrelevant. He has spelled out the cause and effect to Luke.

Effect : Victory for the Emperor

Cause : Luke's unwillingness to kill his father.

Luke has wound up figuring out and having the truth about things revealed to him without Ben telling him. So it's not like that aspect is being introduced here, and it it inconsistent with the language used by Obi Wan to obfuscate the truth on prior occasion.

This time he tells Luke specifically victory for the Emperor is ensured by Luke being unwilling to kill his father. He even tries to temper Luke's feelings about Vader's latent goodness. He's contemptuous of Vader's supposed humanity, declaring him more a machine than man, twisted and evil. So you can't even infer or spin it that Ben is leaving the door open for Luke to conclude that refusing to kill his father might induce Vader to defeat the Emperor.

Luke proves Ben wrong about having to kill Vader. But he does vindicate the feeling that Obi Wan once had for Anakin, even after he turned, but had since lost. Strangely though, Ben never intimates to Luke that the once shared the sense of Anakin's goodness. He simply states plainly that the good man that was Luke's father was destroyed when he became Darth Vader, which happened prior to Obi Wan travelling to Mustafar.

 

In the old novelization, he did allude to this - and suggests that Vader's experience with the lava was what had finished off Vader's fall to evil:

"There is still good in him." he declared.
Ben shook his head remorsefully. "I also thought he could be turned back to the good side. It couldn't be done. He is more machine, now, than man - twisted, and evil."
Luke sensed the underlying meaning in Kenobi's statement. He heard the words as a command. He shook his head back at the vision. "I can't kill my own father."
"You should not think of that machine as your father." It was the teacher speaking again. "When I saw what had become of him, I tried to dissuade him, to draw him back from the dark side. We fought ... your father fell into a molten pit. When your father clawed his way out of that fiery pool, the change had been burned into him forever - he was Darth Vader, without a trace of Anakin Skywalker. Irredeemably dark. Scarred. Kept alive only by machinery and his own black will ..."

 

To be fair though those scenes also reveal that Obi Wan did want to turn Vader back from the darkside rather than just dogmatically destroy him as soon as he fell, it was the situation of seeing the Emperor killing Luke that provided the breaking out to turn him back.

I actually tend to think its more the PT that provides the idea the Jedi needed to be "reformed" somehow. My guess has always been that Luke is going to being trying to create a new kind of force users who acknowledges the Darkside more but isn't controlled by it, that would be quite inline with the original Taoist influence on the force.

 

I think that Luke has had perhaps the unique experience of being as tempted as his father was to turn to the darkside, but was also equipped to appreciate what he would lose if he did. And that situation is probably specific to the father/son attachment he and Vader shared. Although it took Vader learning that lesson the hard way beforehand for Luke to avoid this error.

Luke will perhaps use that experience to distinguish between becoming purely a servant of evil, and being honest , open an self aware about one's natural desires which might otherwise lead one down a dark path otherwise.

 

What I would say is that it does feel a bit like a reversion to me, post ROTJ surely Luke should have been passing on this experience?

I do think this really highlights as well that Kylo should have had some kind of obvious trauma revealed in TFA as a setup not just "wanting power and order", whilst it would have limited Carrie to flashbacks I always felt that having Leia die between ROTJ and TFA would have been the obvious motivation for so much of what we see, beyond that perhaps the death of a sister or a love interest?

 

Though very similar to what we saw in the PT, with Anakin beginnings to the dark side starting with the loss of his mother.

 

Again, he never says that he has to kill him and Luke infers that he has to kill him when he confronts his father. That it is the only outcome from such a confrontation. The language is played in a careful way so that it appears that Obi-wan is telling Luke to kill Vader, but instead he only says that he must confront him. Luke believes this, but figures out a solution on his own. It's the same way that Ezra thinks the only way to defeat the Sith is to just straight up win a fight, but Yoda tells him that how they win is more important than just winning a fight. Remember, the Sith were beaten once by turning them against each other and they are destroyed in a similar manner.

 

Obi Wan also said Vader is more "Machine than man." Lets not also forget Yoda and Obi was keeping Darth Vader as a secret. Vader ruined the Jedi's plan by revealing who he was.

 

Vader revealing himself didn't ruin their plan, since they intended to tell Luke when he was ready to learn.

YODA: "Unexpected this is and unfortunate."

LUKE: "Unfortunate that I know the truth?"

YODA: "No. Unfortunate that you rushed to face him. That incomplete was your training. Not ready for the burden, were you."

 

That's reading a lot into that exchange. It always sounded more like a dodge/deflection to me (nice way to change the subject Yoda)

 

Why is it reading a lot? Would you want to learn from the guy who screwed up your father? Would you trust him to not do the same thing to you? Wouldn't you be constantly questioning his teachings if they're the reason your father became a homicidal maniac? Would you want to be a Jedi if you knew that your father became one and then became the enemy?

They wanted him to complete his training and then they'd tell him. The script, the novelization and I think the extra footage of Yoda in ROTJ, confirms that they debated about telling Luke before his training and opted against it.

 

I probably read he novelization sometime in the 80s, but I don't really remember the details I don't personally think it's super clear from the film, but if it's in the script, etc then I see where you are coming from.

I certainly don't think it's an invalid interpretation, and the bolded does make sense

 

I believe they did not truly trust the Skywalker family certainty Yoda did not. Obi new Anakin as a man and saw him as a good person but they both felt Luke was 50-50 could go either way. No i would not say Obi did but Yoda had invested in Luke since Leia was out of the picture by then.

Looking at it from Yoda's point of view he was coming to the end of his life Luke was going down his own path, Leia had not taken up the Jedi path. At this rate defeating the Emperor would never happen and with Vader by his beck and call Yoda was felling vulnerable.

 

I think ROTJ provides a very satisfying, definitive end; but also something of a "cheat" conclusion. It wraps the original trilogy and original saga structures up very well, more or less completing the "Tragedy of Darth Vader" (although I recognize people still have trouble with this re-titling) about as well as can be hoped, clearing the board of its various villains and looming threats, bringing Han and Leia into balance, allowing Luke to fully rise to being a hero without the direct assistance of his previous mentors after confronting evil on its throne, acknowledging the mythical nature of its own being with the Threepio-Ewoks sub-plot, and generally blazing a hot, happy, exultant trail to the finish line. What more is there? Well, quite a lot, in a way. For as definitive a capper as ROTJ is, there's something slightly helter-skelter, oddball, and coy about its actual end: people dancing around a campfire, people looking forward toward a lens. The saga ends on a jaunty jamboree? Makes about as much sense as anything else; and yet, a part of one's soul cries, "More! More! More!" It's like, okay, that story is certainly done; but where is the rest of it? It's like we've only gone half-way and arrived at some lively tavern for a hearty celebration and a sleep-over, having fled from some baddies and conquered others, and found a few allies along the way, but we must get back on the road and complete our quest to finally reach the mountain and slay a dragon. ROTJ is almost like some M.C. Escher drawing: paradoxically complete and incomplete, closed and open, simultaneously and in perpetuity. How to conquer such a contradiction? Maybe Disney chose the best option: Press "reset", sprinkle some OT magic in there, and start the engine up again.

 

No its not played carefully. Hanging the Emperor's victory on Luke's expressed unwillingness to kill his own father is not careful unless Ben is carefully laying a guilt trip on Luke for not fulfilling the galaxy's last hope. As I already said. It's irrelevant that he does not instruct Luke to kill him and I don't believe Ben really knows what Luke must do. But he does virtually the opposite of suggesting he doesn't have to kill him.

There's no talking around that.

 

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It isn't over 'till the fat lady sings