Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

He's just sad.

Before Kylo things were going good, galaxy at relative peace, Order bearing fruit with several Padawans but the night he almost killed his nephew BOOM!

His nephew turns evil, kills his students, burn down his temple, and then left to join the FO where they basically terrorized the galaxy as bad as the Empire did.

Luke's reaction was to be so distraught he goes to a planet so he can rot as penance without even telling anyone for years and becoming a cynical crabby old man in the process.

Its Goddamn depressing. I know people can fail in life but Jesus Christ its kinda Darkness Induced Apathy there especially since he was the optimistic one of the original trio.

Edited by slimcoder on Oct 3rd 2018 at 12:08:47 PM

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

Winning one battle does not negate the fact that he failed at the most important task of rebuilding the Jedi Order. That one battle at best just bought the resistance time.

So yeah stories of Luke will still spread, but that doesn't negate his failure at ensuring there was a new order to protect the Galaxy or the New Republic.

"When I offered to make Norea my third back-up girlfriend she just glared at me and started throwing things at me.." Renee Costa

I mean, considering that Snoke had been tempting Ben Solo for years at that point and the First Order was rebuilding itself on the Outer Rim, I'd say that none of what you wrote is true.

Why would rebuilding the Jedi Order be his "most important task"? Why wouldn't it have been helping stop Palpatine? Or destroying the first Death Star? Why was the one big thing he failed at suddenly the most important thing ever? Hell, even Yoda doesn't care about the Jedi Order — he never tried to rebuild it.

I really think you are reaching with this "He failed at rebuilding the Jedi Order, therefore he was a massive failure" thing.

I mean, the old Jedi Order didn't exactly protect the galaxy from Palpatine's rise. Luke had a point there.

He was optimistic when he was younger. Now, the optimistic character is Rey. She's the hero of the new trilogy, not Luke.

Edited by alliterator on Oct 3rd 2018 at 12:22:23 PM

Why wouldn't rebuilding the order be the most important task. Ending a war a easy, but maintaining peace and security through an entire Galaxy is the harder and far more important task.

The old order not seeing the threat coming doesn't change that Luke failed to keep his order in a fraction of the time of the previous order. The previous order at least defeated the sith on multiple occasions and required the sith to fight smart to actually collapse on itself. Luke has no excuse.

Edited by Darthwyn on Oct 3rd 2018 at 3:49:44 PM

"When I offered to make Norea my third back-up girlfriend she just glared at me and started throwing things at me.." Renee Costa

I'm sorry, but your logic is just...not sound. None of what you said is supported by the films. The Rebellion managed to defeat the Empire without the Jedi Order around, so why would rebuilding it be a high priority? And Luke seemed like he was just trying to train some new Jedi, not trying to rebuild an entire Order.

And your whole argument hinges on the fact that 1) this was his lifelong dream when it clearly wasn't and 2) the Jedi Order would have protected them against any and all danger, when they couldn't even protect themselves against Order 66. I mean, the Jedi Order failed, utterly and completely. According to your logic, the old Jedi Order was a failure.

Edited by alliterator on Oct 3rd 2018 at 1:20:50 AM

Considering they won because of a Jedi being on their side and this original movie began with the rebellion trying to recruit an old Jedi your logic isn't sound.

Why wouldn't it be a high priority if the new republic isn't going to have an army. Who else would be defending the Galaxy from the hutts or any other pirates that would be the problem of the new republic now that the empire is no longer the major player in the Galaxy at the time.

You do realize the old republic actually lasted for a period of time so while it fell like all kingdoms eventually come and go it did not crumble in one lifetime which is the major difference. So compared to the old republic and old Jedi order the new republic and Luke Jedi order are failed in every sense of the word.

"When I offered to make Norea my third back-up girlfriend she just glared at me and started throwing things at me.." Renee Costa

Luke's goals in the Original Trilogy:

1) Become a great Jedi.

2) Defeat the Empire.

3) Overcome the pull of the Dark Side (in both himself and his father).

In the OT, Luke succeeded in these goals, but by the time we meet him in the Sequel Trilogy, all of those accomplishments have been undone. He's turned his back on the Jedi and given up all connection to the Force, the Empire is back in all but name, and while his denial of the Dark Side and redemption of Vader haven't been retroactively undone, what happened with Ben is basically a redo of that struggle, only with the Dark Side prevailing.

Yes, by the end of TLJ, Luke's begun to rectify those failures, but there's a key problem there: the Sequel Trilogy is not Luke's story. In the Original Trilogy, Luke was the lead hero; he was the great champion of the Jedi, the key player in defeating the Empire, and the one who reawakened Vader's humanity. But in the Sequel Trilogy, he's a supporting character. If the First Order is defeated, if Kylo Ren is redeemed, and if balance is restored to the Force, those will not be principally his accomplishments. Credit will be due to Rey and the other new characters, with Luke there on the periphery.

Basically, we've gone from Luke Skywalker, the guy who accomplished these amazing things, to Luke Skywalker, the guy who failed at these amazing things, but helped out the people who did ultimately accomplish them.

Also, defeating the Empire and Palpatine is sort of useless if they end up coming back thirty years later stronger than ever and the Republic collapses meekly without a fight. It's the Alliance to Restore the Republic, not the Alliance to Kill the Emperor and Call It a Day. Without the institutional continuity, nothing in the OT really matters. The Old Republic lasted in some form for thousands of years. The New Republic didn't last one lifetime. The New Jedi were wiped out in one massacre by one guy without a simultaneously, coordinated assault that took out the old, and what's more, his attack pretty much happened out of the blue. The Sith had to work for centuries before they could act. Compared to the old versions, the new are just pale imitations, just like the ST is a pale imitation of the OT.

Let's put it this way: Han was born in the Republic, came of age in the Empire, settled down in the New Republic, and died in a First Order controlled hellscape, and he was only 63. The Jedi Order that was 10,000 strong when he was born was nearly exterminated twice, and never again approached more than fifty in number. That's emblematic of the failure of the Rebellion's objectives. There are no institutions being left behind.

Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Oct 3rd 2018 at 8:03:34 AM

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

To be fair, Luke didn't HAVE to do anything about the Jedi. In fact, if he did nothing about it the galaxy would have been better off.

A Jedi, not the Jedi Order. And, again, he was in the process of training other Jedi, not trying to rebuild the Order.

You keep saying that the Republic doesn't have an army, but that's not true: according to the wiki, the New Republic did have a military and quite a good one until about six years before TFA, when some centrists lobbied to divert funding from the military to planetary defenses. Considering that this would be way after Luke already tried and failed to train more Jedi, your arguments are thus incorrect.

Where does it say that the First Order is stronger than the Empire? The Empire lasted for 19 years before a great military defeat. The First Order barely lasted a week after Starkiller Base was destroyed before they were humiliated again and their Supreme Leader was killed. Also: only the capital of the Republic was destroyed, we don't yet know how much of the Republic is left. Remember: TLJ takes place in the immediate aftermath of TFA.

I'm getting that impression too.

Like, I'll totally own the fact that I think the OT is terribly overrated. It was awesome when I was like 6, but it hasn't aged well.

But. Like.

If you're going to say that the ST shouldn't ape the OT because that's lazy and derivative, I'm totally onboard with that criticism. But if you're going to say the ST shouldn't ape the OT because the OT are stupid movies full of bad decisions, then. Like. Are you sure this franchise is for you?

Do you know why I don't watch Transformers movies? Because I realized that my main criticism of them is that there's too much focus on giant robots. That's not really something that the creators can be expected to resolve to my preference. Some complaints can't be reconciled with the series as a whole.

Like it or not, Vader's redemption is the climactic pinnacle of the OT. It's at the heart of the series. In much the same way that I don't expect them to ever acknowledge Han Solo being a sexual predator in-canon, you shouldn't expect them to just declare, "Well, Vader's redemption was a stupid thing. Let's just cut that theme right out of the franchise forever!"

Kylo Ren shouldn't be redeemed. But it wouldn't feel like Star Wars if an effort was never made.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 3rd 2018 at 8:01:45 AM

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Kylo crossed a line even Vader wouldn’t cross. They have nothing in common except for one wanted to be like the other till that plot was entirely forgotten.

Vader choked his pregnant wife to death.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Also, Anakin killed a bunch of young children.

Yeah, Vader crosses a lot of lines that were a lot worse than Kylo killing his dad. The only reason that people think that that’s worse is because his dad’s Han Solo.

Oh God! Natural light!

You know, it occurs to me that that is actually the official tale, isn't it? Like yes, she died of "sadness" but Palpatine told Vader that he did it. That's officially Senator Padme Amidala's cause of death.

Edited by Larkmarn on Oct 3rd 2018 at 10:25:48 AM

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Not really? Cause of death yes, whatever that was was weird, but he didn’t slice his wife in half and throw her down a pit then get over it a day later like it never happened. Luke won the day cause Vader would not kill the only family he had, Kylo looked like he enjoyed it and then wrote it off like just another day.

Kylo right now has around x5 the body count Vader did thanks to Hosian and has been doing personal executions and all that too.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

Edited by Memers on Oct 3rd 2018 at 7:34:49 AM

I don't know what movie you were watching, but no, he didn't. Hell, Snoke even says that killing his father "split him."

...I don't think your going to win the "Who was worse?" argument. Again: Anakin literally killed little kids. With his lightsaber, not from a planetary superweapon.

Edited by alliterator on Oct 3rd 2018 at 7:40:12 AM

I wouldn't lose any sleep if Vader was never redeemed, but why did this discussion become about Kylo Ren's redemption in the first place?

Here.

So, because you did? Okay.

Just popping in to remind everyone what happened to the other SW threads...

If this thread does get locked as well, that would be quite something.

I compared Rey wanting to redeem Kylo to Luke redeeming Vader. Their argument was then "Vader shouldn't have been redeemed." Which, you know, kind of blatantly ignores that he was.

Edited by alliterator on Oct 3rd 2018 at 8:32:56 AM

I think the ideal way to view Vader’s redemption is not to view it as “try to redeem Nazis”. It’s really about reconciliation with family.

There are hundreds of Hollywood movies about strained relationships with fathers, and many of them exaggerate the circumstances because that’s what they feel like in the emotional moment. We see this best expressed in The LEGO Movie where the evil world destroying Big Bad turns out to be a metaphor for the storyteller’s dad. One’s father may not be a giant evil-helmeted army-commanding world-crushing dictator, but when you’re a kid he can sure feel that way.

Star Wars is a movie series for kids, particularly ROTJ and its “and then the evil Empire was defeated by teddy bears”. Most young kids are (hopefully) not going to encounter Nazis in their day-to-day life, but they are going to argue with their families frequently. And if Dad may seem like the worst person ever because he wouldn’t buy you McDonalds after school, it can be encouragement to see peace can be made between a son and his skull-clad cyborg space wizard dad.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Oct 3rd 2018 at 8:57:57 AM