Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

It doesn't matter. He did it. Leia and Han thought the world of him, Han saw him as his brother...and because of what Luke did, Han and Leia drifted apart and separated. Whereas if he had apologized to them at least they would be angry at him and maybe not drift apart and spend so little time in their final years. He owed it to them to take responsibility and confess what he did.

I am comparing Luke to Obi Wan and Yoda, since those situations are parallel/similar. Don't start Moving the Goalposts here. I am not saying that Luke is as bad as Vader and Kylo. I am saying he is worse than Obi-Wan and Yoda were at any time in the prequels and the OT. That is all I am saying.

I am sorry. You don't get to decide that. If you want to argue why mythological characters aren't complex you need to make your case. You don't get to say that like it's some objective statement. Those people on YMMV are on the same ground you are, show some respect.

Edited by Revolutionary_Jack on Mar 25th 2019 at 8:17:13 AM

You got a little something showing there. I think they call it "projecting". You literally just tried to move goalposts, by accusing me of moving goalposts.

Alliterator HAS been making the case for why those characters aren't complex. They don't change. They're defined by a single trait. There are rather few Mythological characters whose character actually matters. You could cut out their personalities and replace them with anyone elses without changing the story much. There are exceptions like orpheus or Oedipus, but they do tend to be exceptions rather than the default.

Edited by blkwhtrbbt on Mar 25th 2019 at 10:21:18 AM

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you

Luke's situation is about as comparable to Obi-Wan's: both lost their apprentices to the Dark Side via manipulation, both went into exile because of it. The only two differences are 1) Luke had much greater guilt because of Kylo thinking he was going to kill him and 2) Obi-Wan's exile included watching over and protecting Luke.

I made my case: most mythological characters are static. They do not change, as opposed to modern day characters, who learn, grow, and change. Again: not all modern characters change and not all mythological characters are static, but most are.

Aw dang I got 'd XD

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you

Here is what I actually said: People go over the top Ron the Death Eater in bashing the prequel era Jedi for being by and large total d—ks to Anakin, Obi-Wan and Yoda for lying to Luke about Vader being his father, and that's called out and acknowledged in the films themselves.

When I said in the first clause, "prequel-era Jedi" and "Anakin', and in the second clause go to "Obi-Wan and Yoda" and "Vader", I was trying to link the former (Prequel-Era Jedi, Obi-Wan and Yoda) to the latter (Anakin and Vader). There is a comma between the two clauses because that's how you build a paragraph and a long description.

So I don't think you have on any ground on this. You misread my statement by erring in reading comprehension.

Edited by Revolutionary_Jack on Mar 25th 2019 at 8:25:27 AM

So I did. I'll concede that. However, I stand where I am in saying you are also applying Ron the Death Eater to Luke. He failed. He was traumatized by that failure. His failure resulted in lots of death and destruction. He never really recovered from that trauma. Failure in a relationship is its own punishment.

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you

Your statement is very easily misread, then.

Edited by alliterator on Mar 25th 2019 at 8:28:41 AM

How much time is supposed to have passed since Ben joined up with Snoke and Luke went into seclusion?

"It takes an idiot to do cool things, that's why it's cool" - Haruhara Haruko

Seems like it was "immediately".

Luke's flashback shows him being nearly the same age he is currently. How long has it been? Only a few years right?

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you

I don't think so — in the flashback, Luke's beard is still black, while in the present, it's gray. I think the flashback takes place at least seven to ten years ago.

Edited by alliterator on Mar 25th 2019 at 9:02:17 AM

Looking back, I really shouldn't have been as surprised as I was that Vision Luke wasn't real Luke.

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you

Yeah, that was a really fun twist, because all the clues were there: the difference in his appearance, the lack of footprints, and the fact that he had his old lightsaber (when we just saw it destroyed by Rey and Kylo).

...

Now I feel REALLY stupid.

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you

Nahhh. You'd hardly be the only one that missed it. The whole point is that these are fine details you're not meant to be paying attention to with everything else that's going on. It's meant to produce that head-slapping "Oh, of course! moment at the reveal.

I knew there was gonna be some twist there, though I didn't know what exactly.

"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"

With Luke "needing to be punished", what would him being punished accomplish? His legacy still has value to the galaxy at large.

And what did he really do, anyways? I mean, he pulled out his lightsaber to kill his Nephew in a moment of instinct, but only because he realized his Nephew was evil and a threat to others (which he totally was). Hell, if anything, his mistake was not killing him (Not something I imagine the author intended, but actually I kind of like this interpretation now that I think about it).

You also have to keep in mind that Luke genuinely is trying to help the galaxy by going into exile. He's of the opinion that the Jedi do more harm than good, and has evidence to back it up.

"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"

Let's forget about the time when the Jedi kept peace and balance for a millennia and were so good that Palpatine had to plan the greatest con of all to undermine it. And hey the Jedi did jack-all during the Rebellion. Luke Skywalker really did destroy the Death Star by using his targeting system and not by listening to the advice of his Jedi mentor who gave his life for him and his friends and in doing so allowed them to pull off the Death Star run. And of course Luke didn't use the force to liberate Han Solo and defeat Jabba the Hutt and so free Han forever from the life of crime that he chose to escape and freeing him to become the man who would marry Leia, or to manipulate the Ewoks into the cause of the rebellion nor did the prophecy of the balance of the force have anything to do with Palpatine's defeat.

Luke has no evidence whatsoever. Not in his own personal story where the Force and the Jedi were the best thing that happened to him and enabled him to do the greatest good. What you have in TLJ is Rian Johnston inserting fan disappointment about the prequels into the character and patting himself on the back for cleverness.

Edited by Revolutionary_Jack on Mar 25th 2019 at 10:47:30 AM

If your argument is "Luke is wrong," you'll get no pushback from me. If your argument is "Luke shouldn't believe what he believes," well, that's something else completely and is entirely dependent on Luke's state of mind. And I would say: of course Luke believes that the Jedi should end. Because he believes that he should end. He is awaiting his death and since he is the last Jedi at the time, he believes the Jedi should come to an end with him. After all, there are no other Jedi teachers around and he's already shown himself to be a failure — he not only failed to protect his students, he lost them to his main student, who killed and corrupted the rest.

So yes, Luke has definite reasons to believe the Jedi shouldn't exist: he believes that he is ultimately responsible for failing not only his nephew, but the entire galaxy. And because he is a Jedi, he blames not just himself, but the Jedi as a whole.

All those Jedi are dead already. And the ones Palpatine tricked died due to their own hubris. Palpatine's con wasn't "the greatest con in existence," it was tricking both sides into fighting each other so he could seize power. It wasn't special, just effective. Heck, Obi-Wan almost figured it out before the Separatists attacked, since he was wondering why someone in the Republic was ordering a clone army before there was even a war.

Edited by alliterator on Mar 25th 2019 at 11:05:38 AM

Before anything else, I keep in mind that this argument comes down to emotional payoff first, in-universe reasoning second. I agree that unless Luke's reasons for exile resonate with what we knew beforehand, then you have no choice but to accept what VIII tells you to feel closure to that narrative. This is fine for the people that like the plot beats in and of themselves, but I can't feel anything for Luke specifically due to context. And I sure don't feel sympathetic to Young Kylo. What Hamill said there is more interesting and emotional than anything I saw of Luke onscreen, and I'm not one of those people that use his words to bash the film.

Edited by VeryMelon on Mar 25th 2019 at 2:39:54 PM

See, Luke's exile strikes me as fear.

As in he tried to make things better. He absolutely did. And in doing so, he wound up making them much, much worse.

He has so much power, so much influence, and he doesn't know what to do since in trying to do the right thing he unwittingly turned his nephew into a superpowered Neo Nazi. He's afraid of making everything worse so he's just living in seclusion where he can't hurt anyone.

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I accept that for a lot, they can make that leap and it works for them. It doesn't work for me. I've seen the movie twice. Once on Day 1 and then on Home video, and my enjoyment and appreciation for it diminished sharply. I liked TLJ as I was seeing it the first time, and on a moment by moment and individual scenes taken in isolation, it works. Mark Hamill's "Astonishing, every word in that sentence is wrong" is a great line. But if you try and make it make sense and think things through it diminishes in impact, or at least I feel that way.

To me the character of Luke in TLJ doesn't really feel like the guy in the OT the way Han Solo and Leia in TFA, and also Leia in TLJ feel like the original characters. And as commentator said, "If Han Solo returns in TFA as the same cool hero he was at the end of ROTJ why isn't Luke shown the same way to us?"

Because Han's "cool hero" is a facade. We see what he's really like when he's with Leia and when he's trying to connect with his son. Luke doesn't even bother with the facade: he's a broken man and he knows it.

Click the link at your own risk:

There was a leaked poster for Episode IX that actually shows quite a bit.◊

Highlights include: red Stormtroopers, the Knights of Ren, obvious comic relief alien, and C-3PO with Chewie's bowcaster.

Edited by LordVatek on Mar 27th 2019 at 10:47:34 AM

This song needs more love.

Yeah not clicking that. We need a dedicated Ep. IX thread.

The pig of Hufflepuff pulsed like a large bullfrog. Dumbledore smiled at it, and placed his hand on its head: "You are Hagrid now."

Don't know if I buy it... Isn't that the destroyed lightsaber?

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