Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson, December 15, 2017) Movie • Page 385

I don't think hating TROS is literally an identity for some people the way that hating TLJ is

 

Your point A is false though. Luke does try to kill Vader. “Attempt” would be far more suited to this situation. When Vader threatens Leia and Luke leaps out of hiding he is intent to stop Vader at all costs. While Luke’s initial intention was to not fight Vader at all, that all changed when his loved ones were threatened. He jumps out and ferociously attacks and over powers Vader and cuts off his hand. In that moment he sees himself in Vader and looks at his own mechanical hand which brings him back to his senses. But his instinct of wanting to stop/kill Vader from hurting his loved ones is a huge part of Luke in that moment. So to say he never thought of killing him is just false.

that scene is played out again in Last Jedi. Luke again doesn’t set out for violence. But when he discovers what is to come to his loved ones he reacts and in that moment the same instinct from ROTJ pops back up. That instinct to stop it from happening at all costs. But here Luke stops himself from making an attack. Luke has grown and matured in The 20 or whatever amount of years between ROTJ and that moment. The instinct is still there, but he has more self control and wisdom now to stop him from even making a move unlike in ROTJ when he leaps out ferociously. That’s the main difference between the events. The rest are incredibly similar in context. Rian of course did that on purpose to mirror the moments.

your point B is wrong too. Luke doesn’t set out to kill because Ben was tempted. He set out to see how far it had gone. Then when he sees the possible future of what would happen to his loved ones he reacts in that moment the exact same way he did with Vader. Again though, while that instinct pops up in both scenarios, what he acts on is different. But that moment of instinct does pay a heavy price.

overlooking that instinct of Luke in both moments completely misunderstands the very heart of Luke Skywalker.

 

or, as another good example, the way hating Ghostbusters 2016 is an identity for some people (probably a lot of the same people tbh)

 

Eh, I don’t want to disrespect Filoni, but it’s not really fair to compare someone who has done one movie vs like 14 seasons of television and one movie. Rian was able to give such an unbelievable movie that showed such an in depth understanding of the saga and Luke in particular. Filoni took many seasons to truly show that. If we judged him on the clone wars movie Rian wins easily. Movie vs movie would be the most fair comparison. And Filoni loses that one.

 

This movie deserves it.

 

Luke never tries to kill Vader once he's become a jedi knight and learns that Vader is his father. Sidious even tries to convince Luke to kill Vader once he chops off his hand but Luke says he won't. I don't see how Luke going ham on Vader and chopping off his hand is Luke trying to kill him. Luke even stops and pauses before you can see that he acknowledges the similarity between him and Vader, showing that he was only going so far as to stop Vader, not kill him.

For B, everything you explained was due to Snoke manipulating Ben. That movie has Luke imply that Ben was going to do all these terrible things because he could feel Snoke was corrupted him. So therefore Luke contemplated killing him based on none other than the sense of what Snoke was doing to him.

Sure, people can view the inner character of Luke and why he chose to what actions with their own perspective, but the fact is that Luke refused to kill Vader, a person who did alot more than Ben ever did, meanwhile he was ready to kill Ben based solely on implications.

 

I have never seen the haters of TLJ make sense. I have never seen praise of TROS make sense.

 

When Luke leaps out screaming “never” he is willing to stop Vader no matter what. There is no reason to think that doesn’t involve killing him. I already described when Luke comes to his senses and then chooses to not kill Vader. Palpatine trying to convince him comes too late. It doesn’t discredit or prove either of us right or wrong.

Luke saw a possible future through the force. Just like he did in Empire. Luke couldn’t know for sure they would happen, which is part of why he stopped himself. Sadly, we know what he saw came to pass. In both instances he initially chose to act/reacted by taking action. But to say he contemplated all because of Snoke’s temptation is false.

so now we have Luke acting the same way in Empire, ROTJ, and the Last Jedi.

 

The moment where Luke comes to his senses during the duel with Vader in ROTJ is pretty much the most important moment in his entire character arc. The image of him staring at his gloved hand and then throwing down his lightsaber is everything.

 

The moment kind of doesn’t make any sense if there was no change for Luke.

 

Just give me a little less Canto and make Leia surviving a little more mysterious and I'd put this right next to Empire.
Both of those scenes/sections really just don't work for me

 

The fact that Luke stops after chopping off Vader's hand, which is before you can see from his facial expressions that he even acknowledges the similarity between him and Vader, is enough reason to see that he wasn't trying to kill Vader. If he wanted to kill Vader then he would have would have done so before realizing that he was following in Vader's footsteps by allowing hate and anger to fuel him.

We'll just have to agree to disagree because I don't see how Luke's reaction in ROTJ is like the reaction he had in the flashback in TLJ. It is an interesting perspective, though, and I'm not going to say I'm 100% right or your 100% wrong.

 

The Last Jedi also has a lot to say about generational trauma and what trauma in general does to you over time. Anakin’s trauma is passed down to his children and then passed on again to the next generation. The courage to be present, to stand still and say “this ends with me”, is profound and it’s there in that moment Luke throws down his saber in ROTJ and it’s there again when he sacrifices himself in TLJ. Yes, Luke considers killing Ben because he can see what is coming. In that moment he’s reliving his own anguish that has sat with him for decades and he knows what will happen if it’s left unchecked. No matter what he’s done in an attempt to save the galaxy, it’s all happening again. Vader is back via Ben by proxy. It’s all in the family and Luke can’t escape it. Yes, Luke stood up to the emperor as a young man fully coming into his own, but he was young and the trauma was still raw and new. Old age changes trauma response. You think you’ve dealt with it, but that creeping silence, that desire to isolate, reveals that it has taken on a new form in your life. Luke got older and he got quieter and he disappeared. He stood there over Ben and then everything - the past, the present, and the future - was happening all at once and the conflict inside of him told him to snuff out the growing darkness before it’s too late, before it all happens again. But he resigns himself because a part of him thinks maybe Ben can be saved and another part of him knows it already is too late. Should Ben’s life be ended, someone else will take his place and it will happen again. It’s also his nephew, his sister’s son. He loves him and can’t bring himself to do it. Ben wakes up, Luke’s worst fears are realized, and so he does the only thing he thinks - rather the trauma tells him to think - is the right thing. He vanishes for years as the sorrow overcomes him. He does so because that voice inside himself tells him “it’s better this way.” He loses everything and everyone he loves and still “it’s better this way.” It takes Rey’s resolve and Yoda’s lesson about failure being the greatest teacher to remind him that that same resolve to do the right thing still lives in him. As he tells Leia, “No one’s ever really gone.”

 

Canto was fun and lasted like what, 8 minutes?

 

People act like it’s a huge chunk of the movie. I remember a review before it came out that claimed Canto took up a third of the movie.

 

Not to mention the Canto sequence is pretty crucial to the movie’s themes and to Finn’s character development (not that it mattered in the end anyway since his character was so botched in TROS)

 

I like new planets and locations and liked canto. I also think any sentence other than Dave Filoni is perfect is a damn lie haha

 

Canto Bite is fine but the idea that Finn, a child soldier stolen from his family at birth, would need to learn the lesson "war is bad" for his character arc was and still is absurd lol

 

The entire trilogy should have dove deeper into the abducted-children-as-soldiers aspect.

 

Yeah but really the bulk of that should've happened in The Force Awakens. The biggest problem with that movie is how Finn has zero issues assimilating into normal society after spending his entire life to that point as a soldier who had been brainwashed from childhood. The struggle to deprogram himself really should've been a way bigger part of the first movie, that way in the second movie he could then have an arc about overcoming his hesitancy to join another military organization and deciding to give his life for the Resistance. Johnson gave him that arc anyway in The Last Jedi but it would've been way more impactful if real work had been done in The Force Awakens.

 

I thought TROS was going to expand on it once Jannah showed up, but nope, another mystery left unsolved.

I was also hoping Finn would become a Jedi, but then TLJ did nothing to progress that idea and TROS only left a nod that you had to read about in an interview from the director to even fully understand. Huge wasted potential.

 

The issue is that, like, he gets blood on his helmet once and then all of a sudden he's making quips with Poe and asking if Rey has a cute boyfriend. That was such a huge mistake. It works in spite of that because Boyega is such a charming, charismatic, fun presence, but from a story/screenplay perspective it makes no sense at all. Finn at that stage in his life should not be charming, charismatic, and fun lol

 

Maybe life on starkiller base was chill. strom bros mackin on storm ladies all the time.

 

I don’t think the way Luke dies isn’t badass, but I know that bothered a lot of the complainers. I’d put the ending in the category of cool things Rian came up with.

I do think it’s a shame we don’t get a real Luke and friends reunion because he went into exile for a reason that feels very out of character to me. Oakhurst captures my feelings on why I think the path to getting there was iffy pretty well.

 

I love when this thread gets bumped.