Why did Luke have to die? Honest question

Valid reasons and interesting views.

 

I am acting like an adult. An adult talking about a movie made for children that can be enjoyed by adults as well.

What makes the blaster shot different than adding force sprints in the PT? Or adding all the new things?
If Vader froze the blaster shot in Empire, would have been an issue for you?

 

"Blah blah blah blah.
New force powers bad!
Except the ones I like!"

Is very mature.....

Anyway, had a great explanation early, but on those points you raise...

Force sprints, or basically forced enhanced physical abilities are in the OT. If Vader had frozen Han's blaster shot in TESB no it would not matter because nothing before it contradicts the ability, compared to the 6 movies previously compared to Kylo. Nothing wrong with adding new things if done well and thanks to a mature explanation earlier its not so jarring.

 

Stop it.

That's great for you. Personally. You're still wrong.

 

Being upset over the very minute difference between deflecting a blaster bolt in fantasy and freezing on is also mature, I suppose.
Your qualifications of what makes something "work" or "logical" or "force enhanced physical" abilities is entirely arbitrary and lacks any sort of foundation to it beyond "I don't like it".

What force power from ESB or ANH is the Emperor's force lightning in ROTJ based on?
Force ghosts is a pretty big leap from a disembodied voice.

What exactly contradicts the freezing of the blaster bolt? That Vader didn't do it? Because that sounds like the entire crux of your argument. "Vader didn't do it, so Kylo shouldn't do it either."

 

Did I say I was upset, no I did not.

I think you should re-read my post that said the points were explained in a mature manner by someone else and let it be.

 

I see your point but does Luke being really need to be spelled out? Isn’t it being implied enough?

 

Rian can say what he wants, but if Luke runs away for so long ...you can’t go any other ways than cutoff from Force.

You can’t have him be worthless all move so he gives her access to the books and what, one lesson, plus he “interferes” finally by saving the resistance to become the rebellion. His penance for bringing new Hope after running away and doing so in that way is death.

I swear, if Fisher had lived, I don’t know if Hamill comes back for 9 for more than a day or two. Leia would save Kylo or help Rey defeat him.

The scriptwriters of TFA couldn’t fit Luke in as a supporting character, so they made him Godot.

Once he’s on the water planet....knowing about Kylo and FO, he has to die to save the rebels.

Plus, all OT characters than aren’t droids or heavy prosthetics are likely to die in ST.

 

In my opinion the 2 that had to die are dead (most likely dead @Trevor)by now.
Luke because he would as stated take over the plot because he is the most powerful Jedi in the Galaxy.
Han because probably Ford asked for it.
I don't see why Leia and Lando would need to.

 

I guess I'd rather have Luke, Leia and Han end their stories on screen than in a book 10+ years from now, when the cruel bastard that is time catches up to them like it did Carrie way too soon.

 

The simple answer is because Padme & Yoda died, and in this film, Luke is Rey's Padme & Yoda.
I'm not saying this in just casual comparison of pointing out that mentors died.

I'm pointing out that if Luke didn't die by letting himself die, then the chiasmus relationship between the films would have been broken HARD.

Luke has to die because he's literally the only power-wielding (power here is emotional power in the story to our protagonists) parental figure around in the story, and a parental figure must die in each saga three times, and not only do they have to die, they have to die in response to the previous film(s).

In the OT, there are 3 parental figure deaths (interestingly enough, Vader's death doesn't seem to count as a parental figure death, and has more to do with Luke's moral choice to take a life than to do with the loss of a parental figure...allegorically).

Luke's Aunt and Uncle, Obi-Wan, and Yoda.
Each dies differently than the other.

The OT sets the pattern
(although, one can argue that RotJ responds to ANH, and it does, but that's aside from the point here....we're not looking at intra-saga chiastic relationships...just inter-saga chiastic relationships)

• Luke's Aunt and Uncle die by brute targeted force that they had no power over at a distance from Luke and is felt as anguish and resolves to become adept.
• Obi-Wan dies by allowing himself to die in battle in front of Luke and Luke feels enraged.
• Yoda dies "peacefully" in bed at rest, intimately with Luke by his bedside and Luke feels despair.

The PT inverts these events...

• In the PT, the Aunt and Uncle are mirrored in Anakin's mother's death, who, unlike Luke's experience, dies in his arms and enrages Anakin and, already being adept, resolves to stop holding back. She also doesn't die as a result of brute targeted attacks sweeping through the area, but is taken by a brute force "randomly" sweeping through the area.
• Gui-gon mirrors Obi-Wan, but this time around wasn't letting himself die, but dies fighting, and is shocked by it, which enrages Obi-Wan, rather than Anakin (the protagonist).
• Padme mirrors Yoda (interestingly) and dies in turmoil in bed in unrest, but Anakin isn't there to experience it and is off raging around.

The ST combines both PT and OT concepts and reverses these events...

• In the ST, so far, Han dies in like fashion of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, which enrages Rey, but it's also a flip on Anakin and Obi-Wan where Obi-Wan was begging for Anakin not to take the way he was going, and instead to help Obi-Wan help him (Anakin), whereas here it is instead the darker one who kills the other and in so doing goes more evil (as opposed to Obi-Wan killing Anakin, which births Vader). Unlike Obi-Wan or Qui-Gon, Han dies weaponless and instead attempts a battle of emotion, using a weapon of love and compassion to attempt to save the dark, rather than attempting to save the light.

This is how the ST works, btw, because it has two protagonists who are each answering to one of the previous protagonists (Kylo to Anakin, Rey to Luke), often times two different motif mirrors are balled up into one moment.​

• Luke dies in fashion of Yoda and Padme, but unlike Yoda, and a bit more like Padme, he is not witnessed by our protagonist group regarding his death. However, unlike Padme, he peacefully dies at rest like Yoda, and this time around, unlike Padme not being witnessed by others for his death is a good thing that doesn't open a wound anywhere. And unlike Yoda, instead of leaving a sense of despair, it leaves a sense of hope.
• We don't know what the third death will be - I'm betting the original thought was along the lines of Leia mirroring Shmi and Luke's Uncle and Aunt in some reversal, but that's off the table at this point, so who knows what's going to happen and how they'll have to try swinging it now...

This is why Luke had to die, and why he had to do it without going down in a "blaze of glory" swinging like a Jedi version of the Matrix's Neo kicking butt like a bad***.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Lando wears a cape, and you don’t tug on that. Nor do you kill him off. Despite BDW awesome performance and the pretty great prequel take on him, Lando is a Grand Moff Tarkin or Jabba: he’s memorable but more plot-functional than a core character.

My take on Leia dying comes from a) The pre-PT characters dying: Jango Fett, Shmi Skywalker, Qui-Gon, Maul, Chancellor Velorum, and Dooku were important getting the GFFA to the PT beginning than the PT itself. They die in order to hand off the stage to the core characters: Obi, YodaAnakin, Mace & Boba (Jango sets up a lot), palpatine.

Mace, Amidala, sidious, and Anakin have to die to bridge into OT.

Anakin and sidious die to become Vader and Emperor

They both die againto usher in the age of the OT heroes. Instead of sequels that deal with them, Lucas went back and showed meetings.

Leia needs to die to truly give the stage to the new cast. JJ should’ve done some plot work in TFA but played the hits.

Luke needed to close the trilogy by bowing out like Vader and Anakin did.

I don’t think I made a good argument but this topic is fantastic so I wanted to throw out my thoughts at least to be clearer.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 23, 2019, Original Post Date: Mar 23, 2019 ---

I guess that makes Lando’s cape a prosthetic. You caught me there.

Maybe Rogue one is coloring my opinions. It is my favorite of all SW movies

 

Did you really just repeat yourself 5 times?
You don't have to die to become a master as Luke was obviously a master and he didn't "have to die" but Astro projecting light years away would take a serious amount of one's life force. Anybody that goes any more into it than that is reaching WAY TOO FAR!

Even Masters get worn out from using their abilities within several feet of people just like Darth Vader did when he would choke people, so did Kylo Ren, watch the movie! It wears him out just that much trying to force Rey!

I would genuinely like to see someone prove anything else!
Just read this with an open mind and think about how the force is explained, we've been given the answers and even before this movie we were given an ominous look at Luke's fate!

 

Actually, after thinking this over and remembering that TLJ is an answer to four films at once, rather than the usual two (ESB, AotC, RotJ, and RotS), I recalled that this means that we should have two parental figure deaths in this film, and Leia being that other means that her death was her Force moment after being sucked into space.

Luke's Uncle & Aunt and Anakin's Mother's deaths were all about the nurturer's death, and in one we have it happen at a distance by direct targeting, and in the other it happens intimately by consequence of the surrounding events ("random" - loosely speaking).

In the first, the emotion is one of loss, while in the latter it is one of rage.
In neither did the protagonist have the ability to save the life; they both knew it was coming, but were too late.

In the ST, Kylo has the moment to try to save his mother by not firing, but the circumstances of the surrounding battle ("randomness") take that choice from him and his mother is shot out into space. It's a bit of a mixture of both because she was directly targeted by Hux's plan, but at the same time, in context to Kylo's position it was a brute force that wasn't within his direct control, and he also has both Luke and Anakin's emotional responses. He's grieved by it, and he rages a bit about it after Hux talks to him right after it.
It's also interesting how they used the Force connection between Kylo and Leia to make both of the previous nurturer's death's settings occur at once: they are both at a distance, and intimately connected at the same time. Clever.

However, Leia doesn't die, unlike Luke's Uncle and Aunt or Anakin's Mother. Instead, she "comes back to life", which both Luke and Anakin wished had happened, but didn't. In fact, it was Leia who saved herself unlike either of the other's who needed saving, and whose saving by the protagonists failed.
Now, unlike Anakin who went into rage, and Luke who went into grief, Kylo is pushed by the presumed death of his mother to become better. He further resolves to push out and connect with Rey - he softens a bit, which is the absolute opposite effect that Luke and Anakin experienced previously - they both, in their own way, hardened.

So, really, there's no more parental deaths left - as it should be, because IX shouldn't need to mirror any of the previous films since TLJ mirrored 4 films at once to make room for more freedom in IX to wrap up a resolution in some as of yet unseen fashion, which I look forward to. It'll be the first Saga film that won't be beat-for-beat responding to a previous film's motifs and scenes since ANH.

Cheers,
Jayson