THREAD FOR THOSE WHO HATED THE MOVIE

i think it's the word 'contemplating' that's corrupting my RAM here.. i have 2 hrs before lunch here and i'm contemplating what i'm gonna ask for when i walk into the cafe later. it will take me that long lol (and there's a good chance i'll pick something i've not even thought of )

i also don't get that he felt shame.. if it's something he seriously contemplated?

did he go into Ben's room with the intention of murdering Ben if what he was about to see was really bad? i think we're all pretty sure that wasn't the case.

"and in the briefest moment of pure instinct"

instinct... he doesn't say that he thought about it, or that he contemplated it.. pure instinct. doing something by instinct must be the furthest thing away from contemplating? no?

just because Luke felt responsible.. doesn't mean he was or that we should think that.

my opinion is that he used the force to connect to Ben's mind.. and he was overcome by the dark side as well as the horrors going on in Ben's head.
emotion, love, anger, rage.. all these things were hitting Luke in a matter of seconds. you can't simply go with "yeah Luke saw that Ben was gonna do bad stuff and considered murdering him". it doesn't come close to what was going on there.. not even close.

training a nephew.. blood relative that you love and are most decidedly attached to that already has dark side issues? jeez, i dunno how anyone thought that was gonna work lol Luke and his academy were up **** street the minute Ben was born imo.

 

I'm going to play a little devils advocate here, as I mostly agree with you, but one issue I take with your conclusions.

I think who Luke could be after 30 years is up for debate. I also think it was fair game for RJ to play with.

I generally agree with you, but here's how I see things.

Luke was trained later in life, and Yoda hesitated quite vocally to take on the task. Many possible interpretations to that, but Luke was trained as a weapon. He needed to be able to use the force to destroy and vanquish evil. That was made pretty clear as the intent presented to the viewer in the OT.

So I could easily go along with questioning Luke's mastery of the Force with the gaps in his training, not to mention his late age. I think there's a philosophy to being a Jedi, and if it was touched upon at all in his training, quite probably it was abbreviated and incomplete, questions left unanswered "How can I tell the good from the bad...". Knights previous probably had to prove themselves to their superiors not only through their deeds, but possibly in tests, and I'm sure those didn't merely involve their ability to use the Force as weapons. At the end of RotJ, I didn't see Luke as a Master, I saw him as a Knight. I never assumed he ever progress to be a master, it was possible, but he would be a master unlike others in generations of Jedi before him. I think Luke hit the nail on the head and was on the right path at the end of RotJ in his handling the situation in the throne room, but it seems Luke has had little to no contact with FG after that deed, so without affirmation and people there that he looks up to to affirm his actions, he may have never grew into a master, but instead was assumed to be by others without the same wisdom or knowledge to bestow that honor upon him.

I think RJ felt as I do in this... that maybe Luke is a self professed, or even more likely, professed by others as being a master, but he may have never in actuality, attained the necessary skill, nor have ever received the proper instruction and training and grooming to become a Master due to the lack of other masters and instruction. So maybe he's a master by the virtue of being the last trained Jedi along with his advanced age rather than earning it through his peers and by virtue of his great wisdom proved in countless occasions before a Jedi council. I think it's a possibility that he finds his way there, but in this I don't think or find any fault in anyone doubting that he ever truly earns the title of master. It's possible he never did.

Now, if this is fact, it still doesn't leave RJ off the hook (or JJ for that matter). We should have encountered someone along the way to question Luke's title as master so viewers can more easily make that connection. It would have been easy, as Snoke could have mentioned this in his monologue in passing. If this is what RJ was going for, I think this may have been an error in writing or editing, maybe asking a little too much from the audience to follow along. Because as we have it now, it's quite possible he would be a Jedi master because the movies never bring up to question other than his actions in the flashbacks.

If Luke never became a master, barely became a knight but floundered without a master or instruction after that moment in RotJ, then the Luke we see in TLJ has much more possibility. I would really like if JJ expanded ont hat if that's the case in IX however and correct that omission. Until then it's just anothers head canon.

 

I agree and although I don't see how his rank would influence the character or plot in TLJ I think it's interesting.
I can't seem to find a clear prerequisite for the Master title being bestowed upon Jedi.
Is there's a possibility it could have been assumed or entirely academic in Luke's case?

 

I brought it up because many people often bring up "I don't think Luke would do that, especially not as a Jedi Master." or something along those lines. Luke isn't your typical Jedi master and I've often seen people try and argue that point that he's far from typical, but it often gets lost as an aside in the dialogue. So, say Obi-Wan, he would have been quite different if there hadn't been a Yoda and Jedi council to help guide him and teach him, keep him on track. Had Obi-Wan been left to his own devices after Qui-Gon's death, without any mentors or instruction, I don't think he would have been the same guy we meet in ANH.

In a way, that's Luke, but worse, he never had years of study and instruction as a child. He had family attachments to his aunt and uncle. He never really knew about the Force until his late teens.

So no, this doesn't help "my side" of the argument at all, but for me this isn't about winning, it's about understanding and exploring the possibilities. I'll likely never like TLJ or its interpretation of Luke, but maybe with further exposition, I can bring myself to accept the story and possibly tolerate it within the saga. I'm pretty sure I'll need a bone (or ten) in IX to get there, and I hope I get it. While I wait, I'll have fun exploring the possibilities with you guys.

As for a prerequisite to becoming a Jedi Master, I know of none. I assume it's consistency in making good decision combined with at least mastery of the potential one has in the force, not so much about how much power you have, but how well you can utilize what you have (Size matter not, it's how you wiggle it ).

However, without a Jedi order, maybe titles such as master and knight no longer hold much meaning. It's like a group of ten people giving each other titles, the first person says he's the captain, the second states he's the generals, the next he's the admiral, the next he's the grand admiral ect and so on. Titles and rank don't mean much, because someone always has to be at the bottom, whether he's called a captain or a private doesn't mean much if he's still at the bottom of the hierarchy.

I don't think Jedi were are rigidly structured as military, but then again, we've never really explored much the inner working of the Jedi either, so who knows.

 

So, a funny little story regarding The Last Jedi:

I recently got to see my Dad after a long time, after several years since I’ve started college. I may have given off an image about myself as a big Star Wars enthusiast I am, but that’s NOTHING compared to my Dad. He’s not as deep into the lore or novels like I am, but he’s seen every single Star Wars film on release day since 1977, and him indoctrinating my entry into the series by going in painstaking order (Original OT, Special Edition OT, and PT, then taking me on routine trips to the local library to gorge myself on the Star Wars section of books) is the main reason I’m such a big Star Wars fan in the first place. He’s seen the films multiple times, and even attributed his pursuit of a PhD in Theology to his “fascination with the spiritual angle of Star Wars.” These movies are a huge deal to him, and the foundation of our bond. Now, being much older and more preoccupied with his job than when he was when he first introduced me to the franchise, he’s been hard-pressed to watch the recent movies on release day (he saw TFA on release, but not R1). Despite that, he’s liked every single Star Wars movie he’s watched so far, including TFA, and is able to even find positivity where most don’t (he enjoys the PT, the Special Editions, and his favorite characters are Jabba, Watto, C-3PO, and Padme because “her dresses are very pretty, she looks more like a princess than Carrie did”). It’s also worth noting that he doesn’t have an inkling about the online drama surrounding the ST, or who has the reigns of Star Wars now, and most importantly, has no idea about my personal beef with the new films or the reason I hate the new direction. As far as he knows, I haven’t had the time to watch the new movies either.

So, we’re at our local sports bar dive—home to many Star Wars debates past—chatting the night away, and the topic of TLJ screeches in, so I asked him if he had seen it, and if he thinks I should see it. At this moment in our conversation, my Dad makes this crinkled face like he’s swallowed a lemon, or something. Keep in mind, he’s usually a fountain of positivity, but here he immediately starts out the conversation with: “It was…okay, I guess, if you’ve never watched Star Wars before.” I feigned ignorance, asking what he meant by that, and he responded with: “I just don’t think a lot of thought or creativity was put into this. We’re two movies in, and I still don’t know enough about these characters to care about them. I thought they’d use this new era to expand on the Jedi and the Force, maybe try to take the story someplace interesting…but they just got rid of the Jedi all over again, and have played it so safe with the nostalgic homages that it doesn’t feel like its own movie.”

You have to realize how shocking this is to hear from my dad. He’s so easy to please when it comes to Star Wars, so hearing him critique a movie so harshly is weird to me. I try to lighten up the conversation by bringing up things I’ve heard about the film, like “Luke returning to save the day at the end” and “Kylo Ren having emotional scenes”, thinking he might’ve liked what so many other people have liked about the film. But he’d just shake his head, saying: “Neither of those scenes were done well at all. I would’ve rather Luke had been declared dead in the last movie than having a whole film of him being an unlikable cretin and then suddenly reverting to being heroic right before dying, and then having kids play with action figures of him. That was so stupid. And this new Kylo Ren guy…I’m not scared of him or sympathetic towards him at all. He’s like those edgy kids at the skater park…I wish they had never taken his mask off.”

Despite these constant complaints, he keeps reiterating that “he doesn’t hate this film. It’s still Star Wars, but there’s a lot of problems that needed fixing.” He compared the movie to an old family car—it has a wealth of problems, like lights going out, the bumpers falling off, and the radio being damaged beyond repair, but so many good memories have been had in it that he could never bring himself to hate it.

However, something that kept coming up in his list of complaints was Rey. He thought that “the actress playing her is trying too hard to act through widening her eyes and baring her teeth, instead of showing emotions like a stable person would.” But he also kept going on about how weird he found her rapid advancement as a Jedi Character, how she had less training than anyone else but was somehow pulling off feats of strength faster than anyone else. The problem, in his own words, was that “they should’ve had one or other, not both.” He simply couldn’t believe in her character. So, knowing that I’m far more knowledgeable about Star Wars, he asked me if there was some “explanation for this in the Extended Universe” (as he calls it). I didn’t want to go into the entire song and dance of that not being canon anymore. So instead, as we were driving home from dinner, I pretended to ‘research’ the matter on my phone, and I brought up the TLJ novelization. I said, “Look, Dad! There’s an explanation for where Rey got her training from!” I proceeded to tell him about how in the scene from TFA where Rey and Kylo were battling each other for telepathic supremacy, and how Rey had gotten the upper hand long enough to probe his mind, and inherit all of his training and techniques from him.

The look on my Dad’s face was priceless. While driving, he threw his head back like a Pez Dispenser, rolling his eyes to the point where it looked like they were going to fall into the backseat. You could literally feel his disappointment shake the car. He then turned to me and said:

“Never mind, son. I do hate this movie.”

Keep in mind, he seemed in good humor about it, and it doesn’t appear that Star Wars is ‘ruined’ for him, or anything. He still has a blast watching the older films from what I’ve seen (his new favorite is ROTJ, last year it was ANH). But whenever I joke around and ask him if he’s going to see Episode 9, he just rolls his eyes and says: “You can see it if you like, son. I’ve got my six Star Wars films right here.”

 

See? Agreeing with me is painless. It's actually good for you, it's like a vitamin or something. LOL

LOL, the details are not in the film for the point that we are talking about. The details are in the film about how Kylo is ultimately turned to the dark side. The details are NOT in the film that demonstrate how Luke could become a person that could contemplate murder of a loved one. You absolutely have to apply head canon to get there. And that's why I have to reject your notion that all that's required is the absence of assumptions about the character. It's not that details don't exist for the pro-OT Luke crowd, they don't exist period, you have to make an assumption, whether you are ok with TLJ Luke or despise him. We spent the entire OT showing just how much cared about family. Now in the ST we are voiced tracked through some pedestrian bromide about hubris on Luke's part and are somehow supposed to make the galactic leap that hubris also implies the capacity for contemplating the murder of his nephew in his sleep. That gap is filled with assumption... or maybe even worse, faith. They don't demonstrate that it's plausible, you just must assume that it is.

I don't think the fact that Luke almost lost emotional control fighting Vader or that he was traditionally past the age in which a Jedi would be taught is relevant at all. Whether it was thought he was too young to become a Jedi, is irrelevant, he became one anyway. A Master at that. And it was AS a master that he thought about murdering his student, his nephew in his sleep. It would be negligent to not acknowledge this.

What piece of dialogue suggests to you that Luke thinks he'll just make things worse? I can quote exactly the text that suggests he went to Ach-to die.

You can contemplate in 2 hours, you can also contemplate in 10 seconds. I have watched that sequence a dozen times. He is literally narrating what he was thinking while he was doing it - ergo, it wasn't instinct.

He literally says that he was left with shame during the flashback. I don't see that feeling shame and contemplating murder are mutually exclusive. They actually are causal in this instance.

He actually does say "I thought I could stop it". It's not instinct in the way you're thinking - where it's a thoughtless knee jerk reaction. He had time to think and was thinking and confirms it in dialogue.

The nuance that is either being lost or not communicated in my position is that I haven't proscribed that there was only one possible Luke who could show up in TLJ or that he had only one path he could travel. I am specifically pointing out why the TLJ Luke and the explanation for why he is who he is doesn't work.

Have to disagree. Jedi trained Jedi not assassins. If he was merely trained as a weapon then he was in essence an assassin. He needed to be able to confront and resist evil, which he did (recall Luke didn't actually destroy any Sith in ROTJ, Vader did).

He wasn't a Master at the end of ROTJ, both his and Yoda's dialogue confirms that confronting Vader was the last control gate to entering into Jedi Knighthood.

These last two stanzas contain a lot of speculation (which of course you are free to indulge). But these aren't facts, they are filler.

This might seem plausible if:

1. We didn't see Luke force project through the galaxy
2. Yoda didn't acknowledge that Luke was a Master himself through his dialogue with Luke at the Force Tree

The audience doesn't need to make assumptions on this issue, the in-movie metadata (I think) eliminates the need for speculation about these things. I don't think we can make the case for lack of Mastery when Luke does something you have seen no other Jedi do (including Yoda, Mace, Obi Wan, and Qui Gon).

I don't think Rian was going for a non-Master, he was going for a Broken Master. Force Projection materializes on Rian's watch. Luke demonstrates PLENTY of wisdom in his 3 lessons explaining the Force to Rey. The idea that Luke maybe wasn't a Master and so it wasn't so out of order for him to contemplate murdering Ben is not one that gains much traction when you examine the theory against the actual product on the big screen. Luke was a Master, was referred to as such by characters in the movie, demonstrated wisdom, and demonstrated Force Mastery. The house of cards falls apart because he contemplates murdering a student and that is something Master Jedi do not do; there is no precedence for it. Contemplating murdering family is something Luke doesn't do. There is also no precedence for it.

Fair to speculate but as you said, it's head canon.

 

It's all there: Luke encountered the Dark Side and it was "beyond what he ever imagined".

Fighting Dark Sider's intending to harm the innocent is kinda what the Jedi are all about.
It's basically Luke's job to protect the galaxy from those embracing the Dark Side whether they are loved one's or not.

Previous SW films provide precedent for this - remember Jedi Masters Yoda and Kenobi contemplating the murder of a Dark Side-embracing loved one in the PT?

And what's changed?
When the person threatening Luke's family is also a member of that family are we somehow assuming Luke would let them kill with impunity?

This is SW. A lot of the drama in the saga revolves around conflict when a family member (blood or not) goes Dark and threatens other loved ones.
When this happens in these stories it falls on Jedi and their allies to act.

Yeah he thought about it. Luke isn't perfect and never was.

"Master" is a title.
"Titles are tinsel, power a corrupter, glory a bubble, and excessive wealth a libel on its possessor." - Jedi Master Percy Shelly.

SW shows us the title “Master” obviously doesn't guarantee a Jedi is always masterful any more than the title “your honor” guarantees a judge is always honorable.

"The legacy of the Jedi is failure, hypocrisy, hubris."
"In my hubris I thought I could train [Ben}."
"It's time for the Jedi to end."

 

So E.K. Johnston, author of both Ahsoka and the upcoming Queen's Shadow, is catching heat on Twitter from Reylo's, simply because expressed disdain for Kylo Ren as a character.

mod edit - we're here to discuss films, not fans.

 

Good example of how the internet makes it easy to find fringe groups. Which makes it even easier to overestimate the size of the group.

 

You are still fighting against TLJ? Why? Isn't this time to move on, with several shows and Ep.IX coming along soon?

 

Crazy as it sounds, it's pretty easy to comment on the once-per-month news update we get on those new projects and continue to discuss movies already released. The fact that you're still here shows that you haven't exactly moved on yourself.

 

Sounds like me.... I was in denial for quite some time over just how bad E8 is before coming around... it's tough to hate something you so desperately want to like..... sounds like your father and I have that in common.

 

There's 23 retweets on this and 129 likes... that doesn't amount to many people at all. I wonder, do some people not have jobs, families or lives so they make it their purpose to search out opinions on Twitter and blow them out of proportion? Or maybe Twitter is just a cesspool of crazy?

 

I'm sorry, but what does that have to do with what I posted? I was making an observation on how a Star Wars author was being treated on Twitter. Where was my opinion on TLJ on display anywhere in that post?

But since you asked, no, my opinion hasn't changed, and no, I'm not going to move on. Anymore than the folks over at the "Are the Prequels THAT Bad?" Thread have moved on over the PT, and the last movie in that trilogy was released 13 years ago.

 

Disagree, it is not there. You are still referring to Luke's actions in the hut, I'm talking about who he is between ROTJ and the hut. It literally does not exist. If you say you can imagine how it happened or believe that it could happen (many folks are essentially saying this), that's fine, but that's still faith and head canon doing the work that the film should be doing but does not. You must take on faith that the Luke that we are left with in ROTJ (with all his development through out the OT) could somehow become a person who contemplates murdering his nephew in his sleep... because that's what Rian wrote. Emphasis on "that's what Rian wrote".

We'll quibble over Luke's job description later, let's just examine the implications of your assertion that he protect the galaxy from embracing the Dark Side. How did he do that in ROTJ? Did he come to Vader in sleep and read his mind or did he appeal to the light still within him? Did he appeal to Ben's sentiment that was clearly still there in TFA and TLJ, or did he pull a light saber in a franchise up-heaving ret con?

No, I don't.

Now he's willing to contemplate murdering them as a solution as opposed to appealing to the Light Side within them. Pretty significant change I'd say.

Do we assume that his solution is to kill them in their sleep before they have actually presented the threat?

Does this include contemplating murdering someone in their sleep? (There's a theme going here)

Master is a description as well, it is a description of refinement that runs contrary to the actions that Rian has Luke take in this story. I want to bring this to remembrance. It's not like we're watching an actual society organically develop and take their twists and turns based on their individual choices. This is what Rian wrote. Rian. SW has a lot to say about masters. But only TLJ suggests to us a Master is not one who only contemplates murder, not only contemplates murder of a family member, not only contemplates murder based on actions and events that haven't even happened yet, but that they can also contemplate murdering someone in their asleep. That used to be the sole province of Sith *Waves at the ghost of Palpatine*

A Master Jedi is not so different than an Apprentice Sith is what TLJ implies with this careless writing IMO.

I think you may be reaching just a little bit here no? He is admitting to his failure with Ben, that is not at all the same as to whether or not, when Leia calls he can help them the Resistance. The FO is more than just Ben is it not?

 

I tried to answer all your questions.
These conversations with text are a bit clunky but maybe it's the best way to try and understand where our minds are at!

I agree and think all the absent information is irrelevant.
It's been deemed surplus to the requirements of the particular story being told so far (like it or not).

I agree and see nothing wrong with audiences taking fiction on faith – it's how stories work!
As long as there's no direct contradiction to established canon the obstacles presented against accepting the narrative smell a lot like head-canon.
Head-canon supported by selected canon is still head-canon.
Established canon can disprove a speculative claim or demonstrate support for one but it can't prove a speculative claim like "this character wouldn't do this" right.

The situations are different but in both cases Luke was surprised (in RoTJ by Vader's threat to turn Leia and in TLJ by finding "darkness beyond what he imagined") and was tempted by the Dark Side.

Let me jog your memory...



(excuse the typo *has)

Big change and no change.



Classic SW - same, same, but different.
Even if Kylo's version was accurate one could argue against Luke's actions being a significant change.

Well, this story took us to a place where the thought crossed Luke's mind.
Like it or not it's still entirely plausible in the GFFA unless I'm missing something.
Luke Skywalker being tempted by the Dark Side is classic SW in a fictional universe whose modus operandi is situations and magical forces goading good people to consider doing bad things.

I don't see why not.
I don't see why it would be impossible in the GFFA.
I don't see it contradicting any established canon.
I don't have any head-canon inhibiting what 30-years-older Luke may or may not contemplate.

Jedi Master's aren't immune to being clouded, tempted or seduced by the Dark Side according to Master Yoda:

"...Fear, anger, hate.
Consumed by the dark side the Jedi were.

...Long time fought I did.
Consumed by fear I was.

...A challenge lifelong it is, not to bend fear into anger."​

I'm not sure if there are any evil actions beyond the bounds of a Jedi Master being seduced by the Dark Side though I'd be interested to hear of any such limitations.

I didn't think so but maybe I'm missing something!
Why do you think Luke said "it's time for the Jedi to end" if not because he believes he'll make things worse?

edit:grammar

 

Guys, Mark Hamill is in Prague I´ll go downtown tomorrow to hunt a picture with him I know, pathetic but our downtown is small and I´ve met here Alrnold, Cruise and others, so fingers crossed....

 

Get that photo.

Don't come back without it. LOL. Just kidding. Good luck.

 

Few weeks ago my friends daughter who works in a shop with sweets and cakes got a picture with Jackie Chan who walked in for a breakfest. In shopping centre near my home. I've seen him once years ago when he was shooting here Shanghai Knights. World is small.