Thread for those who loved the movie

awww, i remember this kid with the RoTJ video.
i actually got chills watching him react to the movie.

the Peter Rabbit comment was hysterical, though. XD

 

So . . . saving what he loves instead of fighting what he hates then?

 

Sensing that he was losing his nephew and Ben was on the path to destruction despite [Luke] being the one who ended the reign of Darth Vader and Palpatine? Imagine if your nephew was to bring about the end to all you had achieved.
That's one hell of a burden to wear.
On top of that, YOU are a legend. You are a savior around the galaxy. You are put on a pedestal as a border line deity. Now get knocked off that pedestal.
It's a long way to the bottom.

He didn't just sense darkness. He sensed his own failure. Ben turning dark is his failure. When he saw the darkness and had that ever so fleeting moment to strike Ben down in his sleep, that was his failure.

That's not just sensing darkness.

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 10, 2018, Original Post Date: Jul 10, 2018 ---

 

Yep, the new audiences, who don't have decades of expectations, are most likely going to love the movie.

 

Yeah, but this particular case is interesting, because the kid was already obsessed with Luke going into TLJ, so I think that disappointment was possible. Nice to see he responded well to it.

 

JJ left RJ in quite the pickle with TFA. How the hell do you explain why ‘Hopey McHoperson’ abandoned all his hopeful hopes and ran away to the middle of the Bermuda Triangle? What he came up with was pretty brilliant, IMO. Make the source of his greatest failure and shame a mirror reflection of his greatest victory and pride. Just as he held out undaunted faith in his father’s latent goodness and found vindication, he inversely harbored doubt at the most critical point when confronted with his nephew’s latent darkness and found disillusion. All that training, all that discipline, all that conviction, and when it mattered the most, he faltered and contributed to the very corruption his trusting sister feared most. He didn’t simply ‘feel’ responsible in some abstract sense, he truly played a tangible role. The idea is simple in its construct, but profound in its implication.

That being said, I personally would rather it have been executed a touch better. But that’s just my taste

 

LFL: "JJ the script is solid but where the hell is Luke? You have to do something with Luke!"

JJ:

 

To a kid of this age everything is still new, so he is going to accept TLJ for what it is, rather than what it should be. Besides, Luke did some amazing things in the end, so what's there to be disappointed about?
Still, if SW is would be around in 20 years, this kid could become this and some other kid would be enjoying the new stuff coming out at that time. That's the circle of life, or whatever.

 

Luke stopped the Balrog and will comeback even stronger.
Different take on a classic trope

 

Thanks - or damn you - I'm not sure. I was already pondering making a similar post! Suffice to say I agree. You probably said it better than I anyway, but hey, I'll add my bit.

For me I see it as the difference between Luke seeing a positive and a negative. In Vader he sees a flicker of goodness , which gives him the optimism that he can bring him back to the light. In Kylo it's the opposite, and he sees the growing darkness in him. This is a new thing for Luke - he's never experienced it this way around - and he fears what. And we all know what Yoda said about fear. So Luke has a brief dark-side moment - but long enough for it to make a difference.

Also, Luke isn't responsible for his father's turn to the dark side. He doesn't carry the guilt and the shame. But with Kylo he carries all of the guilt. He feels he has only himself to blame.

The point I'm trying to make, is that it is not the same moment from ROTJ just repeated as some seem to say - it is a new experience, one Luke has never had before or had to deal with. He's let his own nephew - his sister's only child - fall to the dark side. That's got to feel like a terrible burden.

 

Well, himself, and the Jedi teachings (he rationalizes) that led him to that path.

There’s an interesting tell Luke gives that I don’t think gets raised enough. “It was a Jedi Master who was responsible for the training and creation of Darth Vader.” Luke outright blames Obi-Wan for what happened to Anakin. I wonder if that’s how he’s always felt or if it’s a result of his mindset at the time. Anyway, just an interesting observation.

 

Yeah that gave me pause watching the film last night.
Technically the whole Council could be culpable as well as QuiGon and Obiwan.
They were all aware of the risks yet made their decisions and let events unfold under their noses.

The whole scene is an interesting revelation of where Luke's perspective is at.
There's truth in everything he says but his outlook (pre-Yoda's visit) seems heavily influenced by the pain and guilt of his own experience.
It's hard to tell if he is projecting his guilt onto mistakes within the Jedi Order to ease his burden or if it comes from clarity of refined Jedi sight!

But there's honor in his acceptance of personal responsibility and accountability - it's part of what endeared TLJ Luke to me.
It's part of the warriors code that's reflected in many criminal elements (see Solo) and contrasts nicely against more self-centered and morally ambiguous survivors like DJ and aspects of OT Han.

I guess managing feelings of solitude and duty comes with uniqueness and is part of the burden of internalizing this narrative of "the last" or "the true".
We see it in Rey and Kylo and, now that I think about it, it's a common thread in most ST characters.

It must be hard playing audience while holding an idea of what someone else's story should be!

Not to mention having catalyzed a student already marked as troubled into slaughtering others under his care and protection.
I can't imagine burdens coming much bigger!

edit:grammar

 

Yes, but seems that a great deal of the fandom thought Luke just went to find a power up. So since RJ changed from pursuit of a power up to self exile, because of failure, they feel that it is RJ that betrayed them.

 

Where did they get that idea from?!

So rather than accept what TFA (via Han Solo) had already told them (it's there! In TFA!!) - that Luke had gone into self-exile because one of his pupils had turned to the darkside, destroyed his Jedi temple and killed the new apprentices - some people instead made up their own video game character version of Luke? And then were mad when we RJ just gave us what we were already told?

They obviously didn't pay attention to the information out there about the origins of the idea of Luke going into exile. It pre-dates JJ.

According to The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Lucasfilm Story Group member Pablo Hidalgo, it was George Lucas's.

How George Lucas influenced Star Wars: The Last Jedi

"... Johnson wasn't trying to ruin your childhood with his deconstruction and criticism of the Star Wars saga, but rather was in part following a plan laid out by George Lucas himself. Indeed, Lucas had a hand in the story of The Last Jedi...

"As revealed by The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi (via Slashfilm), Johnson's movie used many of the concepts Lucas first had in mind for Episode VII, specifically the story of an older, broken Luke training a young, Force-sensitive disciple named Kira (later renamed "Rey")... Kira's concept didn't stray too far from the plucky young heroine we got in Rey.

"But Lucas' biggest contribution to The Last Jedi was the Luke/Rey story itself, which he'd originally planned for Episode VII, as confirmed by Lucasfilm Story Group member Pablo Hidalgo on Twitter (via Comicbook.com). The idea played out much like what we saw in Johnson's movie: Luke is down and out on a distant planet 30 years after the fall of the Empire. A new hope named Kira finds the old Jedi Master and they begin her training. We would have seen Luke struggling with his failure to stop the Jedi Killer (renamed "Kylo Ren") from destroying his Jedi Academy.

""[Luke] always had this potential dark side within him, being that his father was Darth Vader," explained Lucasfilm executive creative director Doug Chiang of the character's arc in the early days of Episode VII. "So he is really struggling with that. He ended up secluding himself in this Jedi temple on a new planet, and he's just there meditating, reassessing his whole life. Gradually, over the arc of the movie, he rediscovers his vitality and comes back to himself."

"...Lucas also had a part in crafting the Kylo Ren storyline, including the fact that the villain was to be revealed as Han and Leia's son. Hidalgo also mentioned a character named "Skyler" in his tweets who eventually became Finn.

"It was screenwriter Michael Arndt's idea to push this story to Episode VIII. While Arndt was eventually replaced by Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan, who co-wrote the final draft of The Force Awakens, he came up with the basic structure of the plot, which involved the search for Luke Skywalker and "a victory lap" for Han Solo, who had always been marked for death in VII, according to The Art Of Star Wars: The Last Jedi."

(Den of Geek, http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/...orge-lucas-influenced-star-wars-the-last-jedi )​

 

Good stuff... that's why I believe there's a semblance of a plan in this 3 film trilogy. There's an overall idea what they're trying to do with this series. I do think Fisher's death was a huge monkey-wrench in this story. Ben and Leia having to have a confrontation would have been powerful moment.

 

To some extent I might agree with you. I think the batton-passing, making-it-up-as-they-go-along is perhaps part of how they want to market what they're doing, to be the antithesis of the apparent approach of the past. Personally, I love the idea that they're taking that approach, relying on a seat-of-your-pants creativity. It's quite refreshing after three decades of a saga that was supposedly all mapped out from start to finish.

Of course, the truth is most likely somewhere in between, and the idea that Lucas has always had some grand plan isn't quite true I don't think. In fact I'd say Lucas has actually been quite open about his writing process in the past, and has always said that telling the current story is the most important thing. It's even documented that the idea of having Vader be Luke's father didn't come about until later drafts of TESB.

There's an interview with him on UK show the Big Breakfast from around the time of TPM, where he's asked, "You don't have all the story mapped out, all those years ago, it's all there?" and his reply is "No" (although he does go on to talk about his seven page treatment!)

There's some maybe interesting things he says about not trying to meet fan's expectations at the start, but the bit I'm referring to starts around 1.50:

 

I think the idea that there isnt a plan aka outline of the overall arc of the ST is just nuts. You dont spend $4B with the centerpiece being a new trilogy then fly by the seat of your pants. No multi billion $ multinational multi business company does this. They just arent public about what the plan is.

Also here is a very good twitter thread about Luke. Its something that I look at others and get puzzled about. Luke didnt win in ROTJ because of the Force or because he is the greatest Jedi ever. I actually believe we saw lots of Jedi that knew lots of things that Luke never knew.

 

One of the people I recently discovered on YouTube just put this out. Very interesting essay.

https://coltoncm.com/2018/07/11/luminous-beings-a-star-wars-theory-of-everything/

 

Nice share, his work is interesting and insightful.

You may bump into him at The Cantina where pops in to chat every now and again under his YouTube username.

 

Agreed. In my mind, this is more the result of bungled PR. I think what was trying to be conveyed was that LFL was allowing their talent the creative freedom to tell a story without being boxed in by dreaded ‘studio oversight’. They wanted the perception to be that these are artist driven films and not the work of a bunch of meddlesome execs.

But they oversold it to the point that it came off like they had no idea where they were going - everybody’s just making it up as they go. Personally, I find that premise wholly absurd. This multi-billion dollar franchise, with three guaranteed installments, didn’t have an underline map outlining its fundamental structure? Bulls**t.