Were "fan expectations" the problem?

We have no idea why Rey has to become a Jedi except to repeat the same thing Luke did 40 years ago, and Rey didn't get Luke to do anything. Yoda was the catalyst for Luke helping the Resistance.

How did that force vision turn out? In the OT the force was never used as an excuse to explain someone's actions in a movie. Now this new trilogy comes along, and instead of getting any new explanation on this so called force bond. It's just used as a plot device to bring two characters together that have no reason to be.

Kylo is a terrorist/extremist. Tell me that again when you show me the list of terrorists America or any other country has forgiven.

What makes you think one character, Rey, has the right to speak for the 5 planets that Kylo participated in destroying? What can Rey say to the parents of Luke's students that were killed by Kylo? Rey just got there. She can't speak for anyone but herself, or have you so quickly forgotten what happened to Leia when it was discovered Vader was her father.

Kylo deserves to die, because he has proven that the bloodline of the Skywalkers, and now Solos is somehow tainted. Why would the galaxy ever want a Skywalker to live? They have been the cause of most of it's recent problems.

 

that's a short list of people we still call "heroes" today despite the fact that they were murderers, some of whom committed actual genocide.
others who committed terrorist acts who were later pardoned: Lincoln Assassination conspirators, Haymarket Affair murderers.

this is just off the top of my head from my knowledge of 19th century American history. i'm sure there are dozens of examples i am less familiar with.

if you have a specific expectation or narrow definition of terrorism or what justice looks like, then you might be disappointed by the broader reality.

 

Off topic, but I'm surprised you've got a picture of Sherman who has long been unfairly hated by the South. I recently read his Memoirs. He was far from perfect, but I wouldn't call him a terrorist.

 

maybe fair; his villainy may be somewhat overstated. he was a problematic person generally, which perhaps made me think to include him here (as i said, i was just sort of grabbing off the top of my head). there were certainly subordinates under his "total war" strategy who i wouldn't hesitate to vilify, though their destruction and murdering was definitely on a smaller scale.

maybe the better example, though, would be pretty much anybody in that particular war who committed atrocities and was pardoned for it afterwards; the rosters are full of Confederates, certainly, who walked away "unpunished". only one was ever arrested, tried, convicted, and hanged for war crimes.

 

I'm going to very briefly add an example that's a bit lesser known, but arguably the most disgusting in my view.



The man depicted is Surgeon General Shirō Ishii, who was the head of the Imperial Japanese Army's biological warfare & research unit named Unit 731 based in Manchuria. Under his orders an estimated 200-580,000 were killed by purposeful exposure to pathogens, and an estimated 3-12,000 men, women & children died to various forms of torture and live human experimentation.

Shirō Ishii, along with many of his cohorts, successfully bargained for immunity in exchange for surrendering the data they gathered by human experimentation to the US government. They were never tried for their crimes, and went off scott-free.

For those wanting additional information, and have a strong stomach, you can google "Unit 731".

And with that out of the way, I'd advise redirecting the topic back on course.

 

Rey showed Luke the impact his personal legacy and that of the Jedi can have on people. Which led directly to him facing down the First Order.

Luke saw a vision of his friends and peril and rushed of to save them on a planet he had never been to or where in the galaxy it was located. So that was a pretty good excuse to get Luke where the action was. Also Anakin had many visions that drove his arc forward. Seems you are only mad when Rey gets visions of the future.

Never claimed that.

I am sure Luke sent out apology letters to the youngling's parents on behalf of his father whom he had just forgiven.

Yep that was an awesome moment for Leia. I would love to see Rey and Ben in a future trilogy having to deal with the fallout of Kylo Ren. That is an awesome idea you suggested. Reminds me of Bastlila and Revan.

Luke and Leia contradict the tainted bloodline thing and I guess I just hold the power of redemption and atonement in a higher regard than you do.

 

Franklin Roosevelt is often considered one of the best presidents in American history. There are some very good arguments for that.
However....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans

This happened. He's all but been forgiven for it.

 

I'm still not entirely convinced that Luke told the truth when he said Ben slaughtered the rest of the students at the temple, mainly because in that same recounting to Rey he left out some very inconvenient details about his actions toward Ben. What if the students at the temple witnessed what Ben did and they attacked him but he successfully defended himself? Luke is an unreliable narrator in that moment. In fact, Ben's truth about that incident hewed closer to reality than Luke's ... even though they both didn't tell the whole truth.

 

Those two questions are, in my opinion, HUGE. Both characters are massive characters that were fed into this from TFA, but end up being -pretty much - nothing by the end of TLJ. Tbh, these questions, regardless whether we set ourselves up for failure or not, were poorly thought out and done. Rey is just some junkies daughter? Snoke not as powerful and scary as portrayed but some dude who can reach out through the Force?

I feel like the writers dropped a huge ball and the director making it worse in TLJ. I barely could watch TLJ while inverse, I saw TFA 6x opening weekend. I’m hoping the last movie makes up for the crap shoot that was TLJ.

 

It is interesting how certain malefactors manage to fall underneath the radar of cultural conscience, and others become infamous. If you asked about war crimes the first name that pops to mind is Mengele. I was "today years old" when I first heard of Ishii. I've watched countless war documentaries on the history channel and never once do I recall hearing his name.

But then if you think of people who orchestrated mass genocide, Hitler is probably the name that pops to mine, while other people have no clue what Leopold II did in the Congo.

Anyway I think there is a difference between a war criminal and a terrorist (usually terrorists are without a State that sanctions their actions). I also think there is a difference between being acquitted in a court of law and forgiven in a court of public opinion. I can't think of a modern example, of someone legitimately labeled terrorist (foreign born or domestic), who has been forgiven.

 

A lot of the responses like this are answering the question that's posed in this thread.

Rey being random and Snoke dying doesn't mean they were poorly thought out. Snoke's death is probably my favorite Star Wars moment in decades. Snoke being powerful doesn't make him invincible.

 

Happen to be on my reread of Lord of the Rings and I thought this quote was relevant.

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

 

If you have to go that far back then you are kind of proving my point. We've had over 50 mass shootings in America alone since 1999. This isn't including bombings or other kinds of terrorist attacks. We don't forgive or redeem.

 

Edward Snowden is seen as a terrorist is he not, or are they just calling him a traitor? Either way a good chunk of the American public seem ok with his actions.

 

I have to agree, even though I have issues with Snoke's death in retrospect, I find my issues with Snoke more in line with those I may have had after ESB. It's story driven and has me wondering "where do they go from here?" like I would have had after Luke finds out Vader is his father and Han is frozen in carbonite and gone out of their reach. When I'm critical about Snoke's death, I hope readers realize there are different types of criticism. When I say stuff like "they can fix this", I would have said the same about issues in ESB when first seeing that reveal. GL could have botched that completely had he not thought out a satisfying ending to this trilogy, but he didn't, and it became movie magic and historic and drove this fan base to where we are. I just think there are different levels of criticism, and though I don't expect you and others to necessarily agree with dissenters, I think it's relatively safe to assume most fans want to be proven wrong and have IX be entirely satisfying like RotJ was, at least in its broad strokes. I think this sometimes gets lost as some criticism has a different tone or is different in nature. It's not so much that it's wrong, but that it lost some fans while some are still all in.

I think you bring up an interesting point. However, I think it's highly unlikely Kylo gets forgiven by the galaxy. Receiving forgiveness by an individual however is far different. Turning away from the dark does not mean everyone liking him afterward, it's a personal quest. Realizing he's done wrong and trying to atone.

Is it strange that people want this monster to have a happy ending? Not in universe where the ultimate villain does in Vader. The galaxy doesn't love Vader, but Luke has forgiven him. It's not even clear if Leia has, and even after forgiveness it does not mean there still can't be resentment, even horror when they discover his atrocities. I think Kylo's redemption is more for him. I think it also brings up an interesting topic. Does one have a path to redemption? People have successfully pointed out villains in history who's gotten away Scott free, but rarely does anyone know of their history, and rarely is it documented, what they did with the rest of their lives. Now I'm not assuming for a second that they've all done good and were saints and angels, and those that are known are likely known due to the evil in their hearts and actions. But to assume there is no forgiveness in our society I don't think is accurate. Murderers get shorter jail time and don't necessarily lose their lives behind bars for that often single action. The court gauges more on risk to society than to punish the guilty. We may not all agree with that, but it's a reality. We've all done bad things, many of us have been in situations that had things gone different we might be that person regarded as evil by some.

Does Kylo deserve forgiveness? I think based on his actions right now the answer is no. However, based on what we can tell from his motivations, and how confused he seems to be, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that he may want to change himself, and at that point, and here's where I think those on the Kylo redemption story are hoping, he may be worthy of forgiveness by a single individual, or those who knew him best. I think forgiveness for Kylo would take shape in exile and I have a hard time imagining anything beyond that. I think that would be an interesting story to tell, a story GL avoided telling in the OT by having Vader die. That wasn't a bad decision, because Vader wasn't the focus of that story (at least not at that time), but Kylo/Ben is a focus of this story. Exploring that, to me, could be the most redeemable aspect of the ST. I may still be critical of the decisions they make, but it doesn't hall have to be rubbish simply because I disliked TLJ. Some good may yet come out of it.

So there, I have forgiveness in my heart (so there, proof that forgiveness does exist, whether you think the ST or TLJ needs it or not, it's personal), thus forgiveness does exist. There is always a path to redemption, even if it's only for yourself. In cinema, it helps to have another forgive the wrong doer, as it provides a clearer message and we're not left with a bad taste that a villain live on happily ever after. Forgiveness does not mean everything he did was okay, or that he has peace of mind. It means he personally has found a balance, and his eyed are opened to the reality of his actions. It's an old story, I'm sure told even before the 12 labors of Hercules, because it is part of the human condition. Everyone does bad things, most of us try to repair them, where is the line where that's impossible? Is there even such a line? It's a philosophical debate, and as much as I dislike many aspects of TLJ, this question is probably what can elevate the ST for me, if it is going to be questioned and explored and be central to IX and the ST.

If Kylo had merely slapped someone, we wouldn't be having this debate. Kylo had to be hated before this question can be properly asked. I hate Kylo, but much like Snoke's death, it's very within the bounds of the story telling. I hate the portrayal of the character as a spoiled emo brat, quite possibly because I see some of those traits in myself at times, and I want to see him vanquished, just as I want myself to be strong enough to vanquish such weakness from myself. The question I think the ST posits is, do we have an alternative to Kylo's destruction? I think it's a worthy question to ask.

 

Rey Random doesn’t bother me, it’s the total headfake they gave to the fans that was unnecessary in the buildup of her character.

Heck, if you go back to the 2nd TFA teaser, Luke narratives it, “My father has that power, my sister has that power, I have that power, you have that power too....”. I assumed (rightly or wrongly) he was talking about Rey as it was the same conversation he had with Leia when he told her they were related. Then the Skywalker Lightsaber calls out to Rey in TFA, and than the Luke Force music plays when she Force grabs the Lightsaber at the end of the movie.

These were clear misdirections to get many viewers to assume Rey was a Skywalker or Solo, as I would have never wondered about her lineage if these types of red flag scenes weren’t in the movie. In fact, I still don’t understand why they didn’t go with Rey Random to begin with and save all the silly speculation. So you can blame expectations on the mystery boxes, not the fans.

 

You don't have the right to ask for redemption when you have done wrong. That's soft, and irresponsible. The same irresponsibility that lead his character down the road to do unspeakable acts.
It's funny how there is this strong desire to save a privileged individual over the masses who do not. This is the very reason he needs to die. Those who grew up hard cannot afford the time to sit back and blame others for their plight. It's either sink or swim, and those are the characters that deserve redemption. They continue to push forward despite the obstacles, but here is a character that had everything, and so soft that he prefers to blame others for what he didn't have. Cry me a river. Kylo is a soft privileged child who wouldn't make it if he had no one to blame. He needs to die, because he is weak. Nothing can grow as long as weaklings with power are given breaks. A man that chooses to hide behind power and uses it to subjugate others only brings down the moral of a society, and it becomes the responsibility of those who weren't privileged to clean it up........ Kind of what's expected of Rey and Finn.

 

i think we've indulged this enough. we're way off topic and as @TK-1204 said, it's time to steer back on.
there are other threads if you want to discuss the merits of redemption.
this is a thread about the impact of fan expectations on TLJ, not for speculating on the outcome of the ST.

 

That definitely was a headfake by the marketing department. I don't really attribute the binary sunset theme to Luke, but I understand why people do, but it's used so often that I didn't draw that conclusion.

Right after I saw TFA I really thought Rey was Luke's daughter. It wasn't until I start really analyzing the film that I realized it wasn't in the film and it wasn't gonna happen. All my ideas about Rey Skywalker came from my expectations. Lightsabers don't just call to family members. That's not really how the force has ever worked. It would be weird if Luke had a family and considered himself a Jedi... I won't rehash that whole thing, but for those that didn't look into it I can see why TLJ would be a shock.

 

The ironic thing is I never thought Rey was Luke’s daughter even before TFA came out (just my hunch), but the Lightsaber calling to Rey was the plot point that put me into ‘she’s a Skywalker’ group.

I thought finding Luke/Anakin’s Lightsaber 30 years later was an ‘eye roller’ but it would be symbolic if Rey were the 3rd generation so that really convinced me going in to TLJ (along with Luke’s voiceover in the TFA teaser).

Looking back, it was really a cheap head fake, IMO. Maybe some people speculated differently, but a Skywalker Lightsaber calling to Rey only made sense if she was a Skywalker? Oh well, what’s done is done, but it’s a metaphor of the beef I have with the ST. I will continue to say the acting and cinematography are great in this Trilogy, but the story and planning is what failed. Whereas the acting and cinematography in the PT are terrible, but the story by Lucas was great.