To be fair, even assuming Luke’s retelling is accurate, it kinda felt super out of character for him to “unknowingly ignite his lightsaber”. Last time we saw the guy in movie cannon, he had just thrown away his lightsaber while facing down two Sith Lords, so strong was his belief in the good within his father. He was a Jedi Master, trained by Yoda to control his emotions. And I dont think it would be unfair to assume he got better at this since ROTJ.
But instead, he got so bad at self control that he pulled out his weapon on his nephew, over a bad premonition. Then when shit hit the fan, gives up completely and goes full hermit mode. Just didn’t feel like Luke to me. Instead it felt like Rian Johnson just wanted to make a point about hero worship and to subvert expectations.
I agree with your overarching points in the meme. But I’ll always be sad to see, what felt to me like, the character assassination of Luke Skywalker.
That’s literally the point though. Just like how the impentrable, saint-like Jedi Order failed to pay attention to the rot and carelessness in their own organization, so too did the last Jedi forget that he is not perfect, and he stopped working on himself.
The Jedi Order did not rot from within, the Republic rotted around them.
Palpatine changed the game the Sith had played for millennia. Realizing he/they now I guess could not win a direct conflict with the Jedi, he instead played a game they could not play without becoming the Sith in everything but name themselves.
To fight the political corruption of the Republic, what would they have had to do?
Burst into the Senate chambers and arrest every Senator in sight?
Seize control and institute fully automatic gay luxury space communism?
Well, actually, yes, they should have done that, as well as invading Tattoine to end the slave trade, but Lucas would never have written that so what else you got?
Executing Anakin for being both too dangerous to train and leave alone?
It’s just an idiot’s argument to pretend the Jedi losing one battle in their ten thousand year old war against the Sith means the Order was wrong about everything. The kind of mindless prattling that you get when you put a random director in charge of a simple series he still fails to understand.
If it worked for you, more power to you. My ramblings are nothing more than the butthurt musings of an OT fanboy. And maybe I’ll always be blinded by those lenses.
Fwiw, I did understand the point they were trying to make, and I get that it is possible for a person to change over decades, and not always for the better.
But for me, regardless of the point, it was too large a departure from the core of Luke’s character. Character writing involves, well… characterization. Giving your characters arcs, traits, beliefs, values, and growth. Unless you take the time to show and develop the changes in a character, then it can feel like a wholely different person. And (with no time spent developing the change) the Luke we got in TLJ held none of the traits of, or lessons learned by, Luke in the OT.
Luke had ended the OT being defined by his courage, composure, dedication to his friends, and an unyielding belief that the goodness inside a person is able to overcome the darkness. Luke in the ST showed none of those traits. And I think that undermining the core traits of a beloved character, without even spending time developing those changes, just to make a point, was a bad choice.
That’s the point that I tend to agree with actually.
I will absolutely defend the decision to show Luke in that state from a literary perspective. However, it sucks as a fan. It wasn’t a great decision from a we are a media franchise with fans spanning 50 years.
To be fair, even assuming Luke’s retelling is accurate, it kinda felt super out of character for him to “unknowingly ignite his lightsaber”. Last time we saw the guy in movie cannon, he had just thrown away his lightsaber while facing down two Sith Lords, so strong was his belief in the good within his father. He was a Jedi Master, trained by Yoda to control his emotions. And I dont think it would be unfair to assume he got better at this since ROTJ.
But instead, he got so bad at self control that he pulled out his weapon on his nephew, over a bad premonition. Then when shit hit the fan, gives up completely and goes full hermit mode. Just didn’t feel like Luke to me. Instead it felt like Rian Johnson just wanted to make a point about hero worship and to subvert expectations.
I agree with your overarching points in the meme. But I’ll always be sad to see, what felt to me like, the character assassination of Luke Skywalker.
That’s literally the point though. Just like how the impentrable, saint-like Jedi Order failed to pay attention to the rot and carelessness in their own organization, so too did the last Jedi forget that he is not perfect, and he stopped working on himself.
The Jedi Order did not rot from within, the Republic rotted around them.
Palpatine changed the game the Sith had played for millennia. Realizing he/they now I guess could not win a direct conflict with the Jedi, he instead played a game they could not play without becoming the Sith in everything but name themselves.
To fight the political corruption of the Republic, what would they have had to do?
Burst into the Senate chambers and arrest every Senator in sight?
Seize control and institute fully automatic gay luxury space communism?
Well, actually, yes, they should have done that, as well as invading Tattoine to end the slave trade, but Lucas would never have written that so what else you got?
Executing Anakin for being both too dangerous to train and leave alone?
It’s just an idiot’s argument to pretend the Jedi losing one battle in their ten thousand year old war against the Sith means the Order was wrong about everything. The kind of mindless prattling that you get when you put a random director in charge of a simple series he still fails to understand.
If it worked for you, more power to you. My ramblings are nothing more than the butthurt musings of an OT fanboy. And maybe I’ll always be blinded by those lenses.
Fwiw, I did understand the point they were trying to make, and I get that it is possible for a person to change over decades, and not always for the better.
But for me, regardless of the point, it was too large a departure from the core of Luke’s character. Character writing involves, well… characterization. Giving your characters arcs, traits, beliefs, values, and growth. Unless you take the time to show and develop the changes in a character, then it can feel like a wholely different person. And (with no time spent developing the change) the Luke we got in TLJ held none of the traits of, or lessons learned by, Luke in the OT.
Luke had ended the OT being defined by his courage, composure, dedication to his friends, and an unyielding belief that the goodness inside a person is able to overcome the darkness. Luke in the ST showed none of those traits. And I think that undermining the core traits of a beloved character, without even spending time developing those changes, just to make a point, was a bad choice.
That’s the point that I tend to agree with actually.
I will absolutely defend the decision to show Luke in that state from a literary perspective. However, it sucks as a fan. It wasn’t a great decision from a we are a media franchise with fans spanning 50 years.