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STAR WARS : Episode IX December 20, 2019
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2,429 posts in this topic

2 hours ago, fantastic_four said:

Is Luke hiding on Ahch-To from Kylo Ren and the First Order all that different from Obi-Wan hiding on Tatooine or Yoda hiding on Dagobah from Palpatine and the Empire?  Not sure why we'd be expecting Luke to be more resourceful at solo'ing a galactic empire than past Jedi masters were.

Exactly. I *really* don't get the Luke criticism.

In addition, the movies are entirely consistent since A New Hope that self-actualization as a Jedi -- and *true* mastery -- comes in embracing pacifism.

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6 hours ago, Gatsby77 said:

Exactly. I *really* don't get the Luke criticism.

In addition, the movies are entirely consistent since A New Hope that self-actualization as a Jedi -- and *true* mastery -- comes in embracing pacifism.

When was the last time you saw episode 4? Almost immediately after meeting Luke, Ben gives him his father’s light-saber and tells Luke you must come with me and learn the ways of the Force. This is not something thing a pacifist would do. Nor would they slice off someone’s arm over a barroom dispute. 

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4 hours ago, bentbryan said:

When was the last time you saw episode 4? Almost immediately after meeting Luke, Ben gives him his father’s light-saber and tells Luke you must come with me and learn the ways of the Force. This is not something thing a pacifist would do. Nor would they slice off someone’s arm over a barroom dispute. 

1. Receiving a lightsaber (and preliminary training in it) isn't at all antithetical with pacifism. Nor, necessarily, is swiftly ending a potentially deadly fight.

2. Kenobi embodies these principles in his fight with Vader. Recall that he simply shuts off his lightsaber and refuses to continue the fight, allowing Vader to strike him down. Which, you know, isn't very different from Luke throwing away his lightsaber in his final battle with Vader in Jedi. Or his throwing it away when presented it by Rey in The Force Awakens.

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14 hours ago, fantastic_four said:

Is Luke hiding on Ahch-To from Kylo Ren and the First Order all that different from Obi-Wan hiding on Tatooine or Yoda hiding on Dagobah from Palpatine and the Empire?  Not sure why we'd be expecting Luke to be more resourceful at solo'ing a galactic empire than past Jedi masters were.

Didn't Luke far surpass Obi-Wan by destroying the Death Star, becoming the face of the rebellion as a jedi knight, and inspiring his father to turn from the Dark Side leading to him killing Palpatine (before he brought himself back to life with powers from a master he killed that couldn't bring himself back to life)?

So with Luke, he ends up on a different level than Obi-Wan. Yoda we'll have to see, as much of his life is still a mystery for someone that lived hundreds of years.

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18 hours ago, fantastic_four said:

Is Luke hiding on Ahch-To from Kylo Ren and the First Order all that different from Obi-Wan hiding on Tatooine or Yoda hiding on Dagobah from Palpatine and the Empire?  Not sure why we'd be expecting Luke to be more resourceful at solo'ing a galactic empire than past Jedi masters were.

As presented in the Last Jedi, it wasn't the same. Ben didn't say "I have no idea who Obi Wan Kenobi is" and then send young Luke home with his droids because he was running from failure. Yoda had been observing Luke all his life. As presented in The Revenge of the Sith, it seemed implied by George Lucas that Ben Kenobi stayed on Tatooine to be near Luke. Rian Johnson presented Luke in LJ as a burning of the past. Well, you don't give us the past in Force Awakens and then say, "oh never mind" in the next movie. If you want to burn the past, fine, but do it in the next trilogy.

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It just doesn’t make sense, from what we are shown, for Luke to be so jaded.  He gives up on Kylo and considers killing him because he sees the Dark Side building within him. But yet he felt the good in Vader (who by this point was a very, very bad guy with a lot of innocent blood on his hands) and successfully turned him.  I don’t see how that would discourage Luke years later, in fact it should inspire him. This is a pretty big turn for one of the biggest characters and more work needed to be done to justify it (similar to Dani in GoT where they needed to show more to justify the character’s actions).  And RJ doing his post-release media tour explaining away everything after-the-fact doesn’t work. 

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26 minutes ago, @therealsilvermane said:

As presented in the Last Jedi, it wasn't the same. Ben didn't say "I have no idea who Obi Wan Kenobi is" and then send young Luke home with his droids because he was running from failure. Yoda had been observing Luke all his life. As presented in The Revenge of the Sith, it seemed implied by George Lucas that Ben Kenobi stayed on Tatooine to be near Luke. Rian Johnson presented Luke in LJ as a burning of the past. Well, you don't give us the past in Force Awakens and then say, "oh never mind" in the next movie. If you want to burn the past, fine, but do it in the next trilogy.

If the Empire was such a precarious organization that all it took was for Palpatine to die to topple it, why weren't Obi-Wan and Yoda trying to figure out a way to kill him?  Why wait decades for Luke to grow up to get that done?

Answer:  because George Lucas didn't think of that circa 1976 to 1979 because he was focused on the films he was making as opposed to a larger story, and the reason for their retirement to Tatooine and Dagobah was crafted to fit into the story as told 25 years before.  As told, both Obi-Wan and Yoda are just as much cowards for running from Palpatine as Luke was for running from Ben Solo.

Edited by fantastic_four
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3 minutes ago, bentbryan said:

It just doesn’t make sense, from what we are shown, for Luke to be so jaded.  He gives up on Kylo and considers killing him because he sees the Dark Side building within him. But yet he felt the good in Vader (who by this point was a very, very bad guy with a lot of innocent blood on his hands) and successfully turned him.  I don’t see how that would discourage Luke years later, in fact it should inspire him. This is a pretty big turn for one of the biggest characters and more work needed to be done to justify it (similar to Dani in GoT where they needed to show more to justify the character’s actions).  And RJ doing his post-release media tour explaining away everything after-the-fact doesn’t work. 

Right. Even Mark Hamill is on record disagreeing with the Last Jedi story, essentially saying "that's not the Luke Skywalker I know."  And Luke saying in LJ, "it's time for the Jedi to die" couldn't come at a worse moment. Defeat the Sith, who are back on the rise or actually seem to be in charge now (I wasn't sure who was in charge of the galaxy, the good guys or the bad guys, it was a little vague), and then let the Jedi die if you want. 

In Force Awakens, Leia said to her brother, "Help us, Luke Skywalker, you're our only hope," to which Luke replies in LJ with a big fat Force middle finger. 

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2 minutes ago, @therealsilvermane said:

Right. Even Mark Hamill is on record disagreeing with the Last Jedi story, essentially saying "that's not the Luke Skywalker I know."  And Luke saying in LJ, "it's time for the Jedi to die" couldn't come at a worse moment. Defeat the Sith, who are back on the rise or actually seem to be in charge now (I wasn't sure who was in charge of the galaxy, the good guys or the bad guys, it was a little vague), and then let the Jedi die if you want. 

In Force Awakens, Leia said to her brother, "Help us, Luke Skywalker, you're our only hope," to which Luke replies in LJ with a big fat Force middle finger. 

Hamill had a bunch to say before Disney probably told him to shut it. 

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There is a lot of ideas to unpack on both sides of the debate.

But Luke was always going to be exiled at the first Jedi temple. Far before JJ or Rian Johnson came along. That was Lucas' idea. However Luke's arc was going to start in Ep 7.

Over the movie he was going to regain his spirit and train Rey in 7. It's in "Art of Last Jedi."

 

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35 minutes ago, Rip said:

There is a lot of ideas to unpack on both sides of the debate.

But Luke was always going to be exiled at the first Jedi temple. Far before JJ or Rian Johnson came along. That was Lucas' idea. However Luke's arc was going to start in Ep 7.

Over the movie he was going to regain his spirit and train Rey in 7. It's in "Art of Last Jedi."

 

Whether it was planned or not, when you look at the differences in the characters Luke become front-and-center the presentment of The Force for the rebellion. So to have him run off to a planet to sulk and withdraw from all other living beings seems very unlike what was developed over a number of films. Including through his goodness influencing Darth Vadar to change.

Know what I mean?

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4 minutes ago, Bosco685 said:

Whether it was planned or not, when you look at the differences in the characters Luke become front-and-center the presentment of The Force for the rebellion. So to have him run off to a planet to sulk and withdraw from all other living beings seems very unlike what was developed over a number of films. Including through his goodness influencing Darth Vadar to change.

Know what I mean?

Totally. I can empathize. :foryou:

I've always thought TFA started off a bit on the wrong foot. 

Imagine if you had Luke regain his faith & train Rey all in the first movie. I think the entire arc (plus Rey being so powerful) would have gone smoother from the start.

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1 hour ago, Rip said:

Totally. I can empathize. :foryou:

I've always thought TFA started off a bit on the wrong foot. 

Imagine if you had Luke regain his faith & train Rey all in the first movie. I think the entire arc (plus Rey being so powerful) would have gone smoother from the start.

Great point. The whole Mary Sue argument would have been blown away due to the logical Rey training.

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17 minutes ago, Bosco685 said:

Great point. The whole Mary Sue argument would have been blown away due to the logical Rey training.

First, I'll preface saying I think "Mary Sue" is a bulls**t term that unfairly picks on female characters. But anyway, the things that Rey was able to do in Force Awakens regarding the Force and her instincts with a light saber while having no training are precisely why she had to have come from a very powerful lineage, such as a Skywalker or a Palpatine. Had she really been a "nobody" as presented in Last Jedi, than she would have indeed been that "Mary Sue" that fanboys were accusing her of being, based on the feats she performed in FA.

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4 hours ago, fantastic_four said:

If the Empire was such a precarious organization that all it took was for Palpatine to die to topple it, why weren't Obi-Wan and Yoda trying to figure out a way to kill him?  Why wait decades for Luke to grow up to get that done?

Answer:  because George Lucas didn't think of that circa 1976 to 1979 because he was focused on the films he was making as opposed to a larger story, and the reason for their retirement to Tatooine and Dagobah was crafted to fit into the story as told 25 years before.  As told, both Obi-Wan and Yoda are just as much cowards for running from Palpatine as Luke was for running from Ben Solo.

Well, toppling the Empire (and the new one) involved not only killing Palpatine, but also a star war with spaceships and laser blasts.

As told in the 1977 Star Wars movie with no context from future movies or later books, Ben Kenobi seemed to be in retirement from military life and not a coward at all. When asked to come out of retirement by Leia, he answers that call and even gives his life for it later.

As told in the 1980 Empire Strikes Back movie with no context from future movies, Yoda comes off as an intergalactic version of the wise old man of Asia who is removed from everyday life in a Zen mountain kind of way. He doesn't come off as a coward, either. His purpose in the movie is to train Luke, and he does that.

When Rey comes to Luke in Last Jedi for help on behalf of the Resistance as well as to be trained, he rejects her and everybody. He comes off as a jerk and a coward. While there are parallels of old Jedi Master in a secluded lonely place, Luke's motivations were different from Yoda and Ben in the Original Trilogy.

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Yes, Obi-Wan retired at the ripe old age of 38.  Not because the Republic fell or because Order 66 meant he would've been killed on sight, but just because he felt it was his time.  :eyeroll:

It'll be interesting to see where the Disney Obi-Wan series goes.  It could range from including a Rian Johnsonesque Tom Hanks Castaway scene where he tries to hang himself but the rope snaps, or it could turn out that he spent 25 years being a masked vigilante who cruised the galaxy sabotaging the Empire while periodically checking back in on Luke to make sure he was OK.  I imagine it will be somewhere in-between with Obi-Wan helping out the natives of Tattooine without sticking his head out too far lest the Empire lop it off.

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1 hour ago, fantastic_four said:

Yes, Obi-Wan retired at the ripe old age of 38.  Not because the Republic fell or because Order 66 meant he would've been killed on sight, but just because he felt it was his time.  

In the context of the 1977 movie only, it's only referenced he was a General in the Clone Wars. You don't have to have spend your entire life in the military to retire from that life. After the Clone Wars, he could have gotten in to farming or online sales while training in the ways of the Force on his own. Yes, there's regret in Obi Wan's voice as he tells Luke about his failure training a young Vader but his character doesn't scream "I'm a coward and running from my failure to properly train Vader."  Darth Vader talks about the importance of seeing an end to the Jedi after Obi Wan's death but the rest of the Leadership Council of the Empire including Tarkin don't  seem to really give two bits about Obi Wan.

Edited by @therealsilvermane
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