It’s that time again. Time for me to talk about Luke Skywalker—Jedi Master, colorful milk enthusiast, champion spear fisherman, galactic treasure—and the multitude of ways that he continues to be generally fabulous while no one notices. Even now, when it should have become pretty darned obvious. When there is an entire film dedicated to the obviousness of this.
And yes, I am talking about The Last Jedi.
Spoilers ahead.
Look, I’ve said it all before. Luke Skywalker is not a bland Wonder Bread hero, despite his humble farmboy beginnings and seeming obsession with power converters. He spends the entirety of Return of the Jedi kicking ass in a very personal, understated way. He has his own goals and he sticks to them. This helpfully speeds up the demise of the worst overlord the galaxy has ever known, but also robs him of a father. Such is the nature of the universe, particularly where the Force is involved.
But now that Luke has reemerged decades later for his final bow, some people are crying foul. It’s a betrayal, they say. The boy they knew and loved would never behave this way. Even Mark Hamill himself had reservations about what lay in store for Luke, though he admitted that he appreciated the tale when all was said and done. It didn’t stop fans from creating memes and comments and screeds denouncing him.
As the sort of kid who grew up loving Luke Skywalker, pretending to be him as I vaulted from playground equipment and around sandboxes, the ire is bemusing. This story is not fluffy or comforting, but it is imminently worthy of my childhood champion because it explores the very nature of his exalted and seemingly untouchable status as the Good Man Who Does Great Deeds. The last chapter of Luke’s story is bound up not in mythologizing and enshrining him in that lofty cocoon, but instead turns us toward an ugly, devastating fact: heroes are people.
*dramatic music cue*
Some folks have realized this and are taking it to mean that Star Wars is finally shaking a finger at its fans, deconstructing its place in the cultural zeitgeist and having a little laugh at the terrifying level of devotion it has inspired. But that’s an underwhelming take from where I’m standing. Yes, we get attached to stories that we love, but that’s a common human practice. Craving stories, seeking them out, relating to the characters within them, that’s all as human as learning to walk and getting hungry. But taking on the uncomfortable task of reminding us that our heroes are human? Really, truly messy and complicated and often unworthy of awe? That’s a massive responsibility that no one will thank you for, no matter how dearly they need to be reminded.
This is the central theme of The Last Jedi, one that the film tackles with a violent sort of glee. It’s not merely that heroes can make mistakes or occasionally do the wrong thing; the film is examining heroism as a concept, as a systematic construct that binds the very people it should comfort. “Heroes” come with rules and standards, expectations and meaning. “Legends” are not history, they are the stories we tell to elevate history into doctrine.
Luke Skywalker knows this better than most. His father was sold to him as a hero of a bygone era, then morphed slowly before his eyes into a terrible villain. But Luke did not redeem Anakin Skywalker out of a desire to recapture the hero he once was—he did it to find his father. Heroes are people, and the person that existed beyond the great knight Obi-Wan Kenobi spoke of with such reverence is precisely who Luke hoped to discover when he met Darth Vader on Endor.
Years later, when Rey arrives on Ahch-To, Luke has soured on the concept of heroes and legends. His father was no hero, and neither were his mentors. He has learned enough about the Jedi Order to understand the incredible hubris that led to their demise. He has also taken up the space where they once existed in the galactic collective consciousness, even though it’s the last thing he ever wanted. It’s all well and good to hear those stories and take them to heart, but it’s something else entirely when that hero and legend is you, when your very person is meant to embody symbols and devotion and feelings that you never intended to evoke. When people spin tales about acts you may or may not have committed, when your name is used to create a hush in crowded rooms. When the only resistance standing between the galaxy and total fascist domination is waiting for you to show up and signal that the fight isn’t over.
Being a hero doesn’t stop you from being human, and that is perhaps the greatest tragedy of the cosmos… or the greatest joke. Luke can’t decide which when Rey shows up with Anakin’s old lightsaber, but to start, he treats it as the latter. He chucks away the saber. He slams doors in her face. He makes himself and his life as weird and ignoble as possible, harkening back to Yoda’s old method of teaching—be some kooky old guy, see if they scare off. When she doesn’t turn tail and run, and he agrees to teach her a little, he cackles at her understanding of the Force and the Jedi. He tells her that he’s not going to walk out there with a “lasersword” and face down the latest threat to the galaxy because the Force is not a parlor trick for intimidation and clever schemes. He invites her to learn what it is for herself, to sense its presence throughout the galaxy. And as she observes this balance, the light and the dark, Luke offers her the most important lesson of all:
“The Force does not belong to the Jedi. To say that if the Jedi die, the light dies, is vanity—can’t you see that?”
This is an essential lesson on multiple fronts, but it is also in indictment of heroism and the power granted to those who achieve that designation. The Jedi do not own virtue or good deeds or the key to balancing the galaxy. They are not the arbiters of these things, they do not speak for the Force in any capacity. The stories that grew up around them—the legends—made them believe that they were and they could, and this is ultimately what led to their destruction. Calling yourself a “servant of the Force” at the same time that you are working as the long arm of a government to aid only one side in a gruesome war is well beyond a contradiction, and Luke is in the perfect position to see this long arc for what it is; he caused the same devastation on a smaller scale when he tried to follow their example, losing his temple and students when Ben Solo fell to the dark side.
He frames the failures of the Jedi the same way he frames his own: vanity at believing that the ancient religion and framework was so needed that the universe couldn’t be without them. After being groomed to take up the mantle of a dead Order, Luke discovers that his impetus behind this decision was misguided, his execution deeply flawed. Thinking as the Jedi did requires thinking in terms of legacy—his fear of Ben turning to the dark side isn’t merely the fear of an uncle for his nephew, it is the fear of the Jedi being wiped out all over again, of his tutelage resulting in another Vader, of more devastation caused by heroes and legends who should be beyond such mortal mistakes. But heroes are people. And Luke’s split-second of weakness precipitates the very terror he was trying to keep at bay.
Shutting himself away in an unknown corner of the galaxy surely seemed like the most satisfying option. Go find the origin point of the Jedi and just crumble away there, like all the other relics. Divorce himself from the Force and wait to die. Unfortunately, vanishing acts only fuel legends. Luke Skywalker tried to forget the galaxy, but the galaxy wasn’t about to forget him.
When Rey arrives, the fight for that galaxy is well underway, and this mysterious young woman from nowhere is in desperate need of instruction. Luke wants no part in another gargantuan mistake that puts the galaxy at risk, but he does need someone to take ownership over what he’s learned in this ruin of a religion because knowledge is always of value. Rey seems up for it, though she has very little time… echoing his own education to a tee. He gives her a baseline, some philosophical mores to cling to as she moves forward, but his wisdom is only a small measure of his usefulness to her. Rey needs a count of the missteps that came before, of course, but most important of all—she’s looking for confirmation that she belongs in this story. By taking her desire to learn about the Force seriously, Luke gives her that. And as Yoda later tells him, that’s pretty much how it’s meant to go: “We are what they grow beyond. That is the burden of all masters.”
Rey alone doesn’t need a careful guiding light, but the galaxy needs Luke Skywalker. The tragedy of heroes is that they are people whose lives ultimately aren’t their own—heroism of the legendary kind exists to serve others. It doesn’t matter that Luke Skywalker is hurting, that he’s frightened, that he has made mistakes he has decided he cannot atone for. He tried to cut himself off from the Force, to hide away from everyone who would put him on a pedestal, and now he recognizes the choice was never his. He opens himself back up to the Force. He connects with his sister. He is pulled back into the fight.
When he sees Leia and apologizes for his failures and his fear, she forgives him and tells him that she knows it’s time to give up on her son, that he’s gone for good. Luke replies with his finest kernel of wisdom yet—“No one’s ever really gone.” And it’s important to clarify, he doesn’t mean that he’s going to drag his nephew back and forcibly turn him to the light side with hugs and a batch of homemade soup. Luke understands that aspects of people—the good, the bad, the forgotten, the hidden—don’t disappear just because they change. That people who die and fade away leave pieces of themselves behind. That they are all one with the Force, and so they are never truly diminished. And at those words, he prepares to unleash the Luke Skywalker of years past. The Good Man who once blew up a Death Star, who defeated an Emperor without ever laying a hand on him, who believed he could train the next generation to be better than the last.
He steps outside with his lasersword to take on the whole First Order.
Every hero has a superpower, even the ones who don’t exist between the pages of comic books. Some have words, some have technical know-how. Some are very strong, others are wise beyond measure. The thing that makes Luke Skywalker the guy who can get this done is his possession of a particular superpower. But it’s not his ability to use the Force, or fly an X-Wing, or talk jovially with astromech droids.
No, Luke Skywalker’s superpower is—has always been—compassion.
All of his strengths, and indeed his foibles, are bound up in compassion. When Luke makes mistakes it is because he cannot put his concern for others aside and still function—rushing off to Cloud City and accidentally confronting Darth Vader before he’s fully trained, or fearing for the galaxy at large when he looks into his nephew’s mind and sees what he has become. And when he does what is needed, it is that same compassion guiding his actions—insisting on rescuing a princess he has never met in the midst of an enemy battle station he has just boarded, or leaving the Rebels on Endor to try and convince his father to turn away from the dark side.
Luke Skywalker’s greatest asset was never his desire to become a Jedi—it was his desire to look beyond outward appearances and access what lies beneath. A lost sister behind a fearless rebel leader. A dear heart behind a sarcastic space pirate. A lonely old man behind half-truths told from a certain point of view. A trapped soul withering under layers of machinery, anger, and sorrow. That he can use the Force is entirely secondary; Luke Skywalker became a hero because of his heart.
Compassion is one of the greatest attributes a person can possess. It is the antidote to shortsightedness and cruelty. But we should never make the mistake of thinking that compassion is synonymous with niceness. Kindess, too, is not niceness. But audiences expected Luke to be nice in The Last Jedi. He’s the hero, after all. Heroes are supposed to behave, to show courtesy, to model the attributes we associate with goodness and civility. Ergo, Luke Skywalker should be nice to Rey. He should be nice to Ben Solo. He should shake hands with each member of the Resistance and smile until his face hurts.
But heroes are people, remember? And niceness has never defeated demons.
When the time comes, Luke Skywalker faces Ben Solo with clear and enduring compassion. But not niceness, because that wouldn’t turn Ben’s heart in any case. While Luke failed him years back by surrendering to a moment of sheer panic, it doesn’t change the fact that the boy he trained was headed down this path with or without his input. Snoke leads Rey to believe that Ben had a different possible future, that he has always been conflicted, but the truth of the matter is far simpler and more painful to stomach.
You see, Anakin Skywalker never wanted to be Darth Vader. It was a mantle that he was strapped into against his will. But Ben Solo wants to be Kylo Ren with every fiber of his being.
Luke knows he cannot use the same script here that he used on his father, cannot chip away at a facade born of lies and unimaginable pain. Ben chose to be here because this is the destiny he longed for, and so Luke can only tell him the truth: that killing the people you love doesn’t erase them from existence. That one petulant temper isn’t enough to bring down the Resistance. That Rey has all the knowledge she requires to pick up where the Jedi left off, and do it better than Luke ever could. He shows his nephew compassion by offering closure, but also by refusing to placate him. He isn’t nice—but he is kind.
And at the same time, he shows compassion for the whole galaxy by giving them what they need: the sight of Luke Skywalker joining the fight one last time to save the Resistance. Leia always understood this best, raised as a princess and mired in symbols her entire life. She knows what legends are, what heroes are for. She didn’t call on Luke because she thought he could fix this terrible mess—she knows better than anyone how tenuous hope can be and what revives it. The names, the history, the stories…
“General Kenobi, years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars.”
“The Jedi were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire.”
“This is the ship that made the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs?”
Luke Skywalker is the greatest hero the galaxy has to offer because he understands better than anyone that heroes are people. That being a legend isn’t really about what you do, but why you do it and who you do it for. And that is exactly what I expect from the character I spent years trying to emulate, to learn from. Luke Skywalker is still and always my hero because he knows that is his explicit role in the universe—to be what I need. To give me hope. To soothe my fears with his unflappable presence. To face down monsters and brush imaginary dust from his shoulder and keep my friends safe from harm.
Heroes are people. But it takes a very special sort of person to uphold that status for others when you are called upon. The Last Jedi is not an assassination of heroism—it is a treatise on why heroes have such power over us. And it answers that question by giving one of our greatest heroes an ending worthy of his name.
Emmet Asher-Perrin is apparently not done crying over Luke Skywalker yet. (She’s kidding, she will never be done crying.) You can bug her on Twitter and Tumblr, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
Brava.
Thanks. This is very good.
I was a bit disenchanted by The Force Awakens at first. I was a little resentful that it dragged these people who seemed happy and at peace at the end of Return of the Jedi, and showed them old, embittered, and apparently failures–still fighting Space Nazis, and their only progeny had followed a familiar dark path. Some people complain that The Last Jedi ‘ruined’ old heroes, but that door had already been opened. Kylo Ren and the First Order were already there; Luke was already a hermit.
The Last Jedi made that all work a bit better for me in retrospect–it even makes the prequels a bit better in retrospect, because now there is an expanded frame of reference for understanding the humanity and the failings of heroes without diminishing them. And yet still connecting that to the ultimately mythological storytelling of Star Wars! I didn’t expect any of that.
This all sounds very Rand al’Thor-ish, only he wasn’t as good at disappearing. It would be cool if one of Tor.com’s WoT columnists could do a comparison between Luke and Rand. Or the Cosmere team could do it and consider The Hero of Ages.
Very nice piece. The only thing I disagree with is that Ben absolutely wanted to be Kylo Ren. While he does merit a lot of the blame, we also have Snoke’s manipulation to blame.
This is great…I’ve read so many essays on The Last Jedi that do a wonderful job breaking down the movie’s themes and reasons for the choices made, but I wish I enjoyed the movie more. Like I see it, the greatness lurking inside this movie, but I think the execution of the actual movie undermined some of these really great ideas that the Star Wars series needs. People have argued that the movie is controversial because it was too different, I would argue that maybe it wasn’t different enough, that it was not able to fully explore its ideas because it was still too trapped inside the idea of Star Wars. I don’t know, my thoughts on this movie are still too conflicted, but I wish I enjoyed the actual movie as much as I’m enjoying thinking about it and reading excellent essays about it!
Extremely well said. Thank you Emily!
I don’t comment often (Lisa Marie usually makes anything I would say redundant). However I do want to say that I LOVE just about every word that you have written about Luke Skywalker. Not only in this post, but in all of the others as well. Thanks for what you do.
@5 Given ESB, I think the movie pretty much had to be more of a think piece than TFA.
My brother and I disagree on the movie mostly on whether or not its themes and implications justify its varied and manifold flaws. I’m actually afraid to re-watch it in case I trip on the stuff I glossed over on the first viewing.
Mark Hamill’s performance and the new-found character depth of Luke Skywalker was nearly the only thing that justified the price of admission for me. Hero-saves-the-day and chosen-one and happily-ever-after are old stories done a million times, including by Star Wars. Star Wars was uniquely positioned to turn those fables on their ear precisely because of the saga’s position in our culture.
Alas, most of the rest of the movie was just not at the same level.
And yet… there is another side to that compassion. I got this yesterday following up on the Dreamsnake article:
Ursula Le Guin from
http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2011/06/16/le-guin-reviews-mcintyre/
Subversion Through Friendliness. I love this idea. Combine the Holy Fool (the classical trickster path of both Yoda & Luke) with this and gain a foothold on another day; another journey.
Basically Luke has to be a failure so Rey can save the Universe as he so obviously didn’t.
I’ll admit, the characterization of Luke as someone who would (momentarily) consider killing his apprentice because he was shocked at how much evil resided within him, realize (thank God!) that that is absolutely batsh*t crazy and decide not to go through with it, bothers me a whole lot less than the subsequent hiding from the world, and the consequences of his own actions.
To me, that’s the problem. That’s where the disconnect between the Luke of ROTJ and the Luke of the new trilogy happens. In my opinion (I hope I’m allowed to have those regarding this topic), the information we are given in The Last Jedi regarding what happened doesn’t lend sufficient motivation for the Luke of ROTJ to abandon the entire universe. Especially since its his mess. Even if its not really his mess (Ben made his own choices and that’s not on Luke), TLJ makes it clear that Luke feels that its his mess. And that that’s why he’s hiding in the middle of nowhere as a hermit.
Shenanigans, I say! There is no way that the Luke we are left with after the Original Trilogy would completely abdicate himself from the responsibility of the situation. Its just not in his nature. The concept of Luke in hiding fascinated me after The Force Awakens, but the reasons given were a serious disappointment. And yes, since Luke Skywalker is the hero for many people, I think deconstructing that required a bit more effort, and a bit more meat than what we were given. Especially since it will be his final story. So, I hope the Story Group develops something down the road that reveals more about that situation, and that it makes sense that he would feel the need to hide from the world. Because this didn’t work for a whole lo of people.
I’m going to read this in a sec, but I’m just gonna say that you had me at “colorful milk enthusiast” and my laptop is grateful I had already swallowed my coffee.
Also, as a Midwestener, I hate the word ‘nice’. It’s typically used as…well, pejorative may be a strong term, but in my opinion, Midwest Nice is not a compliment. So now I’m interested to see if this article goes where my head is going.
As we were told way back in the beginning of RETURN OF THE JEDI, when he walks through Jabba’s front door dressed like his father and proceeds to Force-choke the guards in a very un-Jedi like fashion.
Nice essay.
I mean, really, in my mind, I’m going to just say Luke died at some point, and the (admittedly awesomely acted) Luke we see in TLJ is really Luuke. ;P
Good article.
I wish the movie had spent more time with Luke and Rey, as it was the only part that worked for me. The grumpy master and his eager young student felt like Star Wars going back its samurai roots. Whereas, the slow chase and casino/hacker stories felt like they were from different franchises, and didn’t play to the strengths of this particular franchise.
Subverting expectations is a tricky thing.
Beautifully argued. The Last Jedi is, in a way, a story about stories. The Luke we get in it is the person, not the story, and maybe the reason so many people are angry about that is that they want the story, not the person: the perfect Jedi master who can take on the whole First Order with a lasersword. However, the film gives us that too. In the process, it demonstrates that the two concepts are not mutually exclusive.
I loge this post! It perfectly expresses why I was so blown away by The Last Jedi and why I felt that this story perfectly encapsulates and honors the figure of Luke Skywalker. Thank you for this beautiful text and may the force be with you!
Great essay. If the new movies had simply showed all of the heroes of the old one living “happily ever after,” it would have been a pretty dull affair. Having the whole weight of the Jedi tradition dumped on him with only a few days of training was a bit too much to ask of Luke. Hopefully, he will come back as a Force Ghost, and help Rey learn from his mistakes.
Actually Luke Skywalker IS supposed to be ‘nice’. Han was the scoundrel.
@19 Sounds like the perfect example of “there is no death, just the Force.”
ETA: Ridiculously off topic but now I’m having Jason Todd feels.
It’s a betrayal, they say. The boy they knew and loved would never behave this way.
Horse Hockey!!!! You could say that about ANY person who lives long enough. Life has a way of rounding out the edges, slapping us in the face and waking us up to the realities of the world. I am 60+ and I understand very well that idealism and reality don’t often go together.
I would have been VERY upset had Luke’s character NOT evolved. Had Lucas been left in charge that is what we would have gotten, a teddy bear/Jar Jar cute bedtime story Luke.
This is really good. The only thing I would say is that I thought that Luke raising his lightsaber against Ben fits perfectly with Yoda’s dark side maxim: he was afraid of Ben, which led to anger and the lightsabre moment, which leads to hate (Ben hates Luke, which drives him to the dark side, and Luke hates himself and the Jedi order, which leads to suffering (his self imposed suffering on ach to
@8 Sadly I went and saw the film for the second time last week. I went with some friends/family that had not yet seen it. It was one of my worst movie experiences ever. I couldn’t stop squirming and wishing it would just end. The only part I enjoyed the second time around was Luke and Rey on the Island.
When the original Star Wars came out I must have watch it six times in a couple of months and loved it every time. The concept of the Last Jedi was very good the execution just plainly sucked. I don’t know if it was because of the holes in the story, the over the top cute one liners, not just a couple of times but every other line, but I do NOT like this movie. It took me the second viewing to realize that.
I can’t reconcile the Luke who fought tooth and nail to save his father to the Luke who raised his lightsaber to strike down his own nephew because of the darkness he felt in him. Those are 2 different characters. Mark Hamill is right.
There were two possibilities suggested by The Last Jedi:
1. Kylo Ren could not be redeemed. Luke was actually correct when he thought about killing Ben initially. Luke was wrong when he exiled himself to Ahch-To because he (understandably) couldn’t bring himself to do the necessary thing – helping the Resistance and confront and kill his nephew. This portrayal of Luke would have been consistent with the character of Luke that we know from ROTJ.
2. Kylo Ren could be redeemed. Luke was wrong when he didn’t make additional attempts to reach out to Ben. This portrayal of Luke would have been inconsistent with the character of Luke that we know from ROTJ.
The movie showed Kylo hesitating on killing his mother, and Rey detecting conflict within him. Even Luke said that nobody is truly gone when Leia said that her son is gone. So the movie seemed to be going with possibility 2, i.e., Kylo could be redeemed. This is why a lot of fans have issue with the portrayal of Luke. The issue is not whether Luke was nice. The issue is whether Luke had abandoned his responsibility and whether the explanation for it is consistent with Luke’s character at the end of the OT.
@8 quoth:
Well, the discussion, here and elsewhere, on this movie has already been at a level far above any other SW film since ESB, so I guess it has something going for it in that regard. Personally on first viewing I thought the top-layer entertainment value (something that seems to have been forgotten in this debate) far outweighed the flaws, before even getting to a deeper level of thought. But the very fact that this thing bears deeper analysis is the good news; you didn’t see that happening with TFA for sure.
I read the Slate piece ( https://slate.com/arts/2018/01/the-last-jedi-is-a-star-wars-movie-about-fandom-and-the-lure-of-myth.html ) alternating between thinking “this is absurd projection” and “this is brilliant” — but the idea that in some ways Johnson is not just ignoring/passively insulting but outright mocking the hard-core fans goes a long way towards explaining the violent negative reactions in some quarters.
@24 quoth:
Of course, if you are like most of us, you were at least 40 years younger then. Have you watched it lately, beginning to end? I imagine you’d squirm a bit too, if you can get beyond pure nostalgia. I’ve gotten that way about most of the Marvel movies lately too (well, SFX blockbusters in general) but I think it’s a lot more ME that has changed rather than the quality of the films.
@27 sardinicus – I love the original movie to bits, but the last time I watched it I fell asleep during the Tatooine part. They are on that planet FOREVER!!!
I haven’t been able to see movie yet .hopefully with my heart Luke is still alive after.there is too many movies that figure closure is kill the good guy.that is the sadness of any universe.kill for power,kill for money,kill just for blood .that’s what it’s all become .there has got to become a time when it’s realized that isn’t the answer to anything.to destroy worlds.people every living thing.we are doing that e ouch here .ones who dont even have a voice yet in their want to live. Compassion is what is needed greatly in any reality.but pushed too far ,seeing the pain a other or others brought without any regret except to try and cover their deeds to save themselves.consequences and hard decisions have to be made.ones that can shatter the soul who must in force it.that is the reality of life .for one almost aroundMark Hamills age.we understand and have lived through too many terrible times and know each person has two sides.within them.in these situations we can only pray and hope it’s the right one .this may be off from the movie but actually it’s not in truth..MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU. CARRIE/LEIA WILL ALWAYS BE MISSED.
@27 I caught the mocking the first time around. I glossed over a lot of problems the movie had (like the bombers, why?) because of its take-no-prisoners approach to certain tropes. The movie made a lot of shortcuts in order to underscore its themes. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people missed the themes entirely (or were victims of its skewering). I side-eye a lot of the criticism because it shows evidence they don’t even understand what the movie was trying to do. Though if you only notice the shortcuts, of course the movie is going to be terrible (though it’s reasonable to decide the movie is terrible even if you understand it).
@29 See comment 21.
noblehunter@30:
That’s a bit… harsh, to my ear. Some people can get the themes just fine, and still not like the result of the movie. I don’t know that Star Wars of all things, is my go to for trope skewering. You can also notice the themes, and not find it entertaining, or particularly deep and meaningful. What resonates with you isn’t going to resonate with everyone. And that doesn’t make them somehow wrong, or less, or weak, or whatever would cause you to “side-eye” them. It just makes them different.
I enjoyed the movie a lot more the second time I watched it, because I had time to process my disappointment in the way they handled Luke’s seclusion, and the jokes that felt tone-deaf (not in the cultural or political way we use that term now, but just like they were written for a different kind of movie) to me the first time around, I could ignore on the second viewing.
As far as themes… its not like Rian Johnson was being subtle. They’re hard to miss. Especially the ones directed at the fandom. Some of us just aren’t looking for entertainment where every would-be hero’s quest is derailed and fails. I mean, one would be enough to make the point. Some of us like our popcorn entertainment to be a bit more hopeful and aspirational. It’s not about not GETTING it, its about not LIKING it. Some people did. Some people didn’t. Both people have a right to express how they feel without someone else thinking the reason they didn’t like it is because they were incapable of comprehending it.
In TLJ Luke is too simple in his solutions and not nearly as emotionally savvy as he was by the end of RotJ.
And Rey still made off with the books at the end of the film and the kids on CB still emphasize the whole Jedi Master thing as they recount the story. Because marketing matters I suppose. I think the only thing that may top the odd inconsistencies of the second film will be the light speed reversals that give us all whiplash once the third installment hits the big screen.
The thing that gets me is that many reviewers have a rather unrealistic image of Luke. To them he’s supposed to be the optimistic, carefree, young farm boy we met in Star Wars (not ep IV, not A New Hope, STAR WARS) and his portrayal in The Last Jedi is all wrong to them.
I don’t think those reviewers have internalized that Luke is older now, disillusioned, beat down by life. He’s grown.
For example, I remember me at 18 and then look at me at 54. I’m in some ways the same guy, but in many ways he’s gone. 18 year old me was dumb. Like a bag of doorknobs dumb. He’d never traveled very far from home, didn’t know how the world worked, didn’t care to know. 54 year old me is smarter (not like super-intelligent or anything, but I’ve surpassed the doorknobs quite a bit), has lived in 4 countries and unfortunately understands very well how the world works.
Luke is like that. He’s been around, seen stuff, done stuff. He’s not that 18 year old farm boy anymore. I liked the Luke in The Last Jedi for the most part. He’s believable as a guy who has been thru hell.
@30/noblehunter:
Really, if you are going to complain about the bombs (I assume because they “fell”) in a movie series whose most famous scenes involve space dogfights with banked turns, you have already lost me.
I do like your characterization of “take no prisoners approach to tropes”: that’s thrilling when it works (how many more times did we need to find out that character X is — gasp — related to character Y?) and annoying when it doesn’t (the sabre-toss). Everybody probably has a different mix of reactions to these, however. It’s probably also worth noting that there is a fine line between trope-busting and ret-conning (for example, the whole midichlorians thing could probably be seen in the same way).
@31/Anthony:
Of course, “everybody’s quest has failed” is about where Empire Strikes Back ends, too, and people seem to like that one OK.
@31 I don’t mean to imply that all the people who didn’t like it didn’t get it (though I certainly understand the temptation). There’s a difference between expressing a personal preference for a movie and attempting to make an “objective” declaration regarding the quality of the movie. It’s none of my business if people liked the movie or not, though I will gladly hash it out over beer or other beverages. If people insist on declaring the movie was bad and evidence ignorance about the movie’s intent–then it’s still none of my business, though I will gladly explain to them why they are wrong over beer. Its the later sorts of criticism I side-eye.
When movie criticism moves beyond statements of preference, it becomes an intellectual activity which justifies a response (if it occurs in an appropriate setting). At the very least it risks people forming judgments about the attempt.
ETA: @34 I missed the bombs completely until someone pointed it out since I was distracted by the lack of Y-wings or EU bombers. There are limits to how much and what kind of egregious violations of the laws of physics I’ll tolerate.
I love love love this article! Luke Skywalker is my favorite Star Wars (canon) character. I love the Grand Master Skywalker of the EU novels, so I was afraid that TLJ would radically diverge from my image of a flawed/human and radically compassionate Luke, but I ended up loving the movie– I just couldn’t find the words to describe why until I read this article!
I think those leveling criticism at this film for Luke’ self exile are being a bit unfair. The Last Jedi is picking up where The Force Awakens ended, trying to make sense and add something interesting to the sloppy setup by Abrams and Kasdan. I’m not saying the sequel succeeded, but first things first here. TFA made him a hermit.
Now that I think about it… is the degree of serialization we’re seeing here a good thing for Star Wars? Neither the original trilogy nor the prequel trilogy movies were as closely linked as TFA and TLJ. They had months and sometimes years between their installments. One didn’t lean heavily on the other.
@25 – You’re forgetting that Luke came pretty close to killing his father in RotJ. If the Emperor, in typical dumb villain fashion, hadn’t pointed out to Luke that he was playing right into the Emperor’s hands, Luke may have been the next Vader.
Consider Luke as a D&D paladin. Lawful Good does not mean Lawful Nice.
As someone who really struggled with how Luke was portrayed in TLJ, thank you so much for this amazing article. This really helps me find some continuity in the character.
@37 That is true, but they still had options. I would have been more satisfied if Luke had been playing the same game as Snoke in waiting for the force to reveal the light side champion of the new generation. It also would have been better,in my opinion, if the movie depicted any actual development of a mentor/protege relationship so that Rey would care if Luke’s force ghost shows up.
I’ll say it again, but I think Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor is another really great exploration of these types of themes and the paradox of Luke’s characterization (how do you take a hero/legend and keep him humble and relateable, still have him struggling with temptations/doubts/darkness, etc) in the Legacy canon. (Also it’s by Matt Stover who is a top tier EU author, in my opinion).
As for the Disney canon – I think it’s fair for people to not like it, or to struggle with it, and it doesn’t mean they are just ignorant, simple, stupid people who don’t understand the realities of life or nuanced storytelling. I can’t stand the sneering sense of superiority some people have over their preferred interpretation (that’s NOT what I see at Tor, btw), especially from people who seem to take an odd glee at ‘deconstructing’ what others have held dear for reasons of their own, and then pat themselves on the back for being so ‘grown up’ and ‘adult’ for rejecting simplistic fairy tales or whatever straw man they’ve propped up in their claims of what the other side supposedly wanted from the story. (I just see Anakin petulantly informing Ob-Wan that he ‘sees through the lies of the Jedi!’ whenever I encounter one of these types, lol). But likewise, I’m rolling my eyes a bit at those trying to petition Disney to remove the movie from canon or what have you. The franchise survived prequel rage and Jar Jar, last I checked, is still part of the canon, so I’m pretty sure champion spear fisherman Luke Skywalker is here to stay ;)
I do understand it – a lot of people, even intelligent people – are attracted to certain franchises BECAUSE of the expectations and tropes therein. They know that’s not how the real world works, but they still want to escape into it for whatever reason. And especially in a franchise like Star Wars which has been kept alive (and financially viable) through ‘the dark times’ and beyond partially due to the devotion of said fans – I can see why there is a feeling of hurt/betrayal and the idea that the new creators of the franchise are now mocking these same things. I don’t think there’s anything so sinister going on – I think like all artists, they just wanted to try something new and deeper and build on what came before – but I do think some people are playing it up to make it seem as if there were (my browser actually suggested an article that posited this very point and said this was a good thing because the world in 2017 is not a place for children, blah blah blah). And there is a part of me that thinks, “If you hated all these things that the ‘old’ Star Wars supposedly represented, then why do you like it in the first place? Why don’t you go make your own thing and leave my thing alone?” Maybe that’s part of why I loved Rogue One so much – for whatever its flaws were, something about it just felt FUN, and there were so many little touches and details that really seemed to highlight a true love of the franchise. I do enjoy the new movies, but ‘fun’ isn’t a word I use to describe them (actually the first half of TFA was quite fun). They’re kind of grim and self important at times. And I do tend to waver between deciding if I think they are going in a bold/nuanced new direction, or if they’re just trying too hard to make a point. Having a movie where Luke (unironically) comes in and waves his lasersword around (I will forever love this movie for bringing that verbiage back) and is a more straightforward hero probably would have been pretty fun/satisfying on some level, but it might not have been as meaty or emotional. Would we still be talking about it weeks later? Although I’m confident that somehwere there exists a storyteller that COULD tell a compelling and relatable story that involved that version of Luke without reducing him to a cardboard cutout.
(That said, I love memes and find most of them to be affectionate ribbing and in some ways, a useful way to come to terms with things – anger, sadness, etc. One of my favorite bits of sequel related humor is the ‘Kylo Ren Reacts’ series on the Auralnauts channel and in the Last Jedi review, his rant about the character of Luke Skywalker is actually a really funny, but true and almost poignant summation of the emotional whiplash both sides may be feeling…)
Regarding niceness: To that, I agree – I have a personal thing about people that talk about Han being the ‘cool’ one, and Luke being the ‘boring, nice’ one. I mean, if you like Han best, that’s okay – but I do think there is a tendency in art to have a hard time portraying straightforward ‘goodness’ without falling into the trope of being ‘nice’ – which is a bland, featureless, humorless, generic overly solemn kind of thing. In fact, I think a lot of the EU fell into that trap with Luke (but not Mindor ;) ). Now, FWIW, I don’t think the Luke of the movies is ‘nice’ in that sense – he’s rash, impulsive, caring, earnest and sometimes callow/immature, but what makes him one of the heroes is how much he cares, how much he wants to do the right thing, and his ‘saving people thing’. That doesn’t HAVE to be boring. Nor does it make one immune to temptation or negativity, and I welcome any story that gives his character more depth and show the real struggles that can come with being one of ‘the good guys’ and being devoted to living a ‘good’ life. Messing up is inevitable, but how one deals with it, the ways you mess up, the reasons behind it, etc – is all a part of it. I do think we’ve maybe (as a whole) gone a little overboard with the emotionally closed off ‘snarky antihero’ which has become a cliche on its own. To me, the point of Luke Skywalker is that he TRIES, and that he continues to fight. One of his all time establishing moments for me is that scene in the Falcon where he says, “I care!” in response to Han’s cynicism. That is Luke Skywalker in a nutshell (to me). [I actually wrote this part before I got to the end of your essay about compassion and Luke being a hero because of his heart, and the reasons he fights and…I kinda teared up a little…]
There is a fine line – and whether TLJ crossed it or not is subjective – between acknowledging the nuanced humanity of a person, and fully deconstructing a legacy. I think the sequel trilogy has come too close to that line for my personal tastes – granted, I’m the type of person who to this date has not forgiven Peter Jackson for his treatment of Faramir and their desire to ‘give him a journey’ because it was too unbelievable (or boring) that he would do the right thing. There are many people in the world who actually ARE good people, who DO (mostly) stay true to their ideals, and – while they are dealing with various foibles, temptations, etc – still more or less continue on that trajectory and even improve. But narrative tension usually demands the latter direction. The direction they chose for Luke here isn’t unrealistic by any means, but it’s not the only realistic path they could have taken with him.
For what it’s worth, I loved all of Luke’s training bits on Ach-To, including his incorrigibility. I think he has a point in that the galaxy can’t just keep expecting him to clean up their mess, and it must also be frustrating to be so aware of the flaws of the Jedi (and himself) and to hear people continually oversimplify it and assume it will magically fix their problems. They fell once, so obviously were not perfect. But that doesn’t mean they are useless symbols either – I think since we are all intelligent consumers of fiction, we understand the importance of symbols. I don’t think it’s wrong to have ideals and symbols you look up to and aspire to – as long as you accept that you’re not going to get 100% compliance. It’s the *aspiring* that is important. ESPECIALLY in a world where we are all going to fail at some point, I think having that signpost is important, so we know what direction to keep heading in. But I think for some people it’s very either/or and many react poorly to pedestals being shattered – if you’re not perfect, you’re a hopelessly flawed, useless thing and so we should burn it all down.
Just because the Jedi are not the sole arbiters of the Force, does not mean they should not exist at all, or that they have no wisdom to offer. They are not the only heroes in the galaxy, but they are still (potentially) a path to heroism for some people. (But yesss to the idea that they should have been neutral. In fact, I was kind of hoping that was part of why Luke had exiled himself – because he was trying to figure all that out and what role the Jedi should actually take in these kinds of conflicts).
And I think that is my greatest dissatisfaction with the treatment of Luke’s character in the end – not that he failed, or doubted, or struggled, or didn’t have all the answers, but the way that he avoided his responsibilities. On a large scale level, the universe doesn’t ‘need’ the Jedi – he’s right about that. Light, uh, finds a way. But *somebody* needs to step up. The Jedi may not be the only agent of the Force, but they did have a role to play, and the potential to be a force for the side of good (no pun intended) so in some ways, it was a little arrogant of Luke to just shut it all down because of his personal failures (and in a way, I think he realizes this when talking to Yoda). And obviously there were people stepping up, but Luke DID abdicate his responsibilities, in my opinion. I don’t hate him for it, but to me that did feel very far from where I wanted to see his character go. But as you say – he does realize that in the end, and he does make the decision to come back, and he does realize why/when heroes are needed as well as what HIS unique strengths are and what he has to contribute simply as his flawed self. He doesn’t have to save Kylo Ren, or even defeat the entire First Order and preserve the galaxy from all evil forevermore…he can’t, and he accepts that. I really wish we had gotten more of Luke’s character in the story after he realizes these things, and getting to see his growth as well and I’d like the movie to explicitly unpack a little more what the Jedi could be and the nature of the Force.
But on the other hand, in some ways my unhappiness with the new movies actually does center on Luke as a *person*. It’s one thing for me to be a little miffed at the treatment of Luke as a ‘hero’…but it also just makes me sad that Luke as a person had such a miserable life and missed out on a relationship with his sister and brother in law and seeing the galaxy continue to progress (either with his guidance or without it). Likewise, I can’t help but think that what Leia really wanted was her BROTHER. Not necessarily Luke Skywalker, the legend (although I’m sure she also understood the importance that would have to the movement in general to know that he was still fighting with them/for them) – but her brother. She had already lost so much. Even if Luke Skywalker can’t be a perfect hero, he can still be her brother and friend.
As for Ben – I have wondered if the parallel here is that not everybody wants to be saved. Some people do choose evil, and that’s something we have to live with. However, I do still think there is room for Kylo to continue to be conflicted. I’m not sure he really knows what he wants, but unlike the prequels, we don’t really get a lot of info on how Snoke manipulated him or what motivates him.
@2 – funny you say that about TLJ because I think I had the same reaction in general. I don’t ‘love’ The Last Jedi (I’m not gonna love the one where Luke Skywalker dies, I’m just not…) but it actually didn’t really upset me nearly as viscerally as The Force Awakens did (which is a movie I still enjoy rewatching so even that wasn’t a total wash). Like you say, TFA had ALREADY established the things I was upset about (ESPECIALLY regarding the character of Luke), and I think TLJ did about as good a job as could be expected at resolving it.
@7 – oh dear :) Well, hopefully I said something that you wanted to say.
@12 – yes, you put it quite succinctly.
@31 – again, exactly this. I also found I enjoyed it a lot more the second time around.
@33 – I think I indirectly addressed this, but I am also not the same person I was at 18 (I was an obnoxious and somewhat self-righteous person who kinda did think she had all the answers). But my standards have not (radically) changed either, and while I (hope) am a lot more compassionate/understanding about the realities of situations, and have learned from various mistakes, I think I’m still ultimately the smae person at my core. The type of person you describe probably does exist – but I also think it’s unfair to lump everybody that may be less than effusive about the new direction into that group. You can still disagree with it and understand how personal growth/maturation works, and not everybody gets disillusioned in the end, and not everybody reacts by hiding. I mean – it makes sense given what he has been through that he has, but I also kinda resent the narrative in the first place for setting it all up that way. But I do still maintain there are other ways a competent storyteller could have told a good/nuanced/profound story even if Luke stayed more or less ‘typically’ heroic and had been taking more of an active role (even from within his exile – I was hoping he was studying ancient Force texts or studying other philosophies or something). I don’t completely hate what they did – and some of it, especially Luke’s continued personal journey, is quite touching in its own way – but there probably are other things I would have liked better.
@42 – agreed.
I am weary of talented writers defending this movie, especially when they project what must be really driving those who dislike the movie or insinuate that those who dislike the movie aren’t cerebral enough in some capacity.
One thing I’ve noticed is the inexplicable lack of understanding that the Star Wars Movies (Plural!) are a serial. These movies are not self-contained pieces. This movie fails to integrate itself well with the other movies. That it is trying to make a break with the past or try something new does not mitigate that. It is jarring, not because of a dramatic new understanding of success/failure and/or humanity/heroism. It is jarring because it is undeveloped.
The second thing I’ve noticed is the unwillingness to come to grips with how incredibly awkward the dialogue in this movie is. The words that come out of the mouths of these characters make me wonder about the quality of education in a star-faring polity. This dovetails nicely into the incredibly mild reaction the characters have to the rogue mission carried out by Poe, Finn, and Rose which led to unnecessary deaths.
The third thing I’ve noticed is the unwillingness to admit that creating thematic changes for a Star Wars movie doesn’t mean you did a good of creating thematic changes for a Star Wars movie. This movie races haphazardly from one scene to the next in a way that suggests the director was focused more on getting to the next scene on his storyboard than providing plausible reasons for getting from A to B.
I’m a grown-up. I’ve read big thick books with great ideas. I’m familiar with domestic and foreign films and have read my share of great books and seen my share of great movies. What I really am amazed by are the number of things movie critics are giving a “pass” to in this movie that they normally shred a movie for doing. Apparently, all you have to do is try something new on a big-budget icon and cultural force produced by Disney and you get to fail on multiple levels in direction, story-telling, dialogue, and editing all the while recieving a massive number of defenders trying to prove they are really smart for loving the clunker.
All the elegant prose from this essay and other articles I have read doesn’t change the reality of a poorly constructed movie. Rian Johnson went somewhere new with Star Wars but his execution was just awful.
The worst star wars movie ever made! I was so disappointed when I left the theater I wanted my money back. Luke should have been a kick ass Jedi master more powerful than Yoda and it should have been showcased!!!!
Hello,
While I’m sure this was a great article which you were most likely paid to write. I feel the majority of your points are just falling short, for a lot of us we learned od the extended universe not becoming canon, but for the majority of us we grew up in star wars…. It’s still just a movie, not a star wars movie. This movie is ranked below the Christmas special for me, yes, I mean that.
I don’t think you make any valid points to the conflict which was always present in luke, Jedi or sith, Yoda appearing was the only thing. Below is what u present to you
Emotion, yet peace.
Ignorance, yet knowledge.
Passion, yet serenity.
Chaos, yet harmony.
Death, yet the Force.
I do feel you missed the point along with Johnson about what star wars Is. It’s not about you making a movie that is different thr force awakens has proven that what it really is saying is that you don’t understand any of the Star Wars movies or the cartoon series or the games.
The problem with the whole article is the fact that it’s written from a perspective of no one who has ever enjoyed Star Wars and me really enjoyed this film, I’m glad you found a new Love and appreciation for the films that many of us have adorned since we were children.
I only hope that the next one is able to redeem this horrible excuse for a Star Wars film. I appreciate the written article and understand you are trying to enjoy it like everyone else. However, many people were picked on or made fun of because they like to Star Wars I do not believe you are one of those people.
The movie made me feel incredibly sad. In my wildest dreams I would never have thought that would be the way I would feel after leaving a Star Wars movie. Star Wars has meant so much to me that I am tempted to twist myself up in knots with some kind of interpretation to redeem it for me like you do here (and I’ve gone to see the movie four times to try to understand it, such a SW geek am I :), but with each viewing the sadness has only grown. I’m not going to go all bitter on things or attack Johnson, etc. . . . I’m just sad.
Great article! Enjoyed reading this very much! Thanks for giving me a fresher perspective!
One other thing I wanted to bring up, but forgot in my haste:
Leia didn’t give up. Leia was still fighting. Nobody is complaining that it’s ‘unrealistic’ that Leia would still be the same rebel at heart (and crack shot!) she was when we first met her. Nobody is complaining that Lor San Tekka still views her as royalty and an emblem of hope. Granted – she was raised that way, and Luke was not, which could be an interesting thing to think about. I mean, for what it’s worth, I’m sad for her character’s personal story too – she’s lost pretty much EVERYTHING. But the core of her mission did not change. She’s seen losses, she’s seen failure and her character has surely matured – but she’s still fighting for the same prinicples. And I haven’t seen any criticism that Leia is some kind of idealized hero or childish fantasy. I have seen some criticism of her ‘flying in space’ moment, although frankly I loved that because she’s the freaking daughter of Anakin Skywalker.
Selfishly there probably is a level of comfort I’ve come to expect from Star Wars. I’m well aware of people I’ve known personally who have disappointed me in large or small ways, or done things that seem to be very inconsistent with how I view them. Some of my beloved relatives at Trump supporters, after all ;) People who I learned my values from. So I don’t feel like it’s too much to ask that some of my fictional heroes still remain who I want them to be and provide that example of steadfastness. That said, I do think Luke’s character at least got a fitting end – they could have done a lot worse, too.
Luke being a human hero isn’t the issue IMO. I’m OK with a flawed hero. The issue is that he never gave up on his father being someone who was redeemable. Over and over he said that Vader, the biggest baddest villain in the universe, had good in him and could be turned to the light side. With that in mind he thought a young & conflicted Ben was beyond saving & needed to be killed? Ridiculous & that’s the failure of The Last Jedi.
You’re reading too much into it. I sincerely doubt Rian Johnson intended any of that when he wrote it. He probably spent lass than half the time writing the script as was spent writing this article. Bad script, bad dialog, plot holes, unnecessary scenes, pointless new characters. Luke and the fans deserved better than for Luke to be used as a plot device for Finn, Rey, Rose and the others no one cares about. My young son was bored one hour in and wanted to leave the theater…
People are gonna like or dislike the movie, but Jedi failing in their responsibilities is the norm in Star Wars. Yoda and Obi-wan weren’t out fighting the Empire, they were in hiding as hermits. So too, Luke Skywalker. He at least had a slightly stronger philosophical ground (he thought he was the problem), and a more sympathetic personal dilemma (how would he face Leia and Han?)
“Kindess,… is not niceness.” — Indeed, as a certain Doctor would say, “Always try to be nice, [but] never fail to be kind.”
@51: What @39/Greg said above…to which I would further add that Luke, with regards to Ben, came to his senses on his own before any harm had been done, which shows a fair amount of growth relative to his RotJ persona. Both that moment of weakness and his long struggle to accept forgiveness definitely humanize the character.
Both the essay and commentary have been informative. For the most part I found myself agreeing with Emily’s points and I now can better appreciate the ways in which TLJ transformed Luke from an archetype to a more nuanced character. Personally I prefer that type of character development, but I can see how others relate more to archetypes so some of the vitriol hurled at this film makes a bit more sense now.
I get it, i do kinda see the point you’re trying to make but you’re trying to sound really smart for a star wars film. I appreciate the “risks” it’s taken but that wasn’t Luke Skywalker. And 50%+ of the ppl tat saw that film agree and disliked it for many reasons, but that had to have been at the top. People that not only saw the film’s, day thru the first 3 episodes, have played the video games, and read the comics and novellas, that are cannon by the way, will tell you that wasn’t Luke Skywalker.
@45 Mack McMacky: spot on.
It’s getting a bit nauseating for those of us who see the emperor strutting around without clothes to be condescended to by the ‘enlightened ones’ who inform us we’re just not bright or mature enough to see the finery.
The concepts Johnson wanted to explore are just fine. The execution was terrible. Disney has got to be paying off some of the fawning reviewers, who would never be so effusive for any other corny CGI space romp.
I’m fine with Luke becoming disillusioned with the Jedi, losing faith in himself, etc. But by the end of ROTJ he’d already been through hell, and came out, like Leia, stronger than ever. Nothing Ben Solo did approached what Luke had already been through. But even so, how is deserting his family and his friends consistent with the lofty principles he says he’s learned? How is being abusive to a young idealistic woman consistent with that? Isn’t patience and self denial a core part of compassion and the light side of the Force? There are multiple decent reasons Luke could be hiding on that island. Waiting to pass away quietly while his sister mourns her son and her husband, while his friends suffer and die at the hands of tyranny, is not one of those decent reasons. Obi-Wan hid out on Tatooine because he swore to look after his best friend’s son. He and Yoda never deserted. They were preparing for the next opportunity to fight back against evil. To train Luke. To bring back the light. Obi-Wan and Yoda saw the naivete in Luke, but they were patient with him. They were not abusive as Like was to Rey. They were not selfish. They didn’t indulge in self-pity.
The many tens of thousands of fans who are sorely disappointed by this mess of a film don’t have a problem with story twists or flawed heroes. They have a problem with people who deliberately toss aside the core elements of Star Wars that people love about it. Make your own saga if you have a statement to make. And stop trying to defend deeply flawed filmmaking by telling the rest of us that it’s for our own good. Remember what Luke said about hubris?
@Lisamarie
“But I think for some people it’s very either/or and many react poorly to pedestals being shattered – if you’re not perfect, you’re a hopelessly flawed, useless thing and so we should burn it all down.”
This is possibly the single most insightful comment about both the movie and the fans. Many can’t accept Luke making a mistake (either in deciding, at first, to kill Ben or in eventually deciding to abandon the fight). Ben can’t accept both his father (I can’t imagine having a legend for a father) and his mentor making mistakes (“Kill the past” he says).
We, or at least the fans that hate what was written about Luke, are Kylo Ren.
Sardinicus@34:
Thank you for bringing up ESB. It is a great thing to help illustrate this point, because the main characters didn’t fail, at all, in their goals throughout the movie.
The Rebellion’s goal: ESCAPE HOTH. They did, largely intact.
Leia, Han and Chewie’s Goal: ESCAPE HOTH. They did. In the middle of this arc, because the villains (especially Boba Fett) were clever, they were recaptured. Then, they escaped in the end, with a casualty. That’s not failure. That’s the cost of success.
Luke’s Goal: Find Yoda, train. He did that, to a degree (obviously to a large enough degree, since he’s still a badass in ROTJ), but then left on what he considered a more important task (one that is key to understand WHO LUKE SKYWALKER IS): Save his friends. Which he did, for the most part. He completed the goal in the beginning of the next movie.
That’s why the movie was so satisfying, and still worked as its own story, rather than just the middle third of a trilogy. In spite of the fact that the larger story of the war against the Empire took a negative turn, and reached its nadir, we still watched our heroes succeed at what they set out to do in that film. The arc for that individual film is still a successful one. For each plot thread, even.
@57 – ArcticDoc: I assure you there are tens of thousands of fans that love this film and think it’s great Star Wars, and hasn’t “deliberately tossed aside the core elements of Star Wars” .
Anthony @@@@@ 59: Thanks for that concise synopsis of ESB. I’ve been struggling a bit when I discuss TLJ with my friends. I for the most part am the only one that didn’t enjoy TLJ and I’ve brought up my dissatisfaction with the multiple failures throughout the movie(doesn’t make for an enjoyable SW movie watching experience!). The comment I’ve usually received is – “That’s just like ESB though – just as many failures and darkness!” For my part, I’ve always enjoyed watching ESB(my fav!) and I walked out of TLJ just feeling sad and underwhelmed. Your summary of ESB helps me understand the differences between TLJ and ESB, so appreciated!
I’m still struggling a bit to process my feelings on TLJ overall and am meaning to write my thoughts down at length at some point(I’ve seen it twice now, and still haven’t found it in myself to enjoy this movie). At the end of the day, I can confidently assert that this movie – to me – did not feel like the fun space romp of a movie I expect when I’m watching a SW movie. My favorite superhero movie is Christoper Reeve’s Superman and so yes – I like the idealistic and hope-filled movies of SW(IV-VI). TLJ(and TFA to a greater extent) feel like they’re movies that are trying to be subversive, edgy and trope-busting…but that doesn’t do much for me. I understand, but I don’t like it. TLJ may have mentioned the word hope a lot, but it certainly didn’t feel very hopeful.
I came into this new sequel trilogy understanding that the old characters would have to be transitioned from, in favour of the new characters…but the direction the writers chose for the characters to take just made me sad. Han – a failure – gone. Luke – a failure – gone. The sense I’m getting(understanding this is just me!) is that the authors wanted to destroy the old and salt the earth in preparation for new characters and stories. But why spend a whole trilogy deconstructing what some of us loved so much? And even for the new characters…Finn was fantastic in TFA and I loved his arc. In this movie…felt like he took a step back in favor of Rose. Poe was amazing in the little screen time he had in TFA. In this film, felt like he took a step back in favor of Holdo. I’m thinking back to ESB…how would I have felt if Han and Leia failed to such a dramatic extent as Finn & Poe did here? I understand the intent of the writers – they wanted to show the flaws and subsequent maturation of these characters…but gosh, I didn’t enjoy watching it.
And at the end of the day, I think that’s all I can say about this movie. Loved watching Rey and Kylo. Loved seeing Mark Hamill act as Luke(despite my dissatisfaction at Luke’s story as told here). But overall, I did not enjoy watching this movie. And that made me sad, because I truly do love Star Wars as a whole.
Fantastic article as always, I can reconcile so much more about the movie after reading your stuff. My question: couldn’t they have achieved all of this just fine if Luke had actually been there and been given his one badass moment TOO? It would have been a good payoff for all of the feints leading up to it instead of yet another feint…
I don’t think so, Thomas. What’s great to me about Luke’s badass moment is that he finds the way to do it without actually breaking his self-exile or engaging in another violent fight.
@59: ‘For the most part’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting. ‘Luke saved his friends’ does not really scan for me; he ran off to Bespin and ended up having to be saved by his friends. It was Lando and his guilty conscience that saved Leia and Chewbacca. Luke was a liability to their escape–they had to turn around to pick him up!
I feel like people are giving excessive credit (and benefit of doubt) to the old movies and the characters within them here, and not enough to the new. Sure, Finn and Rose’s plan didn’t work–but ultimately it’s DJ who betrays them, just like Lando betrays Han. Should they have been more alert to this? Maybe, but Han was aware that Lando might not be happy to see him too. That Lando turned out okay in the end is hindsight for us. Obviously there is meta-commentary going on here–part of why Finn and Rose accept help from DJ is that they are as aware as we are of the trope of the scoundrel with a heart of gold, just like Rey is aware of how Luke Skywalker turned Darth Vader.
Hm, I wonder if Luke ever got reprimanded for running off on a personal religious pilgrimage with Alliance military equipment, then ditching it in an Imperial-occupied city?
Regarding Luke’s approach to Vader vs his approach to Ren, I think it’s important to remember you can’t save someone just by wanting them to be saved. Luke’s love and compassion didn’t save Anakin, they gave Anakin an opportunity to choose to turn back to the light. Rey’s compassion gave Ben a chance to choose but could not save him without his willingness to turn from the dark side.
Being compassionate enough to give someone a chance at redemption is heroic; refusing to see the person has made their choices and aren’t going to change is either foolishness or a coping mechanism.
I always kinda wondered about Luke going AWOL in ESB, myself :)
@64:
If Luke doesn’t return to spring the trap Lando doesn’t get the opportunity to free them. He went to help his friends. His goal was that they live. They did. Goal achieved, if not through his own effort, then through choosing to do the right thing, or the thing he felt was most important. Sometimes showing up is the hardest thing to do, and the only thing truly necessary. If there’s one thing that being a parent has taught me, its that.
@66:
Even if we accept that Luke knew Ben was beyond redemption (which I can), that doesn’t have anything to do with hiding instead of taking responsibility to clean up what he viewed as his own mess. The vast majority of NORMAL people in our world take responsibility like that when they are aware of it. Certainly in the big things. Certainly the ones I respect.
How is Luke normal? How can we expect him not to run away from his own mess? He was raised by two people who claimed to be his relatives, lied about his heritage, lied to by Kenobi and Yoda, lost his adoptive parents, destroyed a space station full of people, learned his true father was a genocidal maniac, etc. In between trilogies, he learned that the Jedi Order he was told were innocent heroes slaughtered by the Sith had allowed Darth Sidious to rise to power, and probably learned that they took children from their families at a very early age and forbid them to ever have contact with them.
Even then, he tried to rebuild the order. After his failure with Ben and the death of most of his students, and the defection of the rest, it’s no wonder he withdrew from the galaxy at large and the Force, fearing his interference would make things even worse.
As someone who will be unable to see the movie until the video release, I will blame the new crop of Star Wars movies for only one thing:
Souring me up entirely on the “old timers” Star Wars fandom. Bitter, cynical—everything its heroes are not meant to be.
Even articles that try to have a nuanced discussion inevitably attract the kind of comments I see under this article (essentially: the enlightened haters who accuse non-haters of acting haughty while they themselves do a-plenty of Enlightened Judgement From Ivory Τhrones).
I’ve just gone through 15 years of people telling me that I should have hated Episodes 1 and 2 despite any qualities they might have had (liking them despite their flaws is apparently the Wrong Way™). Now I have to go through months of people telling me I need to hate the new movies, before I have even had the occasion to see them. At this point I almost want to like the movie just to spite the Negativity Squad.
Oh, and Disney: apparently you guys were supposed to send me a fat cheque for not adding my voice to the Bile Concert. There seems to have been a mishap somewhere because I haven’t seen any cheque show up in my mailbox.
@70 There’s article around pointing out that Luke is showing pretty classic signs of major depression. Some level of ghosting isn’t too uncommon a reaction to depression and/or trauma. Though a forgotten planet is a tad extreme.
Too bad we can’t get a visit from ghost!Yoda as an instant remedy. Though like his father before him, he didn’t have to stay better for long.
@70:
I didn’t say Luke was normal. The implication of my comment (I didn’t think it was subtle) was that he has proven himself to be extraordinary (far beyond any Force powers, in areas like compassion and seeking true justice), and that most of those who aren’t extraordinary, and are just normal, don’t run away and hide from things they consider to be their responsibilities. I’m saying that I do not believe that to be in character, and as I said in @12, the information we are given in The Last Jedi regarding what happened doesn’t lend sufficient motivation for the Luke of ROTJ to abandon the entire universe. You may not agree, the reasoning may be sufficient for you, but I don’t see how my opinion on the subject is unreasonable.
I’m not someone going around trashing the movie. There are some things I didn’t like about the story, there are some things I didn’t like about the plot, and there are some things I didn’t like about the execution. I’ve expressed what those are and why. At some point, it just comes down to preferences.
I believe it’s completely in character, and I’m not the only one. Like you said, it comes down to preferences, I guess.
@58/Les
Exactly, and thanks for highlighting it from LisaMarie’s earlier long post. I remain baffled at the Simpsons Comic Book Guy Dichotomy that everything has to be the best ever or worst ever, even as folks here (looking at you @46) paraphrase that trope nearly verbatim.
To go heavy here for a moment: I don’t think the fact that that “Jedi” has been adopted as a semi-serious religious identity in some quarters and the fact that the most virulent negative reactions to this film feel like cries of Blasphemy! are completely unrelated. Given that level of pre-existing audience investment a filmmaker basically has two choices: slavish adherence to dogma or fearless disregard of it. We could look at The Last Temptation of Christ as a parallel example; how many people could never see beyond the departures from dogma (“that’s not my Jesus!”) to see the actual movie Scorsese made. The whole point that Emily tried to make in the original post (that others have derided her for) is that the gut-level response of “that’s not my Luke!” may not actually be supported by the texts.
@59/Anthony, @61/Son
If meeting the goals of “escape” and “train” are the successes of ESB, they are equally present here. At the end of ESB, Luke is shattered, Han is captured, and the Rebels are on the run, Lando is just beginning to atone for his betrayal. ESB remains a superior movie in nearly all ways, but the happy/sad balance isn’t a reason why.
I also don’t think calling Luke a “failure” here is fair; he was at least as successful at aiding the mission (escape again) as well as passing the torch as Obi-Wan was in the original film — note that the conclusion of Obi-Wan’s fight with Vader is explicitly echoed here.
Your thoughts may exactly be what Rian had in mind for Luke. Even if it’s not, I’m sure Hamill was not at all satisfied with his character in TLJ.
“I pretty much fundamentally disagree with every choice you’ve made for this character,” Hamill told Johnson during shooting of the film, the actor recounted in a May interview in Vanity Fair.
@76:
The main cast’s arc failures (Poe, Finn, and to a lesser degree, because Luke kind of showed up in the end, Rey) are not related to the questions regarding Luke’s choices before the new trilogy, at least in my mind.
I’ve already said what I considered to be ESBs main throughlines, but I guess I haven’t said what I thought TLJs were, so I’ll do that for completeness I guess. Its worth noting, that like with ESB, these are plot arcs I’m talking about. Not character arcs or the development of theme, or what some people refer to as story.
Rey: Get Luke Skywalker to come back with her (Partial Fail, although, he did show up in the end, so, partial win as well.)
Poe: Overthrow the crazy, perhaps traitorous Admiral and save the Resistance. (Well, his mutiny failed when Leia shut it down, and he got most of the resistance killed in the process, so Fail)
Finn: Get the Master Coder, sneak on to Snoke’s ship, shut down the tracker thing-a-ma-jig, escape, save the Resistance. (Failed to get the Master Coder, got Del Toro’s character instead, then got captured on Snoke’s ship without shutting the tracker down, and the person they brought betrayed them and 90% of the rest of the resistance died.)
I actually didn’t mind Poe’s arc at all. Having one arc like that can work for me. Having all three arcs be like that I found to be a bit much. This is a separate issue from Luke. What I didn’t like about Luke’s story all happened before the events of the movie. I LOVED what happened with Luke during the movie. I LOVED that Rey said ‘screw that bitter old man’ and stole the Jedi books and left him there. That whole thing worked for me. It was just the set up for why Luke was on the island I found to be a big disappointment, for the reasons I’ve already listed.
EDIT: I forgot to address the “happy/sad” part of your comment. I don’t know where you got that from, but I wasn’t talking “happy/sad” I was talking “success/failure”, which is completely different. Sometimes success can be unhappy and painful, like in ESB. But its still success, which displays competence, which is an attractive quality in a character. See Sanderson’s sliding scale of how to make characters sympathetic. Poe and Finn, especially, are completely unsympathetic in this film. It may work in the context of the larger trilogy, but for me, it didn’t work in this film taken on its own.
@73/Anthony Pero: The cynic in me wants to dismiss your notion as pollyannish, and the scholar want to ask you to cite sources, but I thought you deserved a more constructive suggestion: you should consider whether you are severely underestimating the propensity of people to rationalize away unpleasant responsibilities, especially in the face of trauma.
Moreover, in the context of the whole story, Luke’s withdrawal isn’t so much a personality shift as a crisis of confidence. Not only is that a perfectly believable reaction for any human (normal or extraordinary), but it’s a very common element of the Hero’s Journey. It baffles me that so many seem intent on viewing this aspect of the story as a deal-breaker when it’s not only believable psychology but more importantly is a trope that is perfectly consistent with his role throughout the saga.
#78 — Thanks for highlighting one of the issues I have with the movie, which is too many characters, too many arcs.
I think we could’ve done without the casino planet and hacker story line (sorry, Finn and Rose) and concentrated more on Luke and Rey. But for goodness sake, if you’re going to have a prolonged chase in Star Wars, make it a fast and wild one, not slow and in a straight line. Just imagine all the exotic locales we could’ve seen had the chase been done via hyperspace, skipping around the galaxy, trying to lose the First Order.
Sigh…
@46 – The worst star wars movie ever made! I was so disappointed when I left the theater I wanted my money back. Luke should have been a kick ass Jedi master more powerful than Yoda and it should have been showcased!!!!
You seem to have missed the bit where Luke force projected himself across lightyears of space and made that projection visible to many people, including droids, then took on the first order allowing the others to escape… all without killing a single individual. I don’t recall yoda doing anything like that. To me what he did was the definition of kick-ass Jedi master. He surpassed what yoda taught him and what his force ghost reminded him of: “We are what they grow beyond. That is the burden of all masters.”
Luke has always been my Star Wars hero, from the moment that he was an angry, frustrated young man who wasn’t allowed to hang out with his mates, who turned around and was kind to droids. That compassion/kindness was the heart of why I loved the character.
One of my thoughts about why he sealed himself away was that, after the moment when Ben burned down the temple and slaughtered his fellow students, Luke must have known that, if people came looking for him, it would almost certainly be to ask him to kill his nephew. And maybe he just didn’t want to kill his nephew. You just know he fed Ben his first colourful milk, and played the equivalent of this little piggy goes to market with his chubby baby toes and probably taught him how to drive a manual landspeeder, bunny hopping across the countryside. And he just – didn’t want to have to kill his nephew.
Not a terrified instinctive reaction to falling into the darkness in Ben’s head, but a cold-blooded choice to kill Ben because he was evil and had done terrible things. Maybe Luke ran because he was rejecting the role of Ben’s executioner.
@45
<I>the unwillingness to come to grips with how incredibly awkward the dialogue in this movie is.</I>
Oh come on, it’s a Star Wars film. If you weren’t willing to hand wave awkward dialogue, you wouldn’t be a fan (What was it Harrison Ford said to George Lucas? “You can type this shit, but you can’t say it”?).
And none of it was as bad as Anakin’s Thoughts On Sand.
Thats nice and all. The whole ‘flawed’ hero thing. But where are Rey’s flaws ? You can’t give me all this ‘realistic human and hero’ crap and then make Rey to be the perfect human alive. She says in TLJ that she is afraid. But is she really? because she is good in EVERYTHING she does. She is better in the Force than Kylo and Luke (without training AT ALL).
She has 0 fear of going to the dark side. She is never tempted. She sees father-figure Han Solo DIE in front of her eyes. KILLED by Kylo. She does’t care. No anger, nothing. Then the guy that KILLED Han Solo tells her that the family she has waited for sinds her childhood are dead, and are a bunch of nobodies. again, NOTHING. No fear, no anger, no sadness. Nothing. She is ALL PERFECT. She should have joined the dark side 10000 times by now. She hasnt had control over her emotions because she was never trained to shut those emotions down. But for some reason in these movies, she does. She has complete controle over everthing. She should have joined Kylo right there and then. How can Anakin change to the Dark Side so fast and easy and Rey be so amazing she is untouchable? It just doesnt make sense. Nothing does. You can write 100000 essays about Luke, all you want. But if you apply the same logic to any other character, it all falls apart. I have seen countless of essays and comment trying to justify this movie, and non manage to succeed. This movie is an assault on Star Wars and its fans.
Best article yet that I’ve read on TLJ and Luke. It nails so many good points. Luke will always be my hero, as he has been since I first met him at a drive-thru theater in the 70’s, and I will never not cry at least a little at the end of TLJ.
Great article! I too have always loved Luke Skywalker, and I still loved him in this movie. I understand why many people did not, but I have always thought that Luke would walk a path like this. I thought many of the old novels (the now defunct expanded universe) gave us a Luke a bit too powerful and perfect at times, one who made mistakes but still got his happy ending with a wife and kids. This vision of Luke fits much better into what I was expecting, and I thought Mark Hamill was fantastic.
One thing I really noticed when I saw it a second time were Yoda’s words to Luke. Pass on what you have learned, Yoda said – both your strengths and your weaknesses. That is part of Luke’s tragedy: he did not learn from his failures, and he did not pass them on to his students. He thought he could pass on the strength of the Jedi, but he did not acknowledge their weaknesses until it was too late. And so he spends a great deal of his time with Rey hammering home the point: Jedi hubris brought about their downfall, brought about his downfall. The Force does not belong to the Jedi. The light survives, always.
Which brings me to the thing about this movie that I didn’t like, and which surprised me: Rey. I would be interested in an article from you on Rey and where her character might be heading in the final film. There were points in this film where I thought she was being rash and impulsive–much like Luke–and making bad decisions. And yet for her, it all worked out. For Luke, it did not: he rushed to Cloud City only to battle Darth Vader, lose his hand, and learn that Vader was his father. Rey, on the other hand, triumphs completely: she fights Snoke’s guards at Ren’s back and survives, rejects him and escapes, finds the Resistance and saves the day not once with Chewbacca and the Falcon, but again with the rocks and the Force. She’s being set up as the perfect hero Luke was set up to be. I’m not sure I understand the narrative point: it contradicts Luke’s fate, that heroes are people who make mistakes and suffer the consequences. I love that Rey is strong and brave and loyal, but I think I’d like to see a less perfect hero in her coming story. Or maybe that is the point: Rey learns from Luke’s mistakes and becomes the perfect hero? I’m not sure, and I can’t wait to see where they take her either way. As well as Finn and Poe and their story arcs as well.
Thank you for this article, I hope you write more!
Apparently Rey doesn’t actually have to learn anything. She’s already perfect.
Nicely argued, but I’ll have to disagree. Frankly the Luke we encounter has an unrecognisable psychology from the young man we were introduced to. Now it’s certainly possible that a traumatic event could damage his mentality, or skew it, the underlying personality wouldn’t be utterly vanquished except by some extraordinary intervention.
The world is full of ‘heroes’ who are made by disaster, just as several fall from grace.
However the basis for his mental surety is incredibly well founded; well that is, if, unlike in this and several similar pieces, you don’t simply poo poo everything the Jedi ever stood for. Frankly a typical Jedi could go hang out with the Dalai Llama and feel completely at home; and the last time I checked the Dalai Llama was a pretty good chap.
Yoda doesn’t say everything the Jedi stood for was garbage, only that all philosophies must be open to evolution. Yoda is still teaching Luke, and Yoda is the archetypal compassionate Jedi if there ever was one. So, Yoda is consistent; still wise, still on the ball, and all about compassion. He also wasn’t a little bit wrong about what would lead to Anakin’s fall, he simply had faith he would do the right thing; which belatedly, he did.
So we have a philosophy akin to one we know, through meditation and the value for reason over passion, is a success in ‘real life’ tests. We have an adherent who has access to this, as well as an innate need to help and protect; to learn from his mistakes.
Luke is not the sort of bad workman who blames his tools.
That he would simply fall away and give up, is thus very hard to swallow. That he would consider his life’s beliefs junk, is unbelievable. Damaged, yes, but destroyed? I think not.
As to his mentors not being heroic, Obi-Wan isn’t heroic? I know it’s somewhat popular to knock the dude that loved Anakin to the point of being unable to believe him capable of falling. The dude who trusted in the Force to simply wait to see if Luke would come in his way, rather than forcing a hard way of life on him. The dude who sacrificed his own life to save his friends. What an absolute horror.
Frankly Luke had good examples to follow, Yoda has essentially evolved his philosophy beyond the initial Jedi beliefs before we meet him.
Luke would, knowing the serenity of the force, of its truth, never simply give in. He would retreat, re-centre himself, trust the force, and start again. He would learn, and evolve, just as he’d been taught to.
(It’s also of note that Mark Hamill thought the Luke arc was terrible. He the man who created the role, who inhabited his thinking, felt it was simply silly. To poo-poo that is simply bizarre.)
Luke Skywalker isn’t meant to be nice; he’s meant to be a Jedi.
@84 – in the old EU one of his nephews his killed in a galactic invasion, Luke’s wife is murdered by his other nephew, and almost corrupts his son, and then later his niece has to kill him. I really don’t think Luke got any kind of undeserved happy ending in any of the canons. And even if he did, so what? Why begrudge him that, assuming that it comes with a good amount of narrative struggle/tension and character development?
@85 – good thoughts although I’m still a bit more optimistic, I guess. As for Rey, we’ll have to see where she is going. To me she seemed quite upset by the various revelations, but being young, is just soldiering on and perhaps not dealing with it head on at the moment. And her quest really didn’t succeed at all – her goal was to turn Kylo back to the light, and it didn’t work, and she really only escaped due to Holdo happening to blow the ship apart. Plus she was forced to face the truth she knew inside that she never truly wanted to acknowledge.
I don’t begrudge her being powerful or a quick learner – so were Anakin and Luke in their day, and I do wonder if the Force nudges certain people along. But why should Anakin be able to build a droid or be an expert pilot after growing up in a junk shop? Why should Luke be a brilliant pilot after living on Tatooine and ultimately hold his own against Vader after just a few days/weeks of formal training? (I also didn’t view her as beating Luke at all – I’m pretty sure it was kind of like what Tony Stark tells Spider-Man – if Cap had wanted to lay him out, he would have. Luke had the finesse to keep himself levitated against the ground – but I’m confident that – especially what we see in his duel with Kylo – had he wanted to, he could have destroyed her. He was holding back, where Rey was coming from a place of anger/passion which could have also been fueling her a little bit). But at any rate, I am fine with un-cynically just letting her be awesome and have her day in the sun, like Luke and Han and Leia were back in the day. Heroes make mistakes but that doesn’t mean everything has to go to crap all the time. Sometimes they win. And usually, that’s who stories are told about – the extraordinary ones. Sure, if I were in their place, I’d screw up all the time and be dead, bu then nobody would want to tell a story about that ;) At least not one where I’m the main character.
Which is not to say I wouldn’t like to delve a little more into this – her struggles with the dark side, etc. And I really wish we HAD gone into Rey really learning more of these lessons from Luke and some indication that she had really internalized all of this. But Rey is still young and optimistic and fired up about her newfound place in the galaxy, so it makes sense that she just hasn’t felt the crush of years and disappointments like Luke has. Luke can’t really be the hero everybody needs right now (at least not completely – obviously the ending of his arc shows that he eventually realizes he still can be heroic and why that is needed, and the importance of passing that role on) but right now Rey can. Probably at some point Rey will also need to pass this on. If we ever get a trilogy with middle aged Rey, perhaps we’ll see that ;) I do think how they end this will be interesting, and I wonder what kind of tone they will go for, given that we know how tenuous and fleeting a victory for the light can be.
Also after 30 years of hard experiences, people can change.
Forest moon of Endor*
Sorry… Had to.
Several commenters have cited Mark Hamill’s early comments decrying Luke’s arc in TLJ, but I suggest that they go read the article Emily linked right there in the fourth paragraph: Hamill himself came around to appreciate the final film. Appeal to Authority is a fallacious argument, cherry-picking on top of it only compounds the problem.
Similarly to @89/Lisamarie, I think Rey’s situation at this point very much aligns with Luke’s situation midway through ESB (i.e. immediately following the Battle of Hoth) as well as Anakin’s at the end of TPM. In fact, I’d say their three character arcs appear to be following an important progression. Anakin wanted to become a Jedi as a path to address his pain and insecurity, but the fundamental selfishness of his attitude proved disastrous. Luke wanted to restore the Jedi Order for more altruistic reasons, to help heal the galaxy, but that path also failed as he was building upon a flawed foundation. Rey does not seem driven to be a Jedi at all—recall that she goes to Ahch-To not for Jedi training but to bring Luke back—but rather she simply wants to do whatever she can to help the Resistance; because she is not attached to the concept of being Jedi, she is perhaps the best-equipped of these three to actually carry forth the ideals the Jedi were meant to uphold. Luke’s path over the last third of TLJ is about preparing her, and the Resistance, to be in a position to forge her path on her own terms; that neither Luke nor Rey appear to be Jedi in the same way we’ve seen in previous films is sort of the point.
@PatrickH
There’s a third possibility too, which is the one I came away with – Kylo Ren could be redeemed, but not by Luke. On some level, Luke may have even known that and declared him “unredeemable,” but towards the end he was still able to approach him compassionately enough to teach him one final lesson – that he can’t escape the people he loves, even if he tries to destroy them.
Luke not being able to save him doesn’t mean no one can. It’s possible that Rey could… or even Leia… or both of them together. They’ve made it pretty clear that the way to Ren isn’t “the light” per se, but love. Love of his mother, and, if the story arc continues as it’s started, love of Rey. Leia even suggests something similar when she tells Han that he can reach Ren in a way that Luke can’t. All along they’ve hinted that Ren’s attachment to those he loves is the thing that confuses him about light versus dark.
Thankyou.
Excellent, insightful article.
Absolutely Fantastic.
The idea of heroes being people is easily seen in the original trilogy. Anakin became a villain for Luke in the same trilogy, but at the end of Return of the Jedi, he became a hero. That’s why Anakin’s ghost appears before Luke with Yoda’s and Obi Wan’s.
If Luke is supposed to be compassionate in superhuman terms, then this contradicts the point that heroes are people. It also makes Luke’s behavior towards Ben and others in the latest film bizarre.
@87 That is because she is actually a Vulcan that has been transported from the Star Trek universe into the Star Wars universe. As we know Vulcan’s have no emotions, no fear, no hate. Its what makes her a perfect Jedi :)
I think that the key to understanding Luke’s decision to withdraw himself and cut himself off from the Force entirely is that he does see himself as responsible for what happened to Ben and his students, but he projects a broader weight of responsibility from that. If the Jedi are the legend, but what the Jedi actually were gets read as actively harmful (as Luke reads the Order when we first meet him here), then the legend is a source of harm. Luke tries to train a better Order, including his own nephew, but when his powers foresee what Ben would become he has a moment of weakness which makes him responsible for what he foresaw.
Why run away at this point? Why withdraw when it was his fault? Because he believes that Jedi Master saves the Galaxy is a fairy tale, and worse, a fairy tale that actively endangers the Galaxy. When evil overlords keep treating your paladin academy as a great spot to pick up evil apprentices, you know there’s something wrong. So, within Luke’s reasoning, the legend of the Jedi does harm because people trust and expect these flawed heroes to save them. It’s up to others, non-Jedi, to save the Galaxy, because if the Jedi keep meddling they keep making things worse, and if other people argue otherwise it’s just because they bought into the legend.
But of course, that’s an incomplete reason, a rationalization. Luke’s real problem is that unlike last time, this time he blames himself, sees himself as the cause of what happened. Luke didn’t create Vader, but he did create Ren (or so he believes). He failed his students, who turned or died (he believes). He failed his friends and his sister. Clearly, he was ashamed even to confront Leia about what happened to her son. She trusted him, and he created a monster as surely as Palpatine did. The lie in his rationalizations becomes obvious when you consider that he has completely cut himself off from the Force. Yoda didn’t, and he was perfectly capable of hiding from Palpatine and Vader, as was Obi-Wan, who Vader only detected when they were in close proximity. Luke’s far away in a hidden system, with a strong Light/Dark Force balance like the one that may have helped Yoda hide. He cuts himself off because he’s cut himself off from the people he cares about, who care about him, because he failed them and he’s ashamed. He cuts himself off because he feels betrayed by the Force, like it’s another legend that he himself bought into that turns out to be treacherous. Despite that, his compassion is still evident-compare how Rey relates to the island custodians and how Luke is implied to have related to them. He’s obviously been polite, even kind, to the local custodians, even though he’s cut himself off from what he cares about.
His learning, his plot arc in the film, is in realizing that even in the areas where he had been right, he’d reacted wrongly. His failure, the thing which shattered him and left him withdrawn, isn’t really what he did wrong. (It’s the kind of failure he’s committed before, like in the cave in ESB.) His real failure was in his response to failing. He had reasons, reasons which aren’t that hard to find valid, but they didn’t really drive him away. Underlying it all is his rejection of the relationship he had with Ben, his nephew-apprentice-failure. Part of why he reacts so strongly to the sight of Rey about to take Ren’s hand is that he himself violently rejected Ben; he still is. But as we see later, Rey taking Ren’s hand needn’t mean that she embraces the Dark Side. In his death, Luke intimately associates himself again with Ben, not as a friend or a redeemer, but as the kind of familial figure or mentor who disagrees with abusive or bad behavior. He tells him “no,” he apologizes for failing him, and he dashes aside Ben’s own rationalizations and delusions. Part of the power in that moment in the film is that Luke was still capable of becoming like Ben did. Kylo Ren has cut himself off from everyone except for Rey and (maybe) Leia, and seems determined to destroy his past. But that, in effect, is the mistake Luke made by withdrawing, and the mistake he’s correcting by embracing his role as legend: saving the Resistance, saving his sister and his apprentice, standing as symbol for the entire galaxy as one man standing against the First Order and saying “no.”
It’s the Tiananmen Square protest moment, one man standing in front of a tank and halting it. If the man had been a kick-ass warrior who could have cut the tank to bits with a lasersword, the moment loses its symbolic power. By resisting in the way he did, Luke sets a corrected example: he isn’t the lone hero, the one Jedi Master who can save the Galaxy. He’s an example to live up to. Everyone has the Force, if they open themselves up to it, and everyone can resist the First Order by saving what they love.
This is a gorgeous and so well written post about one of my favourite characters (in the SW universe but not only). It also explains why I was not disappointed with this new installment and this depiction of this older version of Luke, why I didn’t feel like it betrayed Luke’s character. Thank you :)
Thank you. I enjoyed a lot this.
THESE ARE NOT THE MISTAKES LUKE SHOULD MAKE.
Luke rushed headon from a nowhere planet to protect his friends.
Now Luke rushes headlong TO a nowhere planet in order to NOT protect his friends?
Is this the bizarro Luke?
Luke was a lot of things: unstable, too dependant on friends for approval, reckless
Give me Luke causing huge harm by making his mistakes anytime. It would be fun.
………….
Second, if Luke Skywalker is stating that this universe is not worth the effort, I kept wonder why did I make the effort of going to the movie? If not even Luke Skywalker doesn’t care about the fate of his friends anymore, why should I even care?
One hour of the movie is working very hard to get me used to the idea that is good to not care about this universe.
The other half hour is showing me that the rebels can do only useless and/or self damaging actions. And that they have no friends in the galaxy. And that they don’t even know how to communicate between themselves. And then when they catch a break on casino, they release the animals and let the children slaves. Wait, should I care about the morals of this people? because I don’t. And when one of them tries something to save the others, another placates him. And in the end they wait helplesly to be murdered like mice, depending on the sweet prince mad hermit to buy them 10 minutes and sweet princess rey to save them with her ship, because they don’t have not even one. Why should I actually even be interested to watch this? there is no reason. humor was better in antman, action is better in Jumanji.
Rian Johnson made a Star Wars franchise killer.
@101:
The whole point of the Luke arc in Last Jedi is that he was wrong. He starts out thinking the Jedi should end, and finishes up declaring (in triumph) that he will NOT be the last Jedi. Fair enough if you think that the arc was massively out of character and that nothing could possibly have happened in 30 years to change Luke this much; we must agree to disagree. You may see this scenario differently in 2048.
What I find so interesting about The Last Jedi is that it places character decisions, both within this film and in earlier films, in a context where it isn’t obvious what the “right” choice happens to be. Rey and Ren both see visions of the same future and both interpret those visions according to their preconceptions: they fight together without either coming over to the other’s side. But it’s that out-of-character moment for Luke that’s the most interesting. If Luke had killed Ben, would that have prevented all of the other terrible things from happening? If Luke hadn’t been tempted but Ben had still turned, would he have felt equally responsible (because he had a chance to stop him and he failed)? Was Luke right to go to Cloud City? Presumably, the answer is yes, and things certainly seemed to work out. But if the Han-Leia relationship fell apart and their son has turned into a monster, would it have been better for the whole galaxy if he’d been left hanging on a wall in Jabba’s Palace?
There’s an extra layer of irony here, because older Luke isn’t thinking on the scale of rescuing a few friends and ignoring the consequences to the larger fight: all his early conversations in this movie are about myth, historical scope, the big picture. And clearly, part of the reason for that is his further insight into the Force, which binds together everything in the galaxy. It’s that insight that precipitates the crisis: a non-Master Luke who only thinks about his friends would have gone to Han and Leia for help with Ben. Jedi Master Luke sees too broadly to accept that course of action. The irony is that he’s seeing the big picture but also being misled by it. He perceives a false dichotomy, perhaps the same one that Yoda saw when warning him not to fall into Vader’s trap: you can either save the galaxy or save a few people. When he sees the consequences, he reacts impulsively, continuing to accept that same dichotomy: clearly, Master Luke Skywalker isn’t the hero people think him to be, and fighting will only make things worse. And he ends up emulating Yoda, going into exile following his failure, though beyond his hope he ends up emulating Yoda as teacher, too.
He departs from that pattern after his conversation with Force Yoda (I’m not convinced “Force ghost” is quite right anymore as a description). Yoda stays in exile and becomes one with the Force, but he doesn’t intervene directly in events. Luke cleverly splits the middle, staying in exile, becoming one with the Force, but intervening directly despite that. He collapses the dichotomy, though under circumstances where that’s easy enough to do: saving these few people IS saving the galaxy. And dying in exile means becoming one with everyone in the Force. Luke is with Rey, and Ren, yes, but he’s with that slave as well. He’s taken his last step into a larger world.
@98, I wanted to say, I enjoyed your comment, especially this: “Kylo Ren has cut himself off from everyone except for Rey and (maybe) Leia, and seems determined to destroy his past. But that, in effect, is the mistake Luke made by withdrawing, and the mistake he’s correcting by embracing his role as legend: saving the Resistance, saving his sister and his apprentice, standing as symbol for the entire galaxy as one man standing against the First Order and saying “no.”” – while watching the movie, I also noticed that both Yoda and Kylo Ren basically have the same advice: let go of the past. But one of them means it in a much more constructive and healthy way (still acknowledge it and learn from it) wheras the other is just running from things, being reactive and destructive and in a way, still ironically in thrall to it.
Also, I noticed your little byline Emily: “Emmet Asher-Perrin is apparently not done crying over Luke Skywalker yet. (She’s kidding, she will never be done crying.)”
Well, at least I’m in good company and not a total dweeb ;) I thought maybe I was done, but I listened to the soundtrack again and…well, I’m not done. I’m basically a goner once ‘The Spark’ comes on and Luke and Leia’s theme plays, and then that arrangement when Luke marches out to meet him. ‘Old Friends’ also tends to really get me – Luke’s theme playing in a jaunty/youthful rendition, Leia’s theme for the holgram. A cheap move, indeed :P
Since seeing the first film back in ’78 I’ve felt much the same way about this character. And the film left me with mixed feelings. It makes me wonder – Luke saw that his nephew was probably going to go really, really bad. And in a moment of weakness, he was going to murder his nephew in his sleep.
What?
That’s not mentioning the fact that, after he wakes up, I don’t see how he can’t realise that what he did probably pushed Ben Solo over the edge, and fully into the Dark Side. Essentially, what he did was the catalyst. So, he completely abdicates any responsibility, decides he’ll just let everyone else fix it, and go off somewhere to dwell on the idea that it’s the Jedi’s hubris that all this happened and not even care enough about what he may have unleashed on the universe to see if his family is okay (“Where’s Han?”).
Uhhhh…..sure? I guess?
Yeah, people can change. Of course. But they decided that, in this case, Luke changed into a selfish jerk who doesn’t care about anyone else in the galaxy and wants to live out the rest of his life in emo angst, and who cares what happens to anyone else. And after getting the news that his nephew, who he likely gave the final push to the dark side, just murdered his brother-in-law, he spends about zero time grieving over it. Heck, he spent more time grieving over someone he knew for like, 2-3 days (“I can’t believe he’s gone.”).
I completely agree that what they depicted in the film is *possible*. I’m just having a hard time believing it’s *probable*.
@Narsham
It’s not so easy for someone to change. I agree that people can change.
But to change exactly 180 degrees, not more, nor less… that must be some kind of a miracle! I would like to witness that! But there is nothing in the movie to support your theory. It just shows Luke in the past for one minute and he looks exactly as unhinged as on the island.
Look, an alternative: Luke hiding as a miner in some asteroid mining team. He is still dependent of his group and likes facing danger, but nobody knows he is Luke. He only cuts away from the force, so he can’t be found. Or as a slave, somewhere, willingly, in a group he could help.
Please don’t write fan fiction – everything indicates that the director was a contrarian. Plus, you know, if Rian Johnson finds out about your theory he will go out of his way to prove that
Well written indeed.
Thank you for putting into words what I felt after seeing The Last Jedi.
I loved this movie; as did my three children. As did the audience. It had been a long time since I had been at a movie where people cheered, clapped, & applauded during the end credits.
Luke was ‘my hero’ as well. My favorite character in the entire Star Wars franchise.
I was 9 when Star Wars came out and so Luke appealed to me no end.
It wasn’t until the end of this movie that I figured out how much Luke meant to me.
So drawn in at the end that I didn’t let myself ask how he was doing all that to goad Kylo R(B)en into a fit to rival King Lear himself.
The scene ended and he rests on that rock on Ahch-to and I think “It is all good. He’s safe. ‘My’ hero is safe.” Then that damnable music, that haunting, gorgeous music started and I knew that ‘my’ hero was gone.
A truly epic final curtain call befitting a true Jedi knight & master.
Kato
12 parsecs
I LOVE this article. It perfectly expresses what I’ve always wanted to say to those who don’t like TLJ. I loved the movie. I loved that it wasn’t just another rehash of the same old plot and themes.
Another effort to clear the air is appreciated. I grow weary of supposed fans and their preconceived notions of how “things should be!”
Luke is usually summarily dismissed or painted into a corner, and little is made of his incredible sacrifices, unwavering loyalty to his friends or his underlying pain. The BEST thing about Return to the Jedi is Luke’s confrontation with his father. His boyish exuberance is nearly shattered in Star Wars, and his impatience to train is the hallmark of his hubris in The empire Strikes back. Having come full circle he’s now an understandably wraith/curmudgeon when looking back at his mistakes and how they resulted in another sith joining to wreck the rebellion.
I’m not sure what the “fans” wanted. However, I very much appreciate what this film has done for Skywalker and how he resolves to do what he does best, help his friends. It gave me chills. A hero is not who they are are. It is what they do. That sums it up perfectly.
Humans are flawed, but we don’t need a movie to tell us that. We are human we already know. Star Wars depicts our fantasies, what we wish we could do and be. It’s entertainment.
1. Humans should be nice. Many are.
2. Luke is an alien from a planet that is not earth. Is he a human?
3. The writers wanted to make all men fail so woman could be the hero. (Like all new 21st Century heroes must be)
Why does everything have to be dark these day? What’s wrong with having Heroes? Having something someone you can aspire to be like? They’ve ruined Luke as a hero. I just hope the writers don’t decide Rey must be “human” too, and give her the same fate.
I would ask the author of this article if she is a Lord of the Rings fan, or perhaps Harry Potter? The heroes in these books were not assh@les, yet somehow, the stories still seem to resonate with people.
@112, I cannot speak for all fans but what I wanted was a sequel trilogy that didn’t undo EVERY SINGLE THING achieved in the original Trilogy. Talk about reset buttons! Star Wars is like the Worm of Ourboros, win one round, return to start and fight the same damme battles over again with minor variations.
No thanks.
Yeah, well, evil will always exist, so I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, regarding the whole fall of the New Republic, perhaps it will be temporary.
As for Luke Skywalker, he just follows a long line of Zen masters, Tibetan lamas, and European wizards who are cranky, and care nothing for social custom, being well past the point of living for appearances. Perhaps even wanted to teach others that social convention is a secondary concern to kindness.
Evil will always exist, but could we have some variation please? Sith Lords have been DONE.
I posted a review and a separate of this on my blog. I thought the messages in the film were troubling.
https://lelaebuis.wordpress.com/
@114 PrincessRoxana:
“Always after a defeat and a respite,” says Gandalf, “the shadow takes another shape and grows again.”
Sorry…
Didn’t need Luke to be good. Out of everything in The Last Jedi, Luke’s story arc is handled with elegance both in the writing and the acting.
But, damn, remember when these movies were fun?
This new trilogy is a real downer as far as the original characters are concerned. Han and Leia with a failed marriage and a lost child. Han dead. Luke failing to revive the Jedi and a hermit for 20 odd years. Then he dies.
So depressing.
Two safe bets that audiences wanted to see when this new trilogy was announced was seeing the original trio back together – even one scene! – and Luke in a kick-ass action sequence as a fully fledged Jedi Master.
The first movie took away the first one and this one threw away Luke’s showcase scene.
Sigh. Remember when these movies were fun?
Exactly. ANOTHER shape ;) The sequel that Tolkien wrote to LOTR (which he abandoned after a chapter or two) was a much different sort of evil.
Granted, Kylo Ren isn’t exactly the Sith so :)
Honestly, as much as I enjoy the concept of ‘the long defeat’ in literature and movies, and movies that inspire hope in the face of it, I did also feel that Star Wars went a little too far in the ‘reset button’ territory and put the heroes down a few to notches. I still enjoy the new movies, but I wouldn’t have minded something new, or at least still seeing the heroes bounce back a little quicker.
An excellent essay, Emily! Well done!
One thing that has puzzled me since The Force Awakens, which I hoped might be explained in The Last Jedi, and wasn’t: if Luke really didn’t want anyone to find him, why did he leave all those clues? A map, even! Maybe he DID want to be found, by the right person. But we’re never told that.
It’s the same question I have asked about Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone: if Dumbledore really wanted to protect the stone from theft, why did he get the teachers to set up traps that could be overcome – by three first year eleven year olds! Why not just set up a trap only he, and possibly one trusted staff member in case something happens to him, could overcome?
Maybe a case of the author not really thinking, or hoping the readers/viewers wouldn’t notice?
Sweet merciful Qui-Gon, I’m surprised no one (from the article author to any of the 120 comments) mentioned the symbolism in his last scene. Luke falls from his pedestal, then climbs painful back onto it, before assuming a calm repose once he’s placed himself back ontohis pedestal. Rian Johnson is practically slapping the audience with a wet kipper and screaming at them “This is Luke’s character arc!”
I can’t have been the only one to notice?
His final moments are spent gazing off at the horizon, the very thing Yoda chastises him for. Parts of the film were flawed. Many parts would have been different, had I been the one making the decisions. That doesn’t stop me enjoying the artistry in the film.
Limiting myself to just Luke’s part in the film (as that’s what the article does): Luke may have changed, but he still falls for Yoda’s manipulation. “Everything in those books, she possesses.” Well, yes, true from a “certain point of view”, but only because she stole them, and you’ve covered it up by destroying the evidence. And it seems Luke gets taken in by it.
Speaking of a how characters base their truths on “a certain point of view”, a lot of motivations in this film seem to illustrate this. Avoiding straying from the Luke focus, Luke’s view of his confrontation with Ben at the temple is factually the same as Ben’s. They both base their subsequent lives on the “truth” of that encounter, but (from and outsiders’ perspective) both points of view fail to encompass the whole truth, and so both lives are flawed.
Another thing I’m surprised no one mentioned is the image that Luke projects. When he accepts his role as legend, he doesn’t appear as Mad Hermit Luke, or even as Luke, Master of the Jedi Academy. He shows himself to the Resistence, then to Kylo Ren and the First Order, as a Jedi Master in his prime. The barrage of the First Order fails to muss his carefully groomed hair and beard. Which, you’ll note, barely has a touch of grey. No care worn old man here. He looks ten to fifteen years younger. That’s the image he chooses to project. It’s like he stopped off for a quick astral Queer Eye for the Straight Jedi makeover… that’s what he thought the galaxy needed the legend to look like. And he chose a blue lightsaber, not his green. Was it just me or did it look more like Ben Solo’s (from the flashback) than either Obi-Wan’s or Rey’s?
Final thought: it’s always interesting to see how a culture handles aging heroes. Sometimes it does so by ignoring them (and they all loved happily ever after). Sometimes they don’t. I’m just relieved Luke went more gracefully than Jason (of the Argonauts) did.
Wooooah. I had definitely gotten the symbolism of the fact that he appeared as a well groomed, more youthful and more confident Jedi Master, but you’re totally right…where was his green lightsaber????
I’m not good at catching all the hilt details, so I wouldn’t be able to tell you whose ligthsaber it looked like but now I really, really want to know…was this a conscious choice, or just something the filmmakers forgot about? Did he lose his other lightsaber at some point?
Well said but horrifically misguided. I’m sorry to say that the critics are one hundred percent correct. Everything they say is wrong with the movie in general and Luke in particular is true. The difference between them and this movie is that this movie doesn’t believe that evil exists. The idea that the battle between good and evil is frivolous infects every second of this movie. Luke, sorry to tell you, is a man of faith. Aside from being a believer in the force, his entire motivation for the original trilogy was to fight evil like his father. When he learns his father succombed to it, he risks everything on the belief that his father could be saved. Save the father, save the universe. His story is the testing of that faith and it isn’t rewarded until the last possible second.
Look at Luke in TLJ and tell me you see a man who believes in good and evil? No. You see a washed up, bitter, amoral waste. Which, it should be said, mirrors the spirit of the movie itself.
I liked the movie. My 12-year-old daughter, who has also seen all of the Star Wars movies, has now concluded that this is her favorite movie—and not just of the Star Wars movies but her favorite movie of all time! For those who criticize the movie as a boring bad movie, that’s food for thought.
Kylo Ren — My take is that he will not be redeemed. It’s not that he is beyond the power of redemption, but it’s not going to happen. I concluded that when he killed his father. He didn’t even have a good reason to do it other than to become a powerful dark side force master. And his hesitation to kill his mother did not make me think otherwise. He is probably closer to her, has more good memories of her, so killing her is harder. My feelings on that were only confirmed by the battle sequence with Snoke, Rey, and the aftermath. One might ask, “How could Snoke be so wrong?” Because he wasn’t. He was like Deanna Troi, he read Kylo’s emotions like a book. The conflict disappeared and was replaced with resolution. And Kylo was still dark. Snoke was right about all of that. He just didn’t realize that Kylo’s dark ambition would lead him to turn on his master (because he could read his emotions but not his mind).
So maybe Luke knew via his force feelings (but maybe didn’t want to admit or hoped it wasn’t true) that Kylo was probably effectively beyond redemption. Luke’s jedi academy was a failure and served only to be breeding ground for a powerful Sith.
@113/yarnalt: Emily has written a bit about Tolkien and a lot about HP on this very site so it shouldn’t be difficult to get your answer. ;-) But I think the two examples you bring up would seem to bolster the broader point about heroic characters she is trying to make in this essay. Harry was variously reckless, despondent, insufferable, and cruel, often to those closest to him and sometimes disastrously. Frodo tragically failed at the worst possible moment for his task, and disaster was averted to a large degree because a short time before he had stopped being nice and cursed his nemesis; and of course, he was psychologically broken by the whole ordeal and ended up withdrawing from everyone he knew. Both protagonists were overall agents for good despite—and in several instances because of—their less admirable moments.
Looking wider, there’s Katniss Everdeen, John Sheridan, The Doctor, scads of comic-book superheroes…not to mention Robin Hood, Arthur and his various knights, Aeneas, Odysseus, Theseus and undoubtedly many, many others from works and mythological traditions that I’m not familiar with. The idea of a Hero touched by darkness—human foibles, periods of self-loathing/self-doubt, catastrophically poor decisions—is hardly a 21st-centrury trend, it’s been an element of such stories since there’s been such a thing as stories.
Luke Skywalker seems to have had a years-long run of victories with honor, followed by a period of withdrawal after a truly horrible screw-up, but it only took a few days for his protege’s example and a few words from his mentor to snap him out of it—and then he left this mortal coil on his own terms after a significant victory. In the pantheon of literary heroes, then, he actually ends up a lot closer to the above-human-flaws ideal then many commenters may be giving him credit for.
Ppl never really liked Luke to the chagrin of us fans, and this movie only cements that they were probably right. It made me hate that I wasted my time with Star Wars for decades. At this point, there are only 3 really good movies out of endless garbage made only for money, and it’s depressing as he.. But good luck with your thesis.
@Lisamarie – given he’s shown to have a green lightsaber in the flashback, (despite claims shoddy production values to justify their disagreement with the creative choices) I doubt it’s anything other than deliberate. We *could* try to find an answer from someone on the Internet more in tune with lightsaber hilt details, but I really don’t want to start wading through a morass of vitriolic speculation to find it. The commentary on Tor.com has been bad enough! :)
Hopefully someone reading these comments will give us a more authoritative answer.
Given he was doing everything he could in that scene to keep and focus Kylo Ren’s attention on him, my money would be on it being Ben Solo’s.
I actually thought it was his father’s lightsaber, based on the hilt.
The only thing I could think of (assuming it really was Anakin’s lightsaber) was that it was intended to be symbolic and his ‘acceptance’ of being a Jedi again, given that the last time he was presented with a lightsaber he chucked it off a cliff.
But that’s purely a fanwank :)
But you’re right – he did have the green lightsaber in the flashback, I forgot that (even though now that you mention it, I specifically remember geeking out about it). I was also wondering if he perhaps had lost that lightsaber in the attack.
@124, Good and Evil are passe, much too binary as several comments have said.
And here’s the thing, a hero can be human without being a jerk.
luke also says to Leia, about Ben, “I can’t save him,” because he realizes that you can’t save anyone else. You can only save yourself. Ben has to stop choosing evil. That’s the only way he can be saved, and he’s not ready for that yet, if ever.
@126 – regarding Luke having more years of more or less victories; I’d like to think that as well, as you don’t get the impression Kylo’s fall is THAT distant – but on the other hand, Rey literally thinks Luke Skywalker is a myth. Now, this could be due to growing up on Jakku, or just information not being as widespread as we’d think (and maybe that’s kind of playing into the whole theme of heroes trying to live up to impossible legacies).
Although granted people in Star Wars have a short memory anyway, given how in the ANH era people have started to forget the Jedi too.
I enjoyed Star Wars when it came out — when I was 19 — but to me it has always been a lesser creation than Star TREK, because I found lots of inspiration, lessons, and role models in Trek, whereas Star Wars seemed like it was just for fun.
Thanks for writing an article that helps me see that Star Wars also has inspiration, lessons, and role models!
I hate it that we have to say goodbye to Luke but recall Obi Wan’s battle with Darth Vader, Obi saluted with his light saber and allowed Vader to slice right through him…. and that happened very early in the movie. How big an uproar if we had the same emotional investment in the character as we do now. The old has to make way for the new.
Wow, you’re exactly right about the theme. It was even foreshadowed when Rose fan-girled about Finn, only to discover that he was scared and running away.
Apparently, it was Anakin’s lightsaber Luke used in his projection. And he projected a younger image of himself on purpose.
https://io9.gizmodo.com/rian-johnson-perfectly-explains-lukes-appearance-at-the-1821996957
@137 – thanks. :).
@@@@@ LisaMarie – if the green hilt wasn’t destroyed in Ben Solo’s “hulk Smash!”, I’m guessing Luke symbolically broke it (or at least threw it away) as he cut himself off from the Force.
As for people forgetting the Jedi, and thinking them a myth (even in A New Hope): how often does the average US citizen see a US Marshall (or one of their deputies)? There’s only 94 of them (and about 3,400 deputies) for the whole of the US. If you equate Tatooine (or Jakku) with small town rural America, and the US Marshall’s service with the Jedi Order, is it any wonder the Jedi are afforded mythical status?
Added to that is that Tatooine (given Galactic Credits are not accepted there) might not even be part of the Republic / Empire – making it the equivalent of Haiti or Cuba. If it’s outside of the Jedi’s jurisdiction, it makes sense why slavery exists, and why Jabba had been able to deal with the odd Jedi that turned up without significant reprisals.
@116 – princessroxana: Pay attention to TFA and TLJ. There are no Sith in these films.
@119 – OldDarth: I had fun. Your definition and fun and mine, as well as that of others, clearly differ.
@121 – sbursztynski: It’s not a map to Luke, it’s a map to the planet Ach-to, where the original Jedi temple stood. Luke looked for that map, and others found the same thing he was looking for.
@122 – WillMayBeWise: All that about symbolism, and the fact that he stares at twin suns, just like when he began his arc.
@123 – Lisamarie: You might disagree with choices the filmmaker made, but mistakes in choosing which saber Luke for that very symbolic scene, no.
@127 – AJ: Wow, that’s bitter. Dude, you still have those three films. Cling to them, and don’t let what others are certainly enjoying ruin your life.
@128 – WillMayBeWise: Using his father’s saber, a Darth Vader relic, makes more sense to rile up Kylo Ren.
RIght. Just Sith wannabes.
People can feel the way they will. I feel too much of this movie was crafted to subvert fan expectation, so I’m not sure that is purely the path the series would have followed. That doubt lends towards belief that it was upsetting the apple cart for edge sake. But as we’ve seen in pages of comics and novelizations, the alternate histories have had some tragic turns from fandom expectation. There are no guarantees, inclusive of acceptance of the current path.
142, I think I would feel confident in guaranteeing arguments about the next movie. (either Solo or Episode IX…)
@140 – yeah, MaGnUs, I can understand the Darth Vader relic being a good focus for Kylo’s rage. Word of God says that was what it was. I was just suggesting Ben Solo’s lightsaber as an alternative. To my mind it would have been equally as effective, representing Luke’s tutelage. It was also the tool that guarded him against (from Kylo’s point of view) Luke’s betrayal, so to see it being wielded by his old master would have been infuriating…
@143 – yeah, someone’s going to find fault whatever they do. At the risk of stating the obvious, if they adhere to fan expectations, the film will be labelled boring and lacking drama. If they try to subvert fan expectations or do something really adventurous, then “fans” will complain it’s not what they were expecting and that they were disappointed. Or worse, that it “isn’t really Star Wars.”
<sigh>
@143/LordVorless & @145/WillMayBeWise: What fascinates me about the complaints commentary about the film (and TFA, and the prequels) is that whenever there is a conflict between the expectations of the “true fans” and the creative choices of the filmmakers, it always seems—based on comments here and in other forums—that it has been the creators who must have been wrong. That is quite the amazing winning streak for the “true fans” and their expectations! I can’t wait to see if they will be able to continue that streak through both Solo and Episode IX…
145, or perhaps if they listen to the upset fans, maybe they won’t think they’re being clever when they’re actually not being all that smart. There may be more people than you realize whose thinking is more that they did a bad job than mere offense of simply not getting what they wanted or whatever characterization you prefer.
146, well, leaving aside the questions over the principle that the customer is always right(whether you, I, Ralph Bighead or anyone else likes it), while I’ve undoubtedly seen fans with an inability to accept certain creative decisions, I’ve also seen quite a few so-called “true fans” doggedly insist on liking a product (across a variety of media), and even the occasional creator declare that if you were a “true fan” then you’d accept their product without such criticism, thus the people who aren’t having fun end up getting derided as if it were objectionable that they dared express dissatisfaction, regardless of the quality or character of their objections.
The asteroid field may be more perilous than you realize.
147 – you know I was agreeing with you, right? That a new entry in something that people are so invested in (whether it be Star Wars, Star Trek or some other franchise) will inevitably trigger arguments between those for and against.
The collective noun for Fans is an argument…
You “speak” as if I’m a supporter of the new Star Wars instalments. Where did you get that idea from? I appreciate the difficulty of the making those choices, but I disagree with a lot of the choices made.
And they should “listen to the fans”? Which ones? Fandom is (as it’s always been) riven by factions who each refer to themselves as “true fans”. Who of course decry the others as “not true fans”. Which of the “true fans” should Disney be listening too?
I’m assuming the business plan with Star Wars is to maximise profits by making films that appeal to true fans, casual fans and non-fans alike. As there’s only a minority of people that like watching bad films, I’m assuming making the films good (or even great) is part of the business plan as well. As much as I disagree with the choices made, I prefer the risk-taking with TLJ compared to the more commercially-safe cookie cutter options Disney could have gone with. I’d even prefer TFA or even Rogue One over Hannah Montana: Jedi Knight.
147, I was pointing out something that I think you overlooked. Perhaps I was not clearly expressing the sentiment, but I just didn’t see you cover the people who would have taken something that was, as you call it, adventurous (or even subversive), but nonetheless found the final result poorly made.
I believe the Vorlon adage of every conflict having three sides under-counts by a considerable amount.
Still, I think that if any of us had made the movies, or Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, or each other’s breakfast, all we can be sure about is that they would be different, whether good or bad, better or worse, we can only hope. Though sometimes rebellions successes are built on hope.
This is one of the best texts about “The Last Jedi” and Luke Sykwalker in general I have ever read. At first I was irritated by this movie, but then I came to a similar conclusion as you: Luke Skywalker is being dissembled as a Jedi, not as a hero. He is not and never was a hero because he is a Jedi and commands the Force, but because he is himself – hoping, forgiving, never giving up. That’s what the Prequels were telling us, too – that the Jedi were by no means heroic but narrow-minded and vain, though they had no bad intentions. But many fans don’t like to see it that way, the prefer the superficial view – the Jedi as some kind of superheroes and Good always winning over Bad. If Star Wars wants to tell us anything it’s not that Good always wins, it’s that love always wins in the end. Thank you! :-)
The character changes in Luke weren’t the problem, it’s that the changes were played for jokes. Reintroducing a beloved hero as a defeated man shouldn’t be cheap gags & giggles, silly lightsaber tosses & alien mammal tits. While real character moments like Luke grieving over Han Solo or building a relationship with Rey are left on the cutting room floor or unfilmed. The intent of Last Jedi isn’t the problem, they way the director cheaply tore him down only to give a vague moment of redemption by the end was just abysmal
@151/Aaron – did you object to Yoda being the comic relief in Empire Strikes Back?
Bit late to the party, but this was absolutely beautiful.
I think I see the problem here. You seem to be under the impression that star wars is grounded in realism. The stories are in fact fantasy. There is a very large group of people that are interested in seeing heroes that they can look up too while also relating to them. I believe Disney was worried that Luke would steal the spotlight from their new hero Rey, so they had to make him pathetic and cowardly. The problem is Rey is boring, forgettable, and unrelatable. These new characters are poorly written and all of the editorial word salad you can write won’t fix that. Star wars is no longer fun escapism. It is now an outlet for political propaganda and social engineering.
@154 / Messner – right from the moment it was conceived Star Wars has been an outlet for political propaganda and social engineering. Weren’t you paying attention?
I have a matted, framed, signed print of The Last Jedi Remake poster in my office for all of the reasons you just stated in this article. I love the poster because of it’s absolute absurdity that some people missed the entire point of the movie.
Let’s look at the track record of Jedi mentors that Luke met in the 4-6 trilogy.
Obi-WanKenobi – Hermit living out in the ass end of nowhere, haunted by his past failures.
Yoda – Hermit living out in the ass end of nowhere, haunted by his past failures.
And then we get to Luke, when Rey comes to him for guidance.
Luke Skywalker – Hermit living out in the ass end of nowhere, haunted by his past failures.
I’m not sure how people couldn’t have seen it coming, or been upset about it when it did. And just as his mentors before him, he saw the need in passing on his knowledge to a worthy pupil.