Episode IX fan theories (warning: here be dragons).

[The Romulan Republic]

So your greater issue is that we don't see the FO's balance sheets to show how they could afford what we've seen? That seems odd.

Yes, because I want to see Accountant wars.

No, I want a sense of who and/or what the FO are, because as presented, they are supposed to seem like the Empire 2.0, without any justified reason why they are Empire 2.0. Are they as powerful as the Empire? Are they not? Iunno, do you?

It's not that hard to explain where they come from, really. You think a galactic empire just collapses overnight and leaves no one behind who longs for the "good old days"? There are plenty of Russians who pine for the days of Stalin. There are Polish and Russian Nazis, for fuck's sake. And fascism will always have its appeal for angry or amoral people who are arrogant enough to imagine that they'll be the ones doing the stomping instead of being stomped on. Frankly, it would be shocking if there weren't some people who wanted to "make the galaxy great again". It would fly in the face of everything we know about the dark side of human nature.

As to how powerful they are relative to the Empire... I'd say that in absolute terms they are probably more powerful, because Starkiller Base and the overall size of their capital ships suggest that weapons have continued to get more powerful over the decades*. But in relative terms they are weaker, because they do not have effectively uncontested control of the galaxy, which the Empire did (however briefly). Much like how North Korea has more firepower in absolute terms than Victorian Britain, but is relatively weaker compared to the other nations it must contend with.

*Its also possible that they have gone for concentrating firepower, building a smaller number of individually more powerful ships- which actually makes sense if they control a smaller territory and may face other powerful star fleets in battle, whereas the Empire's main concern was policing a vast territory, and the Death Stars were arguably an extraordinary waste when they could have built millions more star destroyers instead.

Because if they aren't the state, which the New Republic was, what are they? And where are they getting their wonderful toys?

I think your mistake here is insisting on thinking in terms of a single galactic state in the post-Imperial era. There pretty clearly isn't. Its a fragmented galaxy- and I acknowledge that that scenario isn't explored as thoroughly as it should have or could have been, but its the only logical conclusion to draw from the fact that we have two confirmed states which fight like conventional powers, as well as a substantial corporate/criminal underworld backing both sides.

Could Jabba, before being strangled by Leia with a chain, have made such an organization if he was so inclined, and been the main antagonist? Is it that easy in the Star Wars galaxy?

Probably not at the Empire's height, because it would have earned him a visit from Vader or some other Imperial agent before he got very far. Probably yeah in the pre or post-Imperial era, when there was no single unified authority who could easily crush him. Remember that in The Clone Wars, the Republic felt that it had to negotiate with the Hutts for the right to transit through their space, rather than simply telling them to cooperate. That suggests that the Hutts functioned as a semi-autonomous state in that era. I expect it's the same post-Empire, as well.

That's the issue, we're not given a sense of what exactly they are, aside from what they're masquerading around as. They're not the government, they blew up that. They're not a private military hired by some corporations as far as we know, because we don't have any statements regarding that. They're not some illicit underground group, because they don't seem to be using the same storytelling tools that are used for that.

They effectively control territory (Rose's home world, more on that in a moment). They are armed like a major power, with fleets of capital ships, dreadnoughts, and WMDs. They fight like a major power, with WMD strikes followed up by a conventional military invasion. Simply put: they are a theocratic military dictatorship, Neo-Imperial/Sith-inspired in style/ideology, which controls a portion of the galaxy but not the entire thing.

So, what are they? If they're supposed to be the equivalent of North Korea, as stated earlier in the thread, who is funding their superweapons? And why doesn't the NR have better defenses against such things?

I think that irrelevant Canto Bight stuff you hated so much gives part of the answer- the war is profitable for wealthy weapons manufacturers. Rose also mentions her home world being forced to mine materials for the First Order before they bombarded the place. So... a combination of pillaging, mining operations run on slave/prisoner labour, and ties to shady corporate and underworld figures who are profiting off the war. Not too different from some real third world dictatorships, really.

And I have no doubt that the NR could have built better defences against them, in theory. In practice... we admittedly don't get a lot of info on the NR, but the glimpses we do get suggest a very unstable state (given that it quickly crumbled following the First Order's first strike). Given the EU information we have, I would suggest that their fundamental problem was that they needed to politically differentiate themselves from the Empire to a war-weary public, and legitimize themselves as successors to the Old Republic, and that they tried to do this by emulating the Old Republic model of a demilitarized, decentralized state without the key institution that allowed that society to function- that being a strong Jedi Order with the confidence of the public and an aura of invincibility.

That actually gives Luke's sacrifice a new significance, now that I think about it. I don't know how much ST Luke is supposed to know about the history of the Old Republic and the Empire (though IIRC he does briefly discuss Palpatine's destruction of the Jedi with Rey, so he probably knows at least the broad strokes). But when he declares that he will not be the last Jedi, and his death is shown to inspire others to have faith in the legend of the Jedi... I wonder if what he's actually doing is recreating that myth of Jedi invincibility that allowed the Old Republic to function. I mean, how many people even know that Luke is dead, or that he was an illusion? Leia, Rey... maybe Kylo. To everyone else, it just looks like he pulled a Superman, teleported or flew himself across interstellar space, shrugged off an entire army's worth of firepower and a lightsaber to the chest, and then teleported away/ascended to a higher plane of existence. That story will spread, and like any story, it will continue to be exaggerated and elaborated on with each retelling. And thus, the legend of the Jedi is reborn.

[The Romulan Republic]

Again, this fits with my view that Luke is essentially the anti-Palatine. Both were masters of psychological warfare, but where Palpatine worked by bring out people's dark side, or by using fear, Luke worked by appealing to their better nature (Vader), or by baiting them into revealing their own weakness (Kylo).

His stunt with Kylo, in my interpretation, also essentially functions as a reverse Tarkin Doctrine. Rather than ruling through fear of overwhelming retaliation, he rules by creating a myth of a superhuman protector/saviour.

Edit: And in fact, reestablishing the Jedi Order's reputation, and the galaxy's trust in them (and thus their ability to act as the galaxy's protectors), would represent Luke's final victory over Palpatine, recreating that which Palpatine destroyed.

[Kane Starkiller]

It's pretty obvious that you haven't even bothered to read what I or Johnson actually said or why I referred to it. It's pretty normal, when discussing writing, to look at what the writer says about his own work and why he made the choices he made. People who aren't film illiterate don't need to have it beaten over their head in the actual film. But you are, as we've established, which handily explains why you rail so much at the quite conventional idea that mythic heroes are not fixed points in space and so complaining that "waaaaah but in the previous movie from 40 years go he didn't act like this" is stupid.

If you have made any detailed explanation as to how Beowulf and King Arthur explain Luke's character I've certainly haven't seen it here. For the n-th time: you can't just link to a vague interview with a director where he is namedropping different characters and pretend that's some kind of argument.
And even if it was it's still an obscure interview that has absolutely no impact on ones enjoyment of the movie.
Finally what difference does it make the movie was 40 years ago? Iliad and Odyssey was created 3000 years ago but we would still expect some kind of consistency in characterization if the sequel was made today.

Only if you lobotomise yourself with an ice cream scoop and try and argue - with a straight face, amazingly - that making a random choice of astromech droid as a know-nothing teenager is equivalent in both responsibility and consequences to failing as a Jedi Master to prevent the fall of your own family.

BEN
There's nothing you could have done,
Luke, had you been there. You'd have
been killed, too, and the droids
would be in the hands of the Empire.

LUKE
I want to come with you to Alderaan.
There's nothing here for me now. I
want to learn the ways of the Force
and become a Jedi like my father.

Why is Ben's first thought to say "there's nothing you could have done Luke"? Was Ben Kenobi lobotomized between Episodes 3 and 4?
How many children and young adolescents are out there blaming themselves over,say, their parents divorce? Is that rational? Again no one is saying that blaming yourself in this situation would be rational. The point is that it is very human thing to do. People that were practically his parents were dead over an astromech droid he picked out. He didn't give up, he didn't mope, he didn't wallow in self pity for a decade. What is your explanation for the change in TLJ? It's different situation? Yes it's a different situation but it's still a personal tragedy of huge proportions.

Of course it sticks out like a sore thumb, because its so much worse, and there's so much more tied up with it than "something happened to make Luke sad". Writing!

Who says it's so much worse? You?

Who the fuck said anything about "objectively" in this context? The only person who introduced 'objective' into this entire discussion is you, because you're apparently incapable of analysing anything that's organic to character or narrative. And you're a liar too - you even put objectively in " " "quotes when you first introduced this irrelevant concept, as if you were quoting me.

But sure, let's continue the Kane Starkiller Naked Bad Faith comedy hour! Luke was responsible for training Ben Solo but let's divorce that context and instead make a ludicrous argument that someone, somewhere, is pretending that Luke's sole failure was igniting his lightsaber! And that this is "objective" and not something that Luke subjectively feels to be the case!

You maybe haven't said "objectively" but you brought forward the argument that Luke would just absolve himself of guilt for suggesting the droid that ultimately brought doom to his parents through some kind of logical deduction.
You are claiming Luke's sole failure wasn't just igniting his lightsaber. Where in the movie is that established? He mumbles something about being "Luke Skywalker a legend" but we never actually see it. What happened? Multiple movies worth of Luke's character building was erased by a 15 second flashback scene and Luke saying something about Skywalker blood and him being legend. Completely out of the left field and inadequate to change the course of a well established character.

Oh, shifting the goalposts now are we? How convenient. No, your bad faith - apart from making Han to be an easibly manipulated dupe who Luke somehow tricked - was attempting to pretend that the relationship between master/student and uncle/nephew (Luke and Ben) is somehow at all equivalent to the relationship between Luke and Han, two grown men who are responsible for their own choices. Why the hell would Luke despair over the fact that Han is being made to suffer merely because Luke exists? That's the only reason Han's being pursued - the mere fact that Luke exists. What wrong choice did Luke make that would make him feel responsible for Han's pain that he would decide the galaxy would be better off without the Jedi, as he did with Ben? None. So you're completely full of shit.

Oh - and the whole Jedi issue - kind of important. Luke's self-imposed exile isn't about "oh, something bad happenened to him, so he is sad" - as you so stupidly continue to imply with your desperate attempts to find something equivalent in the OT (which doesn't exist). It's inextricably linked with his status as a Jedi Master and legend. That would be why the dialog in TLJ focuses so much on this issue and his own hubris.

What goalposts have I shifted? No one is saying that Han solo is a dupe or easily manipulated. We are talking about Luke's state of mind not the reality of the Star Wars universe as it existed in TESB. The fact remains that Luke tried talking Han into joining Rebellion and knew that Han was being tortured to draw him out. You can make all the rationalizations for Luke you want.
As another example here is the dialogue after the death of Ben Kenobi:

LUKE
I can't believe he's gone.

LEIA
There wasn't anything you could have
done.

Leia Organa, the most famous recipient of lobotomy on Alderaan.

Why the fuck would he despair about the revelation that the guy who cut off his hand is his father? Did he make Vader adopt him?

Yes ignore the overall point and pick just one event and one emotion. How about you answer my entire point: death of parents and getting maimed by what turns out to be his father. And yet pushing on and not wallowing in self pity for decades. Show how his reactions to those events hint at the self righteous, self pitying wreck we see in TLJ.

"LOL, all tragedies are of the same magnitude irrespective of their not being the same event"

Of course, of course "not being the same event"="I can do whatever I want with the character". If Mon Mothma gave Palpatine flowers he could've turned into a good guy because no one ever gave him flowers.

I guess we can add "can't read" to "can't watch Star Wars properly" to your ever widening library of incompetence:

Further, as to your similarly clueless "Vader fighting Luke" - Ben - unlike Vader - hates Luke. The bond of father and son between Vader and Luke is totally different than that of uncle and nephew between Luke and Ben. There is ample reason for Luke to consider himself the precisely wrong person to attempt to 'save' Ben, if he ever considered himself capable of such a thing.

You still haven't answered the question: what does Vader's motivation have to do with anything. You brought up the idea that Luke lashing out at Vader is similar to Kylo Ren lashing at luke. Vader's motivation doesn't enter into it. I have demonstrated that Luke was struggling with much more during the throne room scene than Kylo was by just seeing Luke stand there. You haven't addressed this at all.

You tried to claim that Luke, who was wronged by Vader so many times and was in the process of fighting him AND was being taunted about his sister AND was being taunted by Palpatine about how the Rebel alliance and all his friends will die, had no more of a reason to lash out at Vader than Kylo Ren did. That's quite obviously horseshit.

Kylo Ren lashed out at who? What are you talking about now?

Kylo Ren, like an idiot, went down to the surface to do single combat with a guy who apparently couldn't be stopped by 10 AT-ATs firing simultaneously. There was absolutely no build up of tension between Kylo and Luke the way it was between Luke and Vader.

There's a reason "refusing to engage with the material" comes up so often with idiots who make bad faith criticisms of TLJ, and this is yet another reason for it - you divorce the moment Luke and Ben's relationship exploded from all of its context - that Ben is Leia's son, that he's incredibly powerful in the Force - all the responsbility he was saddled with, all the expectations that were upon him - then you make light of the visions the Force gave him, like they're some sort of suggestion, in an attempt to cheapen Luke's experience and Luke's pain.

I merely copied your intentionally awkward writing style that you used for the hypothetical ANH conversation. In other words if you are looking for a person engaging in bad faith look in the mirror.
There is no context. There is a small flashback sequence where Luke gives something like two sentences as an explanation as to why he had a momentary thought to kill his on nephew and actually ignited his lightsaber over his sleeping body. Luke is the last person in the entire SW movie universe who would've done something like that. It's an absolute butchery of his characer and it's especially amusing that further below you'll talk about how Luke transcended beyond violence at the end of ROTJ but now you accept this half baked flashback scene as an explanation for him actually going as far as turning on a lightsaber over his own sleeping nephew.
And even if we accept that ridiculous scene then we would expect that he would do everything in his power to at least help the Resistance against this new evil force that he is convinced he unleashed upon the galaxy. Is that too much of a hero worship? To expect Luke to be more loyal to his sister than fucing C3P0?

No, there really isn't. Consistency is antithetical to change. You don't want him to behave in a manner that allows for any meaningful character arc at all. Nothing to make his intervention in the story so he can actually be the legend he's intended to be (i.e. face down an army with a laser sword) actually have any sense of catharsis, meaning or payoff. It's fundamentally impossible.

Consistency is antithetical to change? So the ocean can't be calm one day and stormy the next and still have the consistency of iron sinking in it? What the hell are you talking about. Luke could've been extremely reluctant to ever teach another Jedi himself while still helping the Resistance.

But by all means, prove me wrong. I'd love to hear your idea for how Luke can somehow be 'changed', in exile on an island but somehow not sufficiently changed so as not to upset you:

“There’s also just an adjustment because Luke is different,” Johnson continues. “He’s not the same as Obi-Wan, but he’s the Obi-Wan of this trilogy. He’s not the Luke of this trilogy. More than that, where he was coming from in The Force Awakens meant that it would have been weird and dishonest to just have him be exactly the way he was in his twenties. Obviously these 30 years have changed him, otherwise he wouldn’t have exiled himself on that island. So there was a certain amount of asking where his head is at now and why is it there. Mark was maybe coming into it more expecting what some of the fans might have been expecting – that it was just going to be 20-year-old Luke, except with a beard [laughs]. Because I respected the character and wanted to take that character’s arc seriously to figure out why he’s doing what he’s doing, it was never going to be that.”

It was never going to be that in George Lucas' treatment either, btw. Luke being in exile and training no students was a concept carried over from well before Lucas even sold the rights (2012 at the latest, actually).

No version of this film - by any writer - was ever going to be Star Wars: The Fuller House Reunion Special. Because self-indulgent fan service isn't a good story.

I already wrote about this: he could've been doing something constructive. Something other than wallowing in self pity, something other than nothing at all.
Speaking of self indulgent fan service as far as I'm concerned Luke should've been left back on the Endor forest celebrating the defeat of the Empire with his friends. But if you are intent of milking every last dollar out of his character then at the very least don't fucking butcher his character. Give him something meaningful to do in the story.

I've addressed all of your arguments in turn, you just don't like what I have to say. Why are you wasting time with these obviously false rhetorical flourishes? Just to pad out post length?

Yes yes. Keep chopping up my paragraphs into smaller and smaller segments and then complain about post length.

Yes, you have. I've already pointed out all the ways your "culmination of three movies" argument is complete bunk - Luke has no anger towards Vader whatsoever by the time he crosses blades with him. At all. That's amply borne out by the film's script - over and over and over again. Worse, you're so incompetent at watching movies you think "the Emperor goading Luke into rage" is somehow relevant to how he feels about Vader. The Emperor goaded Luke into striking the Emperor down. It had nothing to do with his father.

You are making stuff up. We've seen the movies and we've seen all the things Vader did to Luke. That Luke decided to try an turn his father to the good doesn't mean he feels no anger towards him.
I'm incompetent at watching the movie because I think that Luke feelings of rage towards the Emperor might influence his feelings towards Emperor's number two guy? But more than that have you ever heard of a husband coming home from work and then yelling at his wife because the work was stressful? I mean it's so beautiful how desperate you are. Here's Luke getting attacked by Vader, Emperor is cackling in the background, Rebel ships are getting vaporized one by one but no this has nothing to do with Luke's final attack. Vader taunting him about his sister wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back or anything no no Luke was perfectly at peace!

No you brought up Luke's attack on Vader and claimed it was somehow equivalent to Kylo's decision to land his shuttle and engage Luke in TLJ. I showed in quite a bit of detail how the situations were not remotely similar.

????? No I didn't, what the fuck are you on about? Quote me where this happened.

Yes I was wrong you were talking about Luke's attack on Vader and how it's the same as Luke getting the idea of killing his sleeping nephew. Which doesn't make any more of a sense as I've explained in the paragraph above.

"The quality of the movie"? LOL. This tangent started when I said that the reason Luke's characterisation is so good was because the way it reflects other mythic stories. It's not hard.

Well the characterization of Luke will determine the quality of movie. And I'm still waiting for you to explain how other myths can somehow enhance or degrade a character in a completely separate work of fiction.

You seem very confused at this stage. I mean, you're throwing in Vader quotes in a discussion about Yoda, for one. But no - the point - which you missed, as usual - was that the Force has never been presented as some sort of technical art, like being a Jedi is like going to fucking Hogwarts. The Force is mysterious, not well defined, and it functions on a level of self-belief and feeling.

So yes, when you whine about "but how could he think he could defeat him because ZOMG HIS POWEEERRRRS ARE SO HIGGGGHHHH", you sound like an idiot.

We weren't discussing Yoda per se, you tried to use Yoda's statements from TESB to try and justify Kylo's moronic decision to go against Luke. I simply threw in a quote from Vader to illustrate how ridiculous it is to justify Kylo's behaviour by interpreting those quotes literally.
When Yoda says "size matters not" we accept it as something said in a given context: to goad Luke into expanding his control of the Force. We don't wonder whether that means that Luke could throw Dagobah into the sun. Nor do we assume than any logic and sense of scale can now be safely thrown out of the window.
Kylo was stupid for trying to engage a guy that can shrug off a dozen AT-ATs firing at him. It's simple as that. You putting words into my mouth and pretending I'm using all-caps and yelling won't change that.

And I said that attacking someone with that much apparent power is the behavior of an idiot. And hinging your plan on someone being an idiot is also idiotic.

Talking about "power levels" in Star Wars discourse at all is the behavior of an idiot.

Another desperate strawman. Keep on pretending that demanding logic and coherence from the script means you are talking about "power levels" in terms of an RPG game.

Things happening as the heroes plan they will often seem like that!

Yeah he planned that Kylo will stop the entire attack during their fight, that Kylo will fight at all instead of continuing with the mission, that Poe who he never met will figure out it was a ruse, that there is a back entrance to the cave, that Rey will free the back entrance, that Snoke was dead, that Kylo assumed the command and not Hux. Sure sure.

Man, what a terrible Star Wars movie, the climax of the film was based on character motivation and narrative and not "how did he delegate the mission objectives with the TO&E and OOB of all the weapons systems in the battlespace".

Sure sure, the character motivation of NOT continuing with the attack with the rest of his forces while he deals with Luke. What precisely is the motivation for that? He likes to have Hux watching? I mean to have Hux in command of the forces with all of the weapons pointed at him. What a goddamn genius. And Luke, of course, knew all of that and all of the things in the paragraph above.

Of course that's what you retreat to. Incompetent at watching the film, so when called out on an obvious fuckup, instead of just admitting it and dropping the point you just effortlessly shift gears to complaining about how the thing - the thing you didn't know about until two seconds ago - is dumb with a bunch of derisive, bad faith euphemisms - and making up even more lies. Luke never used the Force when teaching Rey - that's simply not a thing that ever happened.

Just because I didn't deign to point out this ridiculous plot convenience doesn't mean I didn't know about it. He didn't use the Force when he accused Rey of "not even trying to block the darkness" during one of her vision? How the hell does he know whether she resisted the darkness or not? And then she says she "didn't see him there". When Rey is communing with Kylo and he walks in on them how does he immediately figure out what's going on? And then he rips the hut apart with the Force. That he "cut himself off of".

Yeah dude, if there's one thing that's clear in the film's narrative, it's definitely that Luke is afraid of Snoke. This is definitely a thing the movie is selling. It's not at all about what would be the most meaningful thing to happen for the story or would advance and give the film's actual antagonist/joint-protagonist something to do, no, it's your out-of-fucking-nowhere made-up inference that Luke must be a "chickenshit".

You're almost like a literal child at this point. It's so embarassing. I feel bad for you.

No that's your implication. When you suggested that Luke knew Snoke was dead instead of admitting it was a plot hole and just leaving it be.

Yes we've been over your chain of illogic multiple times. It goes like this:

- It's an optical illusion
- Optical illusions are cheap because they're not satisfying to Kane Starkiller
- Therefore Luke is lazy
- Therefore Luke dying from the effort is bad and wrong

It's airtight!

Yes yes they're not satisfying to one Kane Starkiller. Everyone else thought it was just super duper.
Optical illusions are cheap because Luke was powerless and at the same time impervious to damage from the enemy forces and his success hinged on the First Order behaving as idiots.
Sitting on a rock lightyears away from the battle instead of dragging your ass there is lazy.
Luke dying because he was a 64-bit, 4K Force Ghost instead of a normal 8-bit,1024x768 Force Ghost was anticlimactic.

Yes yes character traits allow you to predict the exact enemy order of battle. "I know Kylo Ren so I know exactly how many TIE figters and AT-ATs he has attacking the base and how he will split them up". Hey didn't you complain about me going into too much detail as to what constitutes Jedi training? Are you saying Luke discussed fucking mechanized troop tactics with Kylo?

LOL, "Order of Battle"

So no explanation as to how Luke "knowing Kylo" would explain how he predicted all those complex outcomes then? Oh yea that would be to "hyperrealistic".

Annnnnnnnnd there it is. Remember a while ago, when I pointed out that Luke's sacrifice dovetailed beautifully with Jedi ideals because of Yoda's lessons to Luke about what a Jedi is supposed to use the Force for, how its about knowledge and defence, and not attack? How his triumph in the OT is the moment he throws his lightsaber away in ROTJ and refuses to kill his father?

Well to you none of that matters because "its a fucking action adventure" and "he blew up the fucking Death Star". So basically you simply never understood what the culimination of Luke's arc in the OT was - so when it's pointed out that for Luke's sacrifice to involve violence would be a regression of the character (hence "regressively violent") - out comes this load of verbal diahrrea.

Heck, you're so blinkered that you apparently think me arguing that it is wrong for Luke to do a thing is actually about whether he technically can do a thing. I'm talking about what is right for the character, you're here talking about superpowers. Again - a parody of the worst kind of Star Wars nerd.

You never got the character at all, and you don't get Star Wars at all. To you and everyone else who felt 'cheated' out of your cathartic exercise is telekinesis and acrobatics and god knows what other juvenile power fantasy fan-service bullshit, he's just a space warrior who destroys his enemies with his awesome powers. And it didn't happen, so you're lashing out in the most juvenile way possible.

This is nonsense. Powerless and non violent are not synonyms. Luke's plan was to buy the Resistance a few minutes so they can escape, regroup and then continue blowing up dreadnoughts and Starkiller bases. In no way does this have any thematic similarity with Luke's refusal to fight Darth Vader and continue on the path to the dark side.
Furthermore Luke's refusal to kill Darth Vader in no way means that he has somehow renounced violence, or do you think that he wouldn't have fought any Stormtroopers that might've blocked his escape out of the second Death Star?
The fact that you think a badly scripted military feint is a thematic equivalent to to overcoming your inner demons and finding peace within yourself while at the same time accusing me of wanting fan service and not understanding the super-deepness of Star Wars is just too funny for words.

No, I just don't give a fuck about "military tactics in detail" because this is a goddamn Star Wars movie.

You don't care about logic because it's a fucking Star Wars movie. Fair enough but don't pretend it's not a plot hole.

As I've pointed out already there is a difference between "things didn't necessarily have to go this way and there was an element of luck" and "things had to go exactly this way for the plan to succeed".
And there is a difference if this happens once or ten times in a single movie.

The only difference is the one you've made up in your head to justify your wild double-standards.

No that is actually a very clear distinction. Everything had to go the way Luke predicted it: Kylo in command and not anyone else, Kylo not splitting up his forces, Poe figuring out that it was a ruse, there being a back entrance, Rey freeing up the blocked entrance.

It doesn't matter, since its easy to tell what sort of garbage you would've made up in his place. It would've involved "orders of battle" and "military tactics" and "ripping AT-AT's in half" and god knows what other character and narrative irrelevant bilge.

No it just wouldn't involve script conveniences that enable Luke to predict exactly how multiple moving parts will behave because he "knows" one character.

You mean another movie where they butchered a well known character in order to be more "adult".

I might know what that means if I cared at all about Justice League?

Then don't bring it up.

Keep telling yourself that, whilst not-so-artfully dodging the way the Machines conveniently decided to stop trying to kill Neo long enough for them to hear his offer for absolutely no reason.

Yes that was absolutely ridiculous. And Neo being able to destroy machines in the real world is absolute nonsense that came out of nowhere. Were you under some kind of impression that I thought it was a good movie?
Still the bargain itself made far more sense than Luke's bet that Kylo will do everything he needed him to do and that he'll even be in the position to do it. That is that someone else won't be in command.

This paragraph is fun because you're like "they literally spell it out" (they don't - they just conveniently forget droids exist) and then proceed to complain about something that is ... quite literally spelt out. They determine its a kind of active tracker, and that therefore the other ships would only engage their own trackers because that's a known principle of how active trackers behave. It's axiomatic to both of them.

How did they determine it was an active tracker and not a tracking device that someone put on one of the ships? I mean Leia had one of those trackers for Rey to find them. But no they immediately jump to the conclusion that it's actually a technology that didn't exist so far. And they also know that only the "lead ship" is tracking them. And they know that if they destroy the tracker on the "lead ship" another ship will pick up the slack but only after some time. They know that no more than one ship will have a tracker on even though they do have multiple trackers.
And to your mind this is equivalent to scanning the escape pod, seeing that there are no lifesigns aboard and then letting it go because you forgot that there might be droids aboard?

You can't read? They did disable the engines on a vehicle whose occupants were already appreheneded. What about this concept do you not get? But sure, there's nothing convenient about a military disabling a hyperdrive by doing something that can be reversed by an astromech droid (which it learned from the city central computer - why does it know this, again?) in approximately one second when they could easily have just disabled it in a more permanent way, or simply seized the ship.

In other words the Empire went beyond what militaries usually do and actually disabled the engines of a captured vessel on the off chance that the prisoners escape. But they didn't actually irreversibly destroy the engines so this is a massive convenience.
And an astromech droid, that is a droid specialized for dealing with space vehicles and space travel, managed to plug into the central computer which was aware that the engines were disabled. This is the big convenience? Just one scene of BB8 repairing a physically damaged X-Wing with its head blows that one out of the water. And I didn't even blink at that one.
You want me to restate the litany of ridiculous plot conveniences in TLJ?

Why does that matter? Either they didn't care what side of the planet they came out on - giving all of the high value enemy agents ample time to escape if they were so inclined - or they did care but didn't bother to check first. Either way - damn those script writers *shakes fist*

Or they didn't know on what side of the gas giant the moon currently was.

That would be because I don't actually give a shit about contrivances. It's film criticism for ignroamuses who hate film criticism. I just like watching people who think they're worth jack shit apologise for them and generally look silly as they try and distinguish about how only some plot coveniences are somehow special and kosher.

This movie is one dumb plot convenience after another and you haven't addressed any of them.
This movie is a dumb frankenstein monster: the escape from Hoth, stitched with training on Dagobah (with a twist!), stitched with a dumb casino scene (free the animals!), stitched with Emperor throne room (which is...actually not a twist since Emperor dies in the throne room the last time), stitched with the walker attack on Hoth (it's SALT this time!).
The movie keeps aping the original trilogy and then puts on retarded twists on them.
For example the Emperor wants Luke to fight his own father and kill him to prove his strength and ruthlessness and begin his journey to the Dark Side. Snoke wants Kylo to execute a helpless Rey which will neither prove his strength nor ruthlessness since he already killed his own father and that wasn't good enough for Snoke. But killing this nobody he knew for a day will?


As I final point let me just say how amusing it is to see you accusing me of wanting to see big demonstrations of Force power when this movie features the following nonsense:
-Emperor type figure appears through a hologram but this time he can actually physically affect the world around it
-Force Ghost appears but this time it can actually summon real lightning
-Leia dragging herself through vacuum of space for no discernible reason plot wise
-Jedi now able to create a perfect illusion of themselves from another planet

But Luke appearing and doing something other than smoke and mirrors? No no that's just fan service.

[FaxModem1]

Again, this fits with my view that Luke is essentially the anti-Palatine. Both were masters of psychological warfare, but where Palpatine worked by bring out people's dark side, or by using fear, Luke worked by appealing to their better nature (Vader), or by baiting them into revealing their own weakness (Kylo).

His stunt with Kylo, in my interpretation, also essentially functions as a reverse Tarkin Doctrine. Rather than ruling through fear of overwhelming retaliation, he rules by creating a myth of a superhuman protector/saviour.

Edit: And in fact, reestablishing the Jedi Order's reputation, and the galaxy's trust in them (and thus their ability to act as the galaxy's protectors), would represent Luke's final victory over Palpatine, recreating that which Palpatine destroyed.

As Kane points out, this relies on A) the Resistance living long enough to report this based on Rey's actions independently of Luke, since he didn't tell Leia to take the back exit.

OR

B) the First Order has enough chatty Cathies to create such rumors.

That runs into issues due to Luke's actions only saving a dozen people, by Rey's actions, not Luke's, and it's only through embellishment that this becomes a big story.

Sort of in the same way that Kevin Costner's character creates a revolution by accident in The Postman.

[The Romulan Republic]

Again, this fits with my view that Luke is essentially the anti-Palatine. Both were masters of psychological warfare, but where Palpatine worked by bring out people's dark side, or by using fear, Luke worked by appealing to their better nature (Vader), or by baiting them into revealing their own weakness (Kylo).

His stunt with Kylo, in my interpretation, also essentially functions as a reverse Tarkin Doctrine. Rather than ruling through fear of overwhelming retaliation, he rules by creating a myth of a superhuman protector/saviour.

Edit: And in fact, reestablishing the Jedi Order's reputation, and the galaxy's trust in them (and thus their ability to act as the galaxy's protectors), would represent Luke's final victory over Palpatine, recreating that which Palpatine destroyed.

As Kane points out, this relies on A) the Resistance living long enough to report this based on Rey's actions independently of Luke, since he didn't tell Leia to take the back exit.

OR

B) the First Order has enough chatty Cathies to create such rumors.

That runs into issues due to Luke's actions only saving a dozen people, by Rey's actions, not Luke's, and it's only through embellishment that this becomes a big story.

Oh, you're pushing that line of argument again? That Luke's death sucks because it accomplished nothing, because it was really Rey who saved the Resistance? Next I suppose that, after ignoring on-screen evidence to give all the credit to Rey, you'll say that this proves she's a Mary Sue?

Rey shot down a few fighters and lifted some rocks. Useful, but it wouldn't have changed a damn thing if Luke hadn't been there. If Luke hadn't been there, the Resistance would not have been in that tunnel so Rey could lift those rocks and help them escape on the Falcon. They'd have died fighting in that cave before Rey could ever reach them. At best, she would have arrived just in time to die with everybody else (maybe taking Kylo with her for a kill 'em all ending), because all available evidence says that Rey is roughly a match for Kylo- meaning that she is most certainly not a match for Kylo and an entire army of troops. Also, Luke basically pointed them in the direction of that exit by arriving from inside the cave, rather than through the front door (of course really he didn't walk it, but Leia and company didn't know that at the time). And I don't think you can hand-wave the Resistance's survival as a lucky coincidence that Luke didn't plan for. He's a Force user, one of the strongest of his generation if not of all time- his seeing through the Force that Rey would arrive in time to free the Resistance is not only plausible, it's pretty strongly implied by his dialogue with Kylo.

You know, for someone who objects to the film supposedly undermining Luke's character, you sure are going out of your way to try to undermine him yourself, by dismissing his actual accomplishments so as to make his death as pointless as possible. It is you, not Rian Johnson, who is reducing one of Star Wars' greatest heroes to a bitter old man committing a pointless suicide in order to validate your hatred. This shit is part of what I find so fucking toxic about the Star Wars fandom (and fandoms in general, but particularly Star Wars)- its not enough for you to dislike the film, or to criticize it on its actual failings- no, it has to be THE WORST POSSIBLE MOVIE, in every possible way (another example is how Rey bashers, not Rey fans, are the ones who most inflate her supposed feats, in order to bolster their argument that she is a woman who doesn't know her place "Mary Sue"). At some point, it makes me wonder if you are being honest about your motives, because if you are, then your entire position frankly seems pointless. You are hating a movie for flaws you largely invented in order to justify your hatred of it.

Also, I'm pretty damn sure that there WILL be rumours in the First Order's ranks, because that's human nature. Even soldiers in fascist states aren't perfectly programmed loyalty bots who never say anything they aren't supposed to. They will be quiet rumours, whispered when people don't think Kylo is listening, but people WILL talk. Or do you actually think an organization who's second-highest ranking official is fucking Hux is going to be more professional than any organization in hisotry? Hell, Hux might even encourage it, because having the rank and file talk about how Luke made a fool of Kylo will undercut his rival's leadership and strengthen Hux's position. In my view, it was the First Order, not the Resistance, that was Luke's main audience there. The Resistance already respects him, and the Jedi. They are already fighting against the First Order. What he was doing with that performance was not merely buying time, but eroding Kylo's already-shaky credibility as a leader.

Sort of in the same way that Kevin Costner's character creates a revolution by accident in The Postman.

The results of Luke's actions were not simply an "accident", and there is no point continuing this discussion with someone who will ignore all evidence. You can't have a productive discussion with someone who will ignore facts that don't fit their conclusions. All you can do is point out the dishonesty (which I have done), and then move on.

[Gandalf]

As Kane points out, this relies on A) the Resistance living long enough to report this based on Rey's actions independently of Luke, since he didn't tell Leia to take the back exit.

OR

B) the First Order has enough chatty Cathies to create such rumors.

That runs into issues due to Luke's actions only saving a dozen people, by Rey's actions, not Luke's, and it's only through embellishment that this becomes a big story.

Sort of in the same way that Kevin Costner's character creates a revolution by accident in The Postman.

Of course. Luke died to create a legend that he knew would be more effective than he could ever be.

Also, I don't see why the First Order guys wouldn't be discussing what happened. Their supreme space wizard leader died, and they were just about to beat the Resistance once and for all. That seems like an event someone might try and document, especially once legendary space wizard Luke Skywalker showed up.

[FaxModem1]

Again, this fits with my view that Luke is essentially the anti-Palatine. Both were masters of psychological warfare, but where Palpatine worked by bring out people's dark side, or by using fear, Luke worked by appealing to their better nature (Vader), or by baiting them into revealing their own weakness (Kylo).

His stunt with Kylo, in my interpretation, also essentially functions as a reverse Tarkin Doctrine. Rather than ruling through fear of overwhelming retaliation, he rules by creating a myth of a superhuman protector/saviour.

Edit: And in fact, reestablishing the Jedi Order's reputation, and the galaxy's trust in them (and thus their ability to act as the galaxy's protectors), would represent Luke's final victory over Palpatine, recreating that which Palpatine destroyed.

As Kane points out, this relies on A) the Resistance living long enough to report this based on Rey's actions independently of Luke, since he didn't tell Leia to take the back exit.

OR

B) the First Order has enough chatty Cathies to create such rumors.

That runs into issues due to Luke's actions only saving a dozen people, by Rey's actions, not Luke's, and it's only through embellishment that this becomes a big story.

Oh, you're pushing that line of argument again? That Luke's death sucks because it accomplished nothing, because it was really Rey who saved the Resistance? Next I suppose that, after ignoring on-screen evidence to give all the credit to Rey, you'll say that this proves she's a Mary Sue?

Rey shot down a few fighters and lifted some rocks. Useful, but it wouldn't have changed a damn thing if Luke hadn't been there. If Luke hadn't been there, the Resistance would not have been in that tunnel so Rey could lift those rocks and help them escape on the Falcon. They'd have died fighting in that cave before Rey could ever reach them. At best, she would have arrived just in time to die with everybody else (maybe taking Kylo with her for a kill 'em all ending), because all available evidence says that Rey is roughly a match for Kylo- meaning that she is most certainly not a match for Kylo and an entire army of troops. Also, Luke basically pointed them in the direction of that exit by arriving from inside the cave, rather than through the front door (of course really he didn't walk it, but Leia and company didn't know that at the time). And I don't think you can hand-wave the Resistance's survival as a lucky coincidence that Luke didn't plan for. He's a Force user, one of the strongest of his generation if not of all time- his seeing through the Force that Rey would arrive in time to free the Resistance is not only plausible, it's pretty strongly implied by his dialogue with Kylo.

You know, for someone who objects to the film supposedly undermining Luke's character, you sure are going out of your way to try to undermine him yourself, by dismissing his actual accomplishments so as to make his death as pointless as possible. It is you, not Rian Johnson, who is reducing one of Star Wars' greatest heroes to a bitter old man committing a pointless suicide in order to validate your hatred. This shit is part of what I find so fucking toxic about the Star Wars fandom (and fandoms in general, but particularly Star Wars)- its not enough for you to dislike the film, or to criticize it on its actual failings- no, it has to be THE WORST POSSIBLE MOVIE, in every possible way (another example is how Rey bashers, not Rey fans, are the ones who most inflate her supposed feats, in order to bolster their argument that she is a woman who doesn't know her place "Mary Sue"). At some point, it makes me wonder if you are being honest about your motives, because if you are, then your entire position frankly seems pointless. You are hating a movie for flaws you largely invented in order to justify your hatred of it.

Also, I'm pretty damn sure that there WILL be rumours in the First Order's ranks, because that's human nature. Even soldiers in fascist states aren't perfectly programmed loyalty bots who never say anything they aren't supposed to. They will be quiet rumours, whispered when people don't think Kylo is listening, but people WILL talk. Or do you actually think an organization who's second-highest ranking official is fucking Hux is going to be more professional than any organization in history? Hell, Hux might even encourage it, because having the rank and file talk about how Luke made a fool of Kylo will undercut his rival's leadership and strengthen Hux's position. In my view, it was the First Order, not the Resistance, that was Luke's main audience there. The Resistance already respects him, and the Jedi. They are already fighting against the First Order. What he was doing with that performance was not merely buying time, but eroding Kylo's already-shaky credibility as a leader.

Dude, chill. Rey's cool. A bit undefined, but cool. But the actions of the film, as presented, do require Luke having knowledge of what Rey is doing, which is not what it portrays it as. In order to fool the audience, Luke doesn't tell Leia to grab everyone and go. If Luke had told Leia to run, it might seem more like what he was doing was noble. But it doesn't. Instead, he gets to say goodbye, and hope that they pick up on it, to deceive the audience on what's going on.

I just find Luke's actions a bit nonsensical and sad. It's equal to finding that a beloved family member really screwed up their lives and is a shadow of themselves. Mostly because Luke Skywalker is a cultural icon, and this film has seemed to pervert that into something wherein he's more fallible than most.

And, yeah, there is anger there. Anger that our generation of films is thinking that the right thing to do to heroic icons is turn them evil, or make them such bastards that their previous actions are tainted. The Luke who wants to help others and do right is now someone who wants to kill others and abandons his friends. The Superman who does all he can to save the world now has parents telling him to abandon the Earth and is now a gritty character. Batman uses his machine gun Batmobile to kill several people in pursuit of his goal.

But in regards to the film, it doesn't seem like an organic growth of Luke's character, and seems like the chosen path, as was said, to get him and Kylo in position. It makes Kylo interesting as a character, but at the cost of making Luke's development, such as it is, a dark turn without much justification. Maybe I had, as others have claimed, years of fanon in my head that Luke was compassionate, when I should have had him being this man who only hesitates at killing family members. Maybe that is the head-space I should have been in?

Maybe we can have a It's a Wonderful Life sequel/reboot movie where George Bailey starts hitting his Mary Bailey because of his frustrations with the Bailey Savings and Loans, as we never had genuine proof in the film that he wasn't a wife beater? Then in the third act he apologizes and does what he can to ensure she and the family have enough to start their own business to support themselves?

Maybe we can have the new Picard show reveal that he's now secretly a racist since Shinzon and wants to eliminate the Reman people from the universe? After all, it's been a couple decades, and while they don't have to show such actions, we shouldn't be fatty nerds about it and just accept that this is the turn they'll make with the character? And in the final act, he realizes that not all Remans are bad and stops them from being wiped out by the Romulans in a Civil War?

Those are obviously silly examples, but do you see why people have a problem with this kind of character growth and reinterpretation? We wanted

Sort of in the same way that Kevin Costner's character creates a revolution by accident in The Postman.

The results of Luke's actions were not simply an "accident", and there is no point continuing this discussion with someone who will ignore all evidence. You can't have a productive discussion with someone who will ignore facts that don't fit their conclusions. All you can do is point out the dishonesty (which I have done), and then move on.

I'm not trying to ignore the evidence, I'm pointing out that the presentation is misleading, and that the film wants me to be happy about things while I'm reeling from the sucker punches they gave me. Luke became homicidal for a moment, things went bad, and has been living in regret to the point that he abandoned the world for about a decade or so. Then, when he gets a straightening out from Yoda(what were you waiting on green one, something better to do beforehand?), his actions are intentionally vague in order to trick the audience again after tricking the audience on the situation with the Raddus, and tricking the audience with DJ. It's a film that continually tries to trick you, and after a while, that sort of thing needs to stop if people are misinterpreting what they're being mislead about, and the hits keep on coming.

Especially when it shakes the character foundations we had come to rely on regarding their motivations and the makeup of who they were.

As for the Postman example. it's the best I could think of off the top of my head of something hitting the world like wildfire cinematically. Maybe Meet John Doe would be a better example?

As Kane points out, this relies on A) the Resistance living long enough to report this based on Rey's actions independently of Luke, since he didn't tell Leia to take the back exit.

OR

B) the First Order has enough chatty Cathies to create such rumors.

That runs into issues due to Luke's actions only saving a dozen people, by Rey's actions, not Luke's, and it's only through embellishment that this becomes a big story.

Sort of in the same way that Kevin Costner's character creates a revolution by accident in The Postman.

Of course. Luke died to create a legend that he knew would be more effective than he could ever be.

Also, I don't see why the First Order guys wouldn't be discussing what happened. Their supreme space wizard leader died, and they were just about to beat the Resistance once and for all. That seems like an event someone might try and document, especially once legendary space wizard Luke Skywalker showed up.

Sure, they'll be discussing it. Militaries are worse than a sewing circle, sometimes. But will it be an inspiration to them? Will it be that time that Snoke's death doomed the First Order more than the time that Luke showed them up? To me, at least, it felt narratively unsatisfying due to it feeling like Luke doing too little, too late, after most of the Resistance had died and the New Republic had been destroyed. Holdo's the one who destroyed the fleet, and Kylo is the one who killed Snoke, after all.

It feels like Luke's 'victory' is symbolic and empty, and more due to the rumor mill than the actions on his part. It's not a redemption for him. It's the film's attempt at a redemption for him. And for me, that's not satisfactory.

[The Romulan Republic]

Dude, chill. Rey's cool. A bit undefined, but cool. But the actions of the film, as presented, do require Luke having knowledge of what Rey is doing, which is not what it portrays it as. In order to fool the audience, Luke doesn't tell Leia to grab everyone and go. If Luke had told Leia to run, it might seem more like what he was doing was noble. But it doesn't. Instead, he gets to say goodbye, and hope that they pick up on it, to deceive the audience on what's going on.

I just find Luke's actions a bit nonsensical and sad. It's equal to finding that a beloved family member really screwed up their lives and is a shadow of themselves. Mostly because Luke Skywalker is a cultural icon, and this film has seemed to pervert that into something wherein he's more fallible than most.

And, yeah, there is anger there. Anger that our generation of films is thinking that the right thing to do to heroic icons is turn them evil, or make them such bastards that their previous actions are tainted. The Luke who wants to help others and do right is now someone who wants to kill others and abandons his friends. The Superman who does all he can to save the world now has parents telling him to abandon the Earth and is now a gritty character. Batman uses his machine gun Batmobile to kill several people in pursuit of his goal.

But in regards to the film, it doesn't seem like an organic growth of Luke's character, and seems like the chosen path, as was said, to get him and Kylo in position. It makes Kylo interesting as a character, but at the cost of making Luke's development, such as it is, a dark turn without much justification. Maybe I had, as others have claimed, years of fanon in my head that Luke was compassionate, when I should have had him being this man who only hesitates at killing family members. Maybe that is the head-space I should have been in?

Maybe we can have a It's a Wonderful Life sequel/reboot movie where George Bailey starts hitting his Mary Bailey because of his frustrations with the Bailey Savings and Loans, as we never had genuine proof in the film that he wasn't a wife beater? Then in the third act he apologizes and does what he can to ensure she and the family have enough to start their own business to support themselves?

Maybe we can have the new Picard show reveal that he's now secretly a racist since Shinzon and wants to eliminate the Reman people from the universe? After all, it's been a couple decades, and while they don't have to show such actions, we shouldn't be fatty nerds about it and just accept that this is the turn they'll make with the character? And in the final act, he realizes that not all Remans are bad and stops them from being wiped out by the Romulans in a Civil War?

Those are obviously silly examples, but do you see why people have a problem with this kind of character growth and reinterpretation? We wanted

Yeah, I know you're not one of the rabid Rey bashers. There is a pattern, though, of fan bashers exaggerating or fabricating the supposed flaws they object to in order to make their case, "Rey does X that she never actually does" being a common example of that. And the argument that you appear to be making that the survival of the Resistance was all due to Rey's actions while Luke was useless, is definitely the kind of argument that Rey bashers would latch onto to make their case about why she's a Mary Sue and the film sucks.

As to the other points, I've gone on at some length about why I feel that Luke's actions were significant, and his methods more or less in keeping with his characterization (more so than coming and fighting the First Order with a lightsaber would have been, anyway). I don't see much point in repeating them. But I would strongly disagree that Luke's portrayal is gritty and grim dark in the way that Batman in Batman v Superman was.* Luke was not made into a ruthless killer HARD MAN, much less portrayed as "cool" or "bad ass" for being so. He was portrayed (presuming you take his version of the flashback as accurate) as a man who was briefly tempted to attack preemptively in a moment of fear, resisted that temptation (albeit too late to prevent a disaster), and then spent years bitterly regretting it as the worst mistake of his life. You can argue over whether it's out of character, but its not at all the kind of glorification of grim dark you get in some movies these days (I would have hated it if they had done that with Luke). I also don't think Luke is portrayed as being more fallible than most.

TLJ does run into difficulties because it relies heavily on misdirection and ambiguity, and sometimes characters make some questionable decisions so as to keep an upcoming twist secret. It's a film that's very easy, I think, to misinterpret, wilfully or unintentionally. Or perhaps it's better to say that it's a film where people can easily interpret it to see what they want/expect to see. So it does seem odd that Luke would not just tell Leia about the escape route. If pressed to explain it, I would probably say that he wanted them to figure it out later so that Kylo couldn't sense what they were going to do before Luke distracted him, and/or that Luke foresaw how things would work out. Maybe with a side order of the mentor wanting to give his students a chance to figure it for themselves, rather than just relying on him to solve all their problems (since, you know, he was about to die).

I do think that Luke sensing what was happening during the fight is pretty strongly implied, when he taunts Kylo about how the Resistance will survive and he will not be the last Jedi, and then we cut immediately to Rey lifting the rocks. Whether that also implies foreknowledge, I'm not sure, but it's not a huge leap when you're dealing with one of the most powerful Force users in canon. Precog is part of the package. I'm pretty sure I've seen people on this board in the past defend some of Palpatine's dubious decisions with "But he could see what would happen through the Force". Granted, that's an argument that should probably be used sparingly, as you can justify almost any lazy writing decision or seemingly dumb character choice that way. But it seems apt to me in this case.

I also don't think Luke as depicted is more fallible than most. I think that RotJ showed very clearly that Luke was not immune to the temptation of the Dark Side, that he could give in to impulsive anger when the people he loved where threatened. He reigned himself in in time then, just as he reigned himself in (albeit a moment too late) in TLJ's flashback. But temptation doesn't necessarily go away because you resist it once. If you take meth once and don't get addicted, does that make it safe to take it a second time? So while it certainly feels jarring and out of step next to the end of RotJ, with a bit of time for reflection I don't feel that Luke's actions were out of character at all. Its not the happy ending I would have liked for him (for one thing, I wanted Luke to have a family, to continue the theme of the new Jedi and Luke embracing attachments rather than shunning them and being stronger for it), but I don't think it ruins the character or is blatantly out of character.

I do think that Luke's decline might have been easier for audiences to accept if we'd seen more of what lead to that point, that more flashbacks might have benefitted the film (also because then they could have actually shown a Han/Luke/Leia reunion on-screen). It does feel jarring, I admit. And you can make an argument that they tried to compress too complex an arc into too short a time. This is a fair parallel to Batman v Superman, where I think what is essentially a story of Batman's fall and redemption would have carried more weight and flowed more smoothly if we had seen more of what Bruce was like pre-Metropolis. Frankly, pacing is something very few writers or directors in Hollywood today seem to excel at.

I'm not trying to ignore the evidence, I'm pointing out that the presentation is misleading, and that the film wants me to be happy about things while I'm reeling from the sucker punches they gave me. Luke became homicidal for a moment, things went bad, and has been living in regret to the point that he abandoned the world for about a decade or so. Then, when he gets a straightening out from Yoda(what were you waiting on green one, something better to do beforehand?), his actions are intentionally vague in order to trick the audience again after tricking the audience on the situation with the Raddus, and tricking the audience with DJ. It's a film that continually tries to trick you, and after a while, that sort of thing needs to stop if people are misinterpreting what they're being mislead about, and the hits keep on coming.

Especially when it shakes the character foundations we had come to rely on regarding their motivations and the makeup of who they were.

As for the Postman example. it's the best I could think of off the top of my head of something hitting the world like wildfire cinematically. Maybe Meet John Doe would be a better example?

I wouldn't know, as I'm not familiar with it.

I do think TLJ relies very much on misdirection, yes. Some times work better than others, though the only point where I really had too much of it was when they kept going back and forth on whether Rose and Luke were dead at the end about three times each, before finally settling on "no" and "yes".

As to Yoda, the film does raise a rather big question- if Yoda can intervene so easily in the affairs of the living, and is willing to do so, why not more often? Hell, why doesn't he just shoot lightning bolts at Kylo and Snoke from the Nether Realm (How It Should Have Ended actually made a good point about this in their TLJ video). Explanations could be concocted- maybe there are some cosmic rules limiting Yoda's intervention, or Luke simply wasn't susceptible to his arguments until then. But I do feel that this point is something that should be elaborated on.

Its like Rebels introducing time travel to the setting. Sure, you can tell a neat story with it- but it has huge implications for the setting, and you need to think through and explain at some point why you aren't using it all the time.

Sure, they'll be discussing it. Militaries are worse than a sewing circle, sometimes. But will it be an inspiration to them? Will it be that time that Snoke's death doomed the First Order more than the time that Luke showed them up? To me, at least, it felt narratively unsatisfying due to it feeling like Luke doing too little, too late, after most of the Resistance had died and the New Republic had been destroyed. Holdo's the one who destroyed the fleet, and Kylo is the one who killed Snoke, after all.

It feels like Luke's 'victory' is symbolic and empty, and more due to the rumor mill than the actions on his part. It's not a redemption for him. It's the film's attempt at a redemption for him. And for me, that's not satisfactory.

Did you just... say something nice about Holdo? Truly, it is a Christmas Life Day Miracle!

As to Luke's actions and the First Order... well, their brand new leader just got made a fool of in front of his men. It WILL chip away at his authority, especially when you know Hux is just waiting for a moment of weakness to finish him off. It might also make some of the troops question whether the Dark Side is stronger. I'd like to see them follow up on that in IX by having Finn go and try to recruit some of his fellow troops to join him in defecting. And/or have one or more of the Knights of Ren defect/surrender to Rey.

[FaxModem1]

Yeah, I know you're not one of the rabid Rey bashers. There is a pattern, though, of fan bashers exaggerating or fabricating the supposed flaws they object to in order to make their case, "Rey does X that she never actually does" being a common example of that. And the argument that you appear to be making that the survival of the Resistance was all due to Rey's actions while Luke was useless, is definitely the kind of argument that Rey bashers would latch onto to make their case about why she's a Mary Sue and the film sucks.

As to the other points, I've gone on at some length about why I feel that Luke's actions were significant, and his methods more or less in keeping with his characterization (more so than coming and fighting the First Order with a lightsaber would have been, anyway). I don't see much point in repeating them. But I would strongly disagree that Luke's portrayal is gritty and grim dark in the way that Batman in Batman v Superman was.* Luke was not made into a ruthless killer HARD MAN, much less portrayed as "cool" or "bad ass" for being so. He was portrayed (presuming you take his version of the flashback as accurate) as a man who was briefly tempted to attack preemptively in a moment of fear, resisted that temptation (albeit too late to prevent a disaster), and then spent years bitterly regretting it as the worst mistake of his life. You can argue over whether it's out of character, but its not at all the kind of glorification of grim dark you get in some movies these days (I would have hated it if they had done that with Luke). I also don't think Luke is portrayed as being more fallible than most.

TLJ does run into difficulties because it relies heavily on misdirection and ambiguity, and sometimes characters make some questionable decisions so as to keep an upcoming twist secret. It's a film that's very easy, I think, to misinterpret, wilfully or unintentionally. Or perhaps it's better to say that it's a film where people can easily interpret it to see what they want/expect to see. So it does seem odd that Luke would not just tell Leia about the escape route. If pressed to explain it, I would probably say that he wanted them to figure it out later so that Kylo couldn't sense what they were going to do before Luke distracted him, and/or that Luke foresaw how things would work out. Maybe with a side order of the mentor wanting to give his students a chance to figure it for themselves, rather than just relying on him to solve all their problems (since, you know, he was about to die).

I do think that Luke sensing what was happening during the fight is pretty strongly implied, when he taunts Kylo about how the Resistance will survive and he will not be the last Jedi, and then we cut immediately to Rey lifting the rocks. Whether that also implies foreknowledge, I'm not sure, but it's not a huge leap when you're dealing with one of the most powerful Force users in canon. Precog is part of the package. I'm pretty sure I've seen people on this board in the past defend some of Palpatine's dubious decisions with "But he could see what would happen through the Force". Granted, that's an argument that should probably be used sparingly, as you can justify almost any lazy writing decision or seemingly dumb character choice that way. But it seems apt to me in this case.

I also don't think Luke as depicted is more fallible than most. I think that RotJ showed very clearly that Luke was not immune to the temptation of the Dark Side, that he could give in to impulsive anger when the people he loved where threatened. He reigned himself in in time then, just as he reigned himself in (albeit a moment too late) in TLJ's flashback. But temptation doesn't necessarily go away because you resist it once. If you take meth once and don't get addicted, does that make it safe to take it a second time? So while it certainly feels jarring and out of step next to the end of RotJ, with a bit of time for reflection I don't feel that Luke's actions were out of character at all. Its not the happy ending I would have liked for him (for one thing, I wanted Luke to have a family, to continue the theme of the new Jedi and Luke embracing attachments rather than shunning them and being stronger for it), but I don't think it ruins the character or is blatantly out of character.

I do think that Luke's decline might have been easier for audiences to accept if we'd seen more of what lead to that point, that more flashbacks might have benefitted the film (also because then they could have actually shown a Han/Luke/Leia reunion on-screen). It does feel jarring, I admit. And you can make an argument that they tried to compress too complex an arc into too short a time. This is a fair parallel to Batman v Superman, where I think what is essentially a story of Batman's fall and redemption would have carried more weight and flowed more smoothly if we had seen more of what Bruce was like pre-Metropolis. Frankly, pacing is something very few writers or directors in Hollywood today seem to excel at.

For me, it's a bridge too far. I'm not going to accept that Picard wants to eliminate the Reman people after decades without sufficient buildup for it. Same as how I'm not going to accept that Luke is so scared of what Ben Solo MIGHT be that he considers murder enough to walk to Ben's hut, take out his lightsaber, activate it, and then, and only then, think better of it, but have that be the moment that it's too late. That's not a moment, that's Luke taking enough time to follow that stream of consciousness, seriously plot it out and do it.

The alternative is that Luke likes to watch his nephew Ben sleep and made his sudden choice then based on what he foresaw. I mean, maybe that's what they were going for, but that's another layer to the character that twerks him rather oddly and adds some discomforting implications about Luke.

So, it would have been better if they had approached it more with maybe a Godfather II style flashbacks throughout the film, showing the evolution of the relationships during the rise of the New Republic.

I'm not trying to ignore the evidence, I'm pointing out that the presentation is misleading, and that the film wants me to be happy about things while I'm reeling from the sucker punches they gave me. Luke became homicidal for a moment, things went bad, and has been living in regret to the point that he abandoned the world for about a decade or so. Then, when he gets a straightening out from Yoda(what were you waiting on green one, something better to do beforehand?), his actions are intentionally vague in order to trick the audience again after tricking the audience on the situation with the Raddus, and tricking the audience with DJ. It's a film that continually tries to trick you, and after a while, that sort of thing needs to stop if people are misinterpreting what they're being mislead about, and the hits keep on coming.

Especially when it shakes the character foundations we had come to rely on regarding their motivations and the makeup of who they were.

As for the Postman example. it's the best I could think of off the top of my head of something hitting the world like wildfire cinematically. Maybe Meet John Doe would be a better example?

I wouldn't know, as I'm not familiar with it.

I do think TLJ relies very much on misdirection, yes. Some times work better than others, though the only point where I really had too much of it was when they kept going back and forth on whether Rose and Luke were dead at the end about three times each, before finally settling on "no" and "yes".

As to Yoda, the film does raise a rather big question- if Yoda can intervene so easily in the affairs of the living, and is willing to do so, why not more often? Hell, why doesn't he just shoot lightning bolts at Kylo and Snoke from the Nether Realm (How It Should Have Ended actually made a good point about this in their TLJ video). Explanations could be concocted- maybe there are some cosmic rules limiting Yoda's intervention, or Luke simply wasn't susceptible to his arguments until then. But I do feel that this point is something that should be elaborated on.

Its like Rebels introducing time travel to the setting. Sure, you can tell a neat story with it- but it has huge implications for the setting, and you need to think through and explain at some point why you aren't using it all the time.

On the one hand, it makes sense to not have every ascended Jedi come out of the woodworks to tell the living what to do, but TLJ introduced it, so we have to deal with it somehow. Yoda can appear and scold Luke when he seems to want to, but doesn't until the last hour, or can't, because for vague non-defined reasons.

Sure, they'll be discussing it. Militaries are worse than a sewing circle, sometimes. But will it be an inspiration to them? Will it be that time that Snoke's death doomed the First Order more than the time that Luke showed them up? To me, at least, it felt narratively unsatisfying due to it feeling like Luke doing too little, too late, after most of the Resistance had died and the New Republic had been destroyed. Holdo's the one who destroyed the fleet, and Kylo is the one who killed Snoke, after all.

It feels like Luke's 'victory' is symbolic and empty, and more due to the rumor mill than the actions on his part. It's not a redemption for him. It's the film's attempt at a redemption for him. And for me, that's not satisfactory.

Did you just... say something nice about Holdo? Truly, it is a Christmas Life Day Miracle!

Hey, she's terrible at morale and communicating, but if she wants ships destroyed, she can do it.

As to Luke's actions and the First Order... well, their brand new leader just got made a fool of in front of his men. It WILL chip away at his authority, especially when you know Hux is just waiting for a moment of weakness to finish him off. It might also make some of the troops question whether the Dark Side is stronger. I'd like to see them follow up on that in IX by having Finn go and try to recruit some of his fellow troops to join him in defecting. And/or have one or more of the Knights of Ren defect/surrender to Rey.

We'll have to wait and see. Same way we'll have to wait and see if the child slaves get rescued.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, I'll agree that more flashbacks or info showing how Luke got to that point would have helped. I don't think it's out of character necessarily, but I do think it feels jarring because we don't see enough of how he got to that point.

And yeah, a lot will depend on whether Abrams follows up on TLJ, or ignores it/tries to retcon it. A sequel has the power to strengthen the preceding films, or undercut them. For example, I honestly feel that seeing the effort it took just to get the Death Star plans in Rogue One, and the price that was paid, actually gives more weight to A New Hope as a film. And Infinity War giving Cap plenty of chances to be awesome, and showing the consequences of a divided Avengers team (namely being easy pickings for Thanos), went a long way toward salvaging Civil War for me. So it's really up to Abrams whether he will use IX to weaken or strengthen TLJ.

As to Holdo, its a little off-topic, but I think that her main failing is that she's not good at changing plans in the middle of the stream. I get a real "Stay the course" vibe from her. She kept to Leia's evacuation plan pretty rigidly from what we see, and that arguably makes sense since she had just assumed command and had a lot to deal with besides reworking her battle plan on the fly, but there's a pattern here. She also didn't really seem to take Poe seriously as a threat even after he called her a traitor in the middle of her bridge (she should have put him in the brig then and there, in my view)-just dismisses him and goes about her business as though nothing had happened. And when it became clear that the transports had been detected, she just sat there while half of them were blown to bits before deciding on the ramming attack. My head canon for Holdo is that she's someone who's very good at coming up with unexpected ideas in the planning stage, but who is probably not very good at thinking on her feet and improvising new plans on the fly. That she tends to become too attached to a single plan, and stays the course past the point where its advisable. Which is not to say that she should have just done what Poe said, like some fans seem to think. But she does seem, arguably, to show a lack of flexibility in her own plans. Reminds me of a good quote from the Duke of Wellington:

"Napoleon built his campaigns of iron and when one piece broke the whole structure collapsed. I made my campaigns using rope, and if a piece broke I tied a knot."

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/679522 ... -one-piece

So that's Holdo, to me- She could probably craft a brilliant campaign in the planning stages, but she's not so good at "tying a knot".

[Vympel]

*snip*

Since you complained so much about post length (apparently I'm the one responsible for posts getting longer, not sure how that works) let's summarise:

Luke's characterization

In your last post you said something relevealing, about how "the movie was 40 years ago". Which is missing the point. The point is that Luke was 40 years ago. The character aged. People do not stay the same as they age. This is why Luke's characterisation in TLJ is good - because the transition reflects the transitions we see in other mythic heroes as they age. Further anything that would've had him behaving in much the same way as they did 40 years prior would have been "weird and dishonest". TFA established Luke had gone into exile without explanation and with no way for anyone to contact him. That's something that has to be dealt with.

But when bad stuff happened to Luke in other movies, he didn't behave this way!

Who gives a shit. None of the things he suffered in previous movies have any automatic bearing on how he'll react to what happened with Ben and your attempts to draw an equivalence where none exist have simply gotten more ridiculous as this argument has progressed:

1. Luke making a suggestion to buy R2-D2 to replace a busted astromech leading to the death of his aunt and uncle;
2. Luke being upset at Han being tortured; and
3. Luke being upset at Obi-Wan's death.

None of them have the character, content, or magnitude of his failure with Ben. I've explained why, and your idea of a response is "who says, lol". It's laughable, but to repeat:

1. Luke was an ignorant farm boy with no sense of responsibility or power, and no reason to infer one.

2. Luke didn't make any choice or engage in any sort of personal failing that would reasonably make him feel responsible for Han's pain.

3. Obi-Wan's death was entirely his own decision in every single particular and had absolutely fuck all to do with anything Luke did.

4. Even if we were to accept your ridiculous framing of "lol how you behave in any personal tragedy indicates how you'll behave in all subsequent personal tragedies", aging changes a person and their outlook on life. It's a fundamental reality of the human experience. Which is why they're reflected in the myths that Johnson refers to and which you airily dismiss because you want your Pew Pew Action Man.

By contrast, as the only Jedi Master in the galaxy, Luke had the overwhelmingly important responsibility of training a new order of Jedi - one of which he was well aware - or should have been - of the potential consequences for failure. Worse, his failure found expression in Ben - Leia and Han's son and his own nephew. He went into an extremely important situation with open eyes and in his view - totally fucked it up.

So that's the explanation. You've been given it enough times of course.

Amusingly, you refer to characters telling Luke that there was 'nothing he could have done' as if this is somehow support for your argument. Except errrr - its support for mine? Because they're telling Luke the fucking truth, and by contrast if someone told Luke that there was "nothing he could have done" in relation to Ben, that would obviously be nonsense?

It's hilarious you somehow thought this was a winning point You basically blew your own ass off instead.

As to your recent claim that this was somehow not 'established', this is pure horseshit. It's in the movie. He says that exact damn thing, I've actually already quoted. It's not hard:

For many years, there was balance...
and then I saw...
Ben.
My nephew...
with that mighty Skywalker blood.
In my hubris...
I thought I could train him,
that I could pass on my strength.

Leia...
trusted me with her son.
I took him...
and a dozen students...
and began a training temple.
By the time I realized I was no match
for the darkness rising in him...
It was too late.
What happened?
I went to confront him.
And he turned on me.

...

He must have thought I was dead.
When I came to...
the temple was burning.
He had vanished with a
handful of my students.
And slaughtered the rest.

Leia blamed Snoke, but...

It was me.
I failed.
Because I was Luke Skywalker.
Jedi master.
A legend.

Some incoherent claptrap about Luke and Vader and Kylo

I have no idea what the fuck you're even talking about with this thing. Something about "Luke was struggling with much more during the throne room scene than Kylo" which has ... nothing to do with anything that's ever come up as far a I know.

Luke contemplating killing Ben is 'butchery' of his character

No, its not. Luke flying into a murderous rage at the mere suggestion that Leia could turn to the Dark Side is perfectly consistent with what Luke ashamedly relates in TLJ, no matter how much you try and gild the lily with irrelevant nonsense that is nowhere in ROTJ's script as comprising Luke's motivation for that moment. Hilariously, you say this utter bullshit and accuse me of making stuff up? Luke even continues to refer to the good and conflict within Vader during the duel. Your line of bullshit about how he's actually got all this unseen simmering rage at Vader and the thing with Leia was the 'last straw' is just that.

Not to mention that in TLJ, you know - Luke didn't actually fucking do it. The impulse passed in a second. So even if one were to accept your attempt to make Luke's dark side rage in ROTJ be due to far more than it actually was, his brief moment of shame in TLJ is in no way out of character.

Amusingly, you also chortle about this being 'inconsistent' with his triumph in ROTJ, because apparently you forgot that's a huge part of the whole point in the first place. You know, Luke fucked up, and his arc is about getting back to where he's supposed to be. You know - character progression! Drama! Conflict! Resolution!

But Luke should've helped!

Of course he should've helped, that's the entire point of his arc in the movie, for fuck's sake. Getting him to the point where he does so. This is called having an arc. It's a pretty common device in drama. I'm sorry you didn't get your heroic fan-service where the action figure man does everything you wanted the moment the movie started.

It's noteworthy that you have no idea what this 'constructive' thing you want him to be doing even is, and it'd be guaranteed to be stupid and undermine the entire narrative.

Kylo was stupid to fight Luke!

No shit, that's why he failed to stop the Resistance. I must've missed how the essence of good drama and tension in films was rational villains who always behaved logically.

Luke couldn't have known what Kylo would do! Orders of Battle! Delegations of command!

Yes, he could. He's a fucking powerful space wizard,and he knows his student. Fuck's sake, the audience knows Ben at this point. His single-minded pursuit of Luke even in the face of Snoke's orders was established waaaay back in TFA. Luke knew enough to project himself to the planet in the first place, I think he can figure out simple shit like "the Resistance is behind this big door and Ben is outside in his walkers". What a complicated tactical situation!

As to whining about "but why not order the walkers to continue", I imagine he wanted to go into the base and finish the job himself. Which is exactly what he ended up doing.

Bullshitartistry about Luke cutting himself off from the Force, ignorance of film chronology, and associated lying

You didn't know about it, so stop bullshitting and pretending you did. No one who actually knows the movie would ever have made such a stupid ass complaint if they actually knew it. Heck, you still don't remember it because you're still fucking up at it:

a. Luke knows she didn't resist the darkness because he was fucking standing right there as it happened. He saw the ground crack underneath her, the stones floating at her fingertips, her talking about the coldness, her not responding when he was calling out to her to resist. Or do you not trust the Jedi Master to know what any of this means, either?

b. He immediately figured out what's going on between Ben and Rey in the hut because at that point of the movie he had already re-established his fucking connection, ffs. This is basic chronological events of the movie that you are failing at now.

- Approx 50 minutes: Rey's first lesson, she goes to the dark place, it's explicitly stated in the same scene that Luke's closed himself off from the Force;
- Approx 1hr 10 minutes: Luke reconnects to the Force, calls out to Leia, Leia answers back; and
- Approx 1hr 17 minutes: Luke finds Rey and Ben communicating.

It's quite obvious that you're clearly not even fucking aware if the Super Obvious reconnection scene even happened. Why don't you swallow your totally unjustified pride and admit you fucked up? You can even make a smarmy comment about how the movie's fault you don't actually remember anything that actually happened in it if it'll make you feel better - it's a common enough tactic. Because this is just embarassing.

Your suggestion that I'm implying Luke's afraid of Snoke

This is yet another bizarre suggestion that simply never happened. Also, learn what a plot hole is.

Optical illusions are cheap because Luke was powerless

Using your powers in a manner where you make your enemy make a mistake is a quite obvious exercise in power, not powerlessness. You are confusing violence with power.

Sitting on a rock away from a battle is lazy

Not if doing so is going to kill you its not. Your insistence on calling this 'lazy' is just plain lying about the film. It's in complete bad faith, just a total refusal to engage with the movie on its own terms.

Not understanding Luke's arc or triumph in ROTJ in any way, shape or form

This merits a quote:

This is nonsense. Powerless and non violent are not synonyms. Luke's plan was to buy the Resistance a few minutes so they can escape, regroup and then continue blowing up dreadnoughts and Starkiller bases. In no way does this have any thematic similarity with Luke's refusal to fight Darth Vader and continue on the path to the dark side.

Luke refusing to kill his father that results in his crowning triumph - the saving of Vader's soul, the death of the Emperor, and the triumph of the Rebellion. Luke saving the Resistance through similarly entirely non-violent means is perfect for the character (you know, so his death isn't some grubby violent exercise but actually mirrors his triumph in ROTJ?), perfect for the themes of the series and perfect for the depiction of the Jedi religion itself (see: Yoda's lesson to Luke in TESB).

Furthermore Luke's refusal to kill Darth Vader in no way means that he has somehow renounced violence, or do you think that he wouldn't have fought any Stormtroopers that might've blocked his escape out of the second Death Star?

ROFL. Yeah dude I guess that banal, idiotic exercise in whatiffery means it would be thematically and narratively appropriate for the character who is the avatar of a religion that preaches non-violent use of the Force bow out of his mortal coil with a display of army-destroying violence.

"Computer, can you define regression for me?"

The fact that you think a badly scripted military feint is a thematic equivalent to to overcoming your inner demons and finding peace within yourself while at the same time accusing me of wanting fan service and not understanding the super-deepness of Star Wars is just too funny for words.

If there's one thing that screams 'fan service' its the recognition of the value of non-violent resolutions at the end of a movie. That's a totally credible statement that doesn't at all make you sound like a cretin.

Some stupid shit about active trackers

You introduce some new bullshit about "oh but how did they know it was this and not that" (who is this mysterious person who would put a tracker on their ship and why wouldn't this mysterious person have betrayed them well before this? There's your answer - cos its a stupid idea) but mostly you just repeat what the movie says with question marks without really explaining what's wrong with anything they've said. Finn and Rose go through a really, really simply chain of logic:

- It's an active tracker;
- Active trackers behave in accordance with certain principles known to both of them (only the lead ship of any force will have it active at any one time); and
- Therefore, this active tracker will behave in accordance with that principle.

How is this worse than forgetting droids exist? In Star Wars? I mean - are you on drugs?

Bespin

This one is fun because you just repeat everything I said but instead you add a question mark. Like, at no point do you actually explain anything to indicate its not a contrivance, because you know it is one. I have to wonder why you're even bothering to respond, you know it is one but think you can fool people into thinking you've said something of substance, maybe? Let's review:

- The Empire decided to disable the Falcon's hyperdrive but did so in such a trivial and easy to repair way that R2-D2 just needed to stick his arm inside a panel for a second. Let's take a moment to think of literally anything else they could've done to prevent it going into hyperspace in a more permanent way. One particularly effective way: seize the ship. But sure, this isn't an obvious contrivance.

- R2-D2 discovers this because the city central computer tells him. Why does the computer tell him? How does the computer even know? But sure, this isn't an obvious contrivance either.

Especially laughable is your demonstrating that you don't really know what we're talking about by complaining about the mechanics of BB-8 fixing Black One. I mean - you do realise that the whole point of an astromech is to fix damaged spacecraft?

"LOL how contrived, BB-8 did his job to fix battle damage that's been caused in a totally expected, normal way in a way that happened to be amusing!"

Yavin

Or they didn't know on what side of the gas giant the moon currently was.

So they didn't care to find out and relied on the rebels stupidly sitting there for 30 minutes instead of having their high value personnel jump shuttles and run? Right? I mean if you just admit it, you'll be in a lot less pain.

General complaining

This movie is one dumb plot convenience after another and you haven't addressed any of them.
This movie is a dumb frankenstein monster: the escape from Hoth, stitched with training on Dagobah (with a twist!), stitched with a dumb casino scene (free the animals!), stitched with Emperor throne room (which is...actually not a twist since Emperor dies in the throne room the last time), stitched with the walker attack on Hoth (it's SALT this time!).
The movie keeps aping the original trilogy and then puts on retarded twists on them.
For example the Emperor wants Luke to fight his own father and kill him to prove his strength and ruthlessness and begin his journey to the Dark Side. Snoke wants Kylo to execute a helpless Rey which will neither prove his strength nor ruthlessness since he already killed his own father and that wasn't good enough for Snoke. But killing this nobody he knew for a day will?

I don't think you know the difference between "plot convenience" and "stuff you subjectively don't like because you can draw non-existent to at-best-strained parallels with previous films if you look at them a certain particularly stupid and obtuse way".

As I final point let me just say how amusing it is to see you accusing me of wanting to see big demonstrations of Force power when this movie features the following nonsense:
-Emperor type figure appears through a hologram but this time he can actually physically affect the world around it
-Force Ghost appears but this time it can actually summon real lightning
-Leia dragging herself through vacuum of space for no discernible reason plot wise
-Jedi now able to create a perfect illusion of themselves from another planet

But Luke appearing and doing something other than smoke and mirrors? No no that's just fan service.

This is just substance free bitching. I'm quite happy to see new and interesting uses of the Force that are right for the characters to which they apply. That's not the same thing as "lol rip apart AT-ATs and pull down Star Destroyers" wank.

EDIT: Emperor figure who appears through a hologram? What the fuck are you even - ROFLMAO - so I guess you think there's some sort of functional difference between choking someone through a normal viewscreen camera (Vader/Ozzel) and pushing someone through a holographic camera? What wank!

[The Romulan Republic]

This is just substance free bitching. I'm quite happy to see new and interesting uses of the Force that are right for the characters to which they apply. That's not the same thing as "lol rip apart AT-ATs and pull down Star Destroyers" wank.

EDIT: Emperor figure who appears through a hologram? What the fuck are you even - ROFLMAO - so I guess you think there's some sort of functional difference between choking someone through a normal viewscreen camera (Vader/Ozzel) and pushing someone through a holographic camera? What wank!

Just to follow-up on this point- people whining about how Luke didn't come out and and blow up the whole First Order Army with the Force particularly irritate me, especially when they're also whining about how the film supposedly ruined Luke's character. Because Luke never won his greatest victories through brute force, and that's not what being a great Jedi is about. Luke's defining moment as a Jedi, the one that won the war? Was when he threw his lightsaber away in RotJ.

As to those who think that it makes Luke "not bad ass" or some shit, or dismiss it as "just" smoke and mirrors as Kane did- no less an authority on war than Sun Tzu had this to say on the subject:

"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."

"To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3200649-snz-b-ngf

[The Romulan Republic]

And again, I would point to Luke as effectively the "anti-Palpatine." Sure, they can both fight when they have to- but their biggest triumphs never came through fighting, but rather through psychological manipulation and the more subtle and indirect uses of the Force. If Palpatine had just walked into the Jedi Temple or the Senate, declared himself Emperor, and pulled out a lightsaber, he'd have been slaughtered.

[Vympel]

Just to follow-up on this point- people whining about how Luke didn't come out and and blow up the whole First Order Army with the Force particularly irritate me, especially when they're also whining about how the film supposedly ruined Luke's character. Because Luke never won his greatest victories through brute force, and that's not what being a great Jedi is about. Luke's defining moment as a Jedi, the one that won the war? Was when he threw his lightsaber away in RotJ.

As to those who think that it makes Luke "not bad ass" or some shit, or dismiss it as "just" smoke and mirrors as Kane did- no less an authority on war than Sun Tzu had this to say on the subject:

"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."

"To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/3200649-snz-b-ngf

That's a damn good parallel, too - never occurred to me.

On the whole Luke-as-power-fantasy and TLJ in general, this article's pretty good.

https://observer.com/2018/07/film-crit- ... star-wars/

They then threw out a million other fan fiction ideas about what to do with that character, many of which seemed to deal with him secretly building a weapon (you know, like bad guys do) or training to BECOME EVEN MORE BADASS THAN KYLO AT THE FORCE. The juvenile instincts of these choices are telling when it’s all about indulging your power fantasy. But the simple truth is there is no way to come into this movie and tell a story about Luke hiding away without getting into this kind of fault-laden characterization.

...

Luke’s transcendent finale battle with Kylo is probably the single most badass thing I’ve ever seen in these films. Luke literally heads off an entire squad of AT-AT walkers, has a tense samurai-esque lightsaber battle with Kylo, and then it’s revealed to be an incredible ruse of force projection from across the galaxy, thus rendering it an incredible act of Jedi-like pacifism to boot. He, like so many in the film, wins not by fighting what he hates, but by saving the people he loves. And having used every ounce of the force within him, he stares into the sun, the boy who always looked to the horizon for what was next, now simply closing his eyes and feeling where he is now…and he lets go.

I got literal goosebumps. For all the deep want of Luke being a god, it is with the most Jesus-like notions of sacrifice that he feels the most human. But I was talking with aforementioned bartender about this scene and he kept harping on “the logic” of it (same goes with Yoda summoning lightning). After getting through all that nonsense and down to the feeling beyond it, it came down to the fact he was already “out” on Luke’s portrayal and looking for excuses. When I made the argument about all the beautiful things his character arc was doing he just exclaimed, “O.K., a bunch of nice messages! So what?!” This brings us to the whole dang crux.

Because I think viewing a separation between indulgence and messaging is how we even see things like this in the first place. Because they’re not different. A power fantasy with rigid toxic views you already hold is the message of certain films; it just feels right to you. And when it doesn’t feel right? When it’s a bunch of things you’ll just dismiss as “nice messages” but can’t feel? Well, you are just belying the truth about what you really want movies to say and do. For me? I watched this film unfold and all those “nice messages” weren’t divorced from my dramatic experience of the film. They were part of character moments, oohs, aahs, cheers and tears that come with me experiencing the power of a story. With Luke, I saw so much of the pain of who I really am, not the projection of the man I wanted to be when I was a boy. And that has its own emotional kind of power that strikes you to your core.

[FaxModem1]

Does that really apply though? Since this depended on the script, er I mean, the will of the force. There's no epic "Fly, you fools" line to Leia.

You see, we have another great moment of someone buying time for their friends so that their friends will be safe in cinema. It was Gandalf facing off against the Balrog.



It wasn't portrayed as a trick by the film. Or as Gandalf fighting that which he hates, but as sacrificing himself to save his friends. And that's the disconnect.

[Darth Lucifer]

Back to the speculative side of things, there have been fan theories on what the title of Episode IX will be. I've seen or read about many titles both good and bad. "Son of Darkness" is apparently all over Reddit...I don't like it.

"Balance of the Force" (I forget where I saw this one) seems more appropriate given all the themes mentioned above by other users. It fits better then "Son of Darkness" I think. The whole of the Star Wars saga has been about bringing balance to the force than about Kylo Ren and it completely ignores Rey.

"The Spark of Hope" seems fair I guess, given all the themes given to us in the last movie about keeping the resistance alive. The same article mentions "A New Order," which I have mixed feelings about. It could be a new Jedi Order, but it also sounds like that popular Sith catchphrase about bringing a new order to the Galaxy.

Maybe it's a completely new order formed after the balancing of the Force but unlike the Jedi it's not limited to secluded temples and limited people...kind of like how Shaolin kung fu made it's way out of the temples and was learned by the common people. It's the reason those ancient styles have survived when various Chinese Emperors ordered the burning of their temples.

Re: Gandalf vs. the Balrog...that scene was epic. I had read the books and knew what would happen later but it was so awesome to see on film, and by Ian McKellen no less, he is just legendary. The same goes for Max Von Sydow in The Force Awakens, I wish he had more screentime than he did.

Back to Star Wars, Luke Skywalker making the same heroic sacrifice at the end of The Last Jedi couldn't have been done much better. On first showing in the theater I never saw it coming (even though Snoke had said he bridged Kylo Ren and Rey together which didn't click until the second time I saw it and could think about it more). It was a pleasant surprise and I thought it was a very fitting end which parallel's Obi-Wan Kenobi's own mortal demise.

[FaxModem1]

I always preferred the title for IX to be "From His Nap", making a complete sentence of all three sequel trilogy titles.

[Batman]

Doesn't work (though I very much like the idea ). Luke said pretty clearly that he isn't the last Jedi, Rey wasn't napping, and if there's yet another Jedi around they're not the last either

[The Romulan Republic]

From her, nap, then.

Rey's amnesia about her past could metaphorically be considered being "asleep".

[The Romulan Republic]

Back to the speculative side of things, there have been fan theories on what the title of Episode IX will be. I've seen or read about many titles both good and bad. "Son of Darkness" is apparently all over Reddit...I don't like it.

"Balance of the Force" (I forget where I saw this one) seems more appropriate given all the themes mentioned above by other users. It fits better then "Son of Darkness" I think. The whole of the Star Wars saga has been about bringing balance to the force than about Kylo Ren and it completely ignores Rey.

"The Spark of Hope" seems fair I guess, given all the themes given to us in the last movie about keeping the resistance alive. The same article mentions "A New Order," which I have mixed feelings about. It could be a new Jedi Order, but it also sounds like that popular Sith catchphrase about bringing a new order to the Galaxy.

Maybe it's a completely new order formed after the balancing of the Force but unlike the Jedi it's not limited to secluded temples and limited people...kind of like how Shaolin kung fu made it's way out of the temples and was learned by the common people. It's the reason those ancient styles have survived when various Chinese Emperors ordered the burning of their temples.

I do think a less centralized Jedi Order might be for the best. Harder to kill off a widely-spread religion/philosophy, and it would allow individual Jedi more flexibility. Then again, one can argue that something as powerful as Force users needs to be closely regulated.

Re: Gandalf vs. the Balrog...that scene was epic. I had read the books and knew what would happen later but it was so awesome to see on film, and by Ian McKellen no less, he is just legendary. The same goes for Max Von Sydow in The Force Awakens, I wish he had more screentime than he did.

Keeping to the tradition set by Christopher Lee as Dooku (see also Gwendoline Christie as Phasma).

Back to Star Wars, Luke Skywalker making the same heroic sacrifice at the end of The Last Jedi couldn't have been done much better. On first showing in the theater I never saw it coming (even though Snoke had said he bridged Kylo Ren and Rey together which didn't click until the second time I saw it and could think about it more). It was a pleasant surprise and I thought it was a very fitting end which parallel's Obi-Wan Kenobi's own mortal demise.

Agreed.