The Last Jedi, not the last spoiler thread

[Derfel Cadarn]

13 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

You're challenging my memory here.  At the end of ESB, Luke receives his mechanical hand and tells Leia that she should start the hunt for Han, but in the meantime there is something he has to do. (complete his training)  His defeat to Vader made him realize he was too hasty in leaving Dagobah.

At the start of RotJ, quite a lot of time has elapsed.  C3PO makes some reference about it taking time to track Han to Jabba, plus even after they discovered where Han is, Lando had time to infiltrate Jabba's court before Leia showed up with Chewie.  And then when Luke arrives at Jabba's palace, he announces himself as a fully trained Jedi, plus Luke is noticeably more composed and mature and has had time to construct his own green light saber to replace the blue one lost in his severed hand.

I thought it was clear in the story that Luke returned to Yoda for a substantial period to complete his training.

I don't think so.  When he speaks to Yoda it seems as if he hasnt been back since esb (a year).  Theres a deleted seen where we see him build his lightsaber on Tatooine in Obi-Wan's old house just before confronting Jabba.

He's clearly shocked at high much Yoda has deteriorated, and he tells Yoda he's keeping his promise to come back.  I assume he spent the year helping the rebels.

[Werthead]

 

Quote

 

Well at some point he did have to go get a new lightsaber.

 

He built it himself between films.

Canonically, Luke never went back to see Yoda after ESB and before RotJ.

That does of course raise the question of how Luke got pretty good with the lightsabre. He only could have practiced against remotes, we never see him practising with Yoda on Dagobah and there's no intimation that any combat training took place at all in the few days he was there. Luke I think was helped by the fact that Vader was holding back in ESB and his heart wasn't in it in RotJ, but overall Luke seems to have had less melee combat training than Rey.

[Iskaral Pust]

8 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

A lot of time did elapse, but he didn't spend it with Yoda. After rescuing Han he goes back to Dagobah, and asks Yoda about Vader being his father for the first time. 

 

6 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

I don't think so.  When he speaks to Yoda it seems as if he hasnt been back since esb (a year).  Theres a deleted seen where we see him build his lightsaber on Tatooine in Obi-Wan's old house just before confronting Jabba.

He's clearly shocked at high much Yoda has deteriorated, and he tells Yoda he's keeping his promise to come back.  I assume he spent the year helping the rebels.

I never saw that deleted scene, although it makes sense that Yoda would not have the raw materials on Dagobah.  But being able to make a light saber was described by Obi-Wan as requiring significant knowledge of the force (no further explanation).

We see Luke asking Yoda about his father, and hearing about his sister, at Yoda's deathbed.  i just assumed they wanted to keep that important scene onscreen, whereas they were willing to dispense with the training montage and allow that to occur offscreen.  So it would make sense for Luke's character to ask sooner, but the director can wave away that logic because he wants to show it to the audience.

OTOH, we can decide that Luke suddenly became an autodidact in the force, ignored his best resource to learn the force, and was emotionally more affected by Yoda's passing than a few days of contact a year prior would suggest.  I'm not saying that didn't happen but it would be yet another plot hole.

[Iskaral Pust]

8 minutes ago, Werthead said:

 

Canonically, Luke never went back to see Yoda after ESB and before RotJ.

Is that definitely established elsewhere in the canon?  I've only watched the movies.

[Derfel Cadarn]

10 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Is that definitely established elsewhere in the canon?  I've only watched the movies.

As Wert says, had he gone back earlier he would have asked Yoda about Vader's revelation.

[Werthead]

13 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Is that definitely established elsewhere in the canon?  I've only watched the movies.

Luke quizzes both Yoda and Obi-Wan about the revelation that Vader is his father, so he hadn't been back to see either of them.

Shadows of the Empire had him training in seclusion on Tatooine in Obi-Wan's hut, but of course that is no longer canon.

[Iskaral Pust]

24 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

As Wert says, had he gone back earlier he would have asked Yoda about Vader's revelation.

 

19 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Luke quizzes both Yoda and Obi-Wan about the revelation that Vader is his father, so he hadn't been back to see either of them.

I accept that is logical.  That’s why I addressed it above — the director may have broken with logic to keep that key scene onscreen. 

This doesn’t matter enormously either way but it upends all of the dire warnings to Luke (and Anakin) about needing a Jedi master to teach them. 

[Astromech]

40 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

 

I never saw that deleted scene, although it makes sense that Yoda would not have the raw materials on Dagobah.  But being able to make a light saber was described by Obi-Wan as requiring significant knowledge of the force (no further explanation).

We see Luke asking Yoda about his father, and hearing about his sister, at Yoda's deathbed.  i just assumed they wanted to keep that important scene onscreen, whereas they were willing to dispense with the training montage and allow that to occur offscreen.  So it would make sense for Luke's character to ask sooner, but the director can wave away that logic because he wants to show it to the audience.

OTOH, we can decide that Luke suddenly became an autodidact in the force, ignored his best resource to learn the force, and was emotionally more affected by Yoda's passing than a few days of contact a year prior would suggest.  I'm not saying that didn't happen but it would be yet another plot hole.

Luke tells Yoda he returned to complete his training. To which Yoda replies that he doesn't need any more training, he just has to confront Vader (paraphrasing). Of course this doesn't explain his much improved lightsaber skills and control of the force. I believe it was only about six months in between TESB and ROTJ. I suppose Skywalkers are just naturals. They just seem to have a  great deal of difficulty with their emotions and own inner balance.

[Kalbear]

2 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

Just for the record: I deliberately avoided any claim that the old-Force could only be acquired through breeding and discipline. The equity/balance-aspect has alway been part of the Force; the new movies have surgically removed all the culturally questionable baggage. 

Edit: Ah, I see. I wrote “required instruction.” I should have written “could be improved by instruction.”

Sure, though there are plenty of examples where even that was questionable. 

I think what's clear now is that Yoda believes that instruction and discipline were hugely important. And Obi-Wan believed that heritage were really important (though Yoda did not). And while you might want to dismiss the prequels here, the OT shows pretty well how Luke is able to do some pretty amazing things without any kind of instruction like blow up the entire Death Star, and Yoda is the one who thinks he can't be trained.

Note that Rey hasn't shown a ton of explicit force powers that are incredibly insane. No force jumps, no lightning, no force speed. She's used a jedi mind trick and some TK, which Luke ALSO did without instruction. 

TLJ keeps going on with what TESB pointed out, which is that Yoda is fucking wrong. Yoda thinks that Luke has to kill Vader. Luke has to finish his training. Luke is too old. Luke has too much dark side. And the prequels go with this even more, showing how much of Anakin's rise is due to Yoda, how Yoda falls into the Emperor's trap incredibly easily, etc.

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

He was? He had quick reflexes, I don't recall him doing anything overt. No light sabre, no mind tricks, no telekinesis...

He flew a space ship and blew up an entire droid fleet by himself. That's a bit more than fast reflexes. He also won a podrace and used TK (we think) to get the coupling back on. And he built droids all by himself. 

Luke is a better comparison, mind you; Luke uses TK and blocks bolts while blind while getting about 3 seconds of training. He then is able to do things like force choke, force jump and whatnot while never getting any official training from Yoda about that either.

[Astromech]

More Rey parentage speculation. Sorry, Mormont  https://dorksideoftheforce.com/2017/11/14/reys-parents-revealed-battlefront-ii/

[SpaceChampion]

1 hour ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Theres a deleted seen where we see him build his lightsaber on Tatooine in Obi-Wan's old house just before confronting Jabba.

 

[Kalbear]

5 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

 

So not only did Luke receive any formal training between ESB and ROTJ from Yoda or Ben, he didn't have a lightsaber until a day or two before he got into the Skiff fight?

 

[Ran]

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Anakin was as competent and powerful with the force as Rey shows without any training. 

If you mean that Anakin was able to use the Force actively without training, don't think that's true. People who are Force-sensitive but untrained may have a certain level of intuitive precognition which, for example, is useful when piloting or being a pod-racer... but stuff like the Jedi "mind trick" that Rey pulls was well beyond what an untrained Anakin could do. Applying the Force to create conscious effects seems to require training, no matter how powerful you are.

Except for Rey, of course, if we believe there's no explanation to her ability other than it just is what it is.

[Kalbear]

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

If you mean that Anakin was able to use the Force actively without training, don't think that's true. People who are Force-sensitive but untrained may have a certain level of intuitive precognition which, for example, is useful when piloting or being a pod-racer... but stuff like the Jedi "mind trick" that Rey pulls was well beyond what an untrained Anakin could do. Applying the Force to create conscious effects seems to require training, no matter how powerful you are.

Nope. Luke uses TK in TESB without any training. He apparently learned how to do force choking without any special training too. He also blocks laser blasts with precisely 5 seconds of training, which is exactly as much training as Rey gets from Maz. 

ETA: we don't really have any idea what constitutes 'advanced' or 'active' force power. Lightning seems to be something pretty hard to do based on prior movies, but other ones are all over the place. Are jedi mind tricks simple? Is TK? Are jumps? 

A lot of it is also dependent heavily on how long Luke was with Yoda, where he apparently learned all he needed to know in order to come up with TK, acrobatics, force jump, mind tricks, force chokes, etc. 

And if you get Rebels, Ezra uses TK and I think mind tricks before being actively trained too. 

Now I'll grant you that the EU made it implied that force training requires YEARS of discipline and training to do active work - but the movies themselves don't do that nearly that much. 

[felice]

3 hours ago, RumHam said:

Wait, how does that work? I thought it was only a few days before he leaves to save his friends. 

The Falcon (and Slave 1) are travelling at sublight between solar systems, and it seems likely that Bespin is lightmonths from Hoth. The crew of the Falcon only experience days, though, because of time dliation when accelerating to near lightspeed in normal space. Fett calls in Vader when they're decelerating towards Bespin and their destination is clear. Purely my headcanon, but I don't think it's contradicted by anything in the movies.

[SpaceChampion]

7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

So not only did Luke receive any formal training between ESB and ROTJ from Yoda or Ben, he didn't have a lightsaber until a day or two before he got into the Skiff fight?

 

Nah, Threepio and R2 took a year to walk to Jabba's palace.

[Rockroi]

2 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

I thought it was clear in the story that Luke returned to Yoda for a substantial period to complete his training.

I have to disagree and I think the evidence shows otherwise.  

First, as another person stated, Luke specifically tells Yoda that he returned to complete his training, which indicates that he had not been back before.

Second, when Luke is flying back to see Yoda he gloves-up his mechanical hand, indicating that he is trying to hide it from Yoda, probably because of the shame of his defeat that Yoda had predicted.  

Third, if Luke HAD returned to train with Yoda AFTER facing Vader (and being defeated and told his Father was Vader), it seems utterly impossible to believe that Luke would not have asked Yoda BEFORE about is parentage etc. if he was training with him on multiple occasions.  

[Ran]

20 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Nope. Luke uses TK in TESB without any training. He apparently learned how to do force choking without any special training too. He also blocks laser blasts with precisely 5 seconds of training, which is exactly as much training as Rey gets from Maz. 

Obi-wan started his training, opening him up to the fact that he could use the Force. He also spoke to him from beyond the grave, and we've no idea if that continued to some degree. Remember, between ANH and TESB are 2 or 3 years. I can totally buy that Luke, once knowing he could use the Force, and having had some basics to opening himself to it, had spent the next couple of years trying to practice and improve. And even so, the telekinesis was quite a stretch for him to start with.

But if we're to say, well, J.J. and co. don't really care about continuity, so why try and apply some rational basis to how it works? Sure. Maybe they've decided that if you're really powerful you'll start stumbling across Jedi abilities without needing anyone to teach you. I mean, we've got that kid at the end of TLJ, after all, who's using telekinesis casually...

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, Ran said:

Obi-wan started his training, opening him up to the fact that he could use the Force. He also spoke to him from beyond the grave, and we've no idea if that continued to some degree.

We have some inkling that he hasn't seen Ben until he sees the vision in the snow in TESB. That's certainly the implication. He's pretty surprised to see him. He's not all 'Oh hi, Ben" like the Room.

And yes, you're right - it's certainly possible he had training, but there's no actual evidence of this in the movies. 

4 minutes ago, Ran said:

Remember, between ANH and TESB are 2 or 3 years. I can totally buy that Luke, once knowing he could use the Force, and having had some basics to opening himself to it, had spent the next couple of years trying to practice and improve. And even so, the telekinesis was quite a stretch for him to start with.

Rey says specifically that she's had this thing inside her for years. Note that Rey isn't actually that surprised that she could be a force user. 

4 minutes ago, Ran said:

But if we're to say, well, J.J. and co. don't really care about continuity, so why try and apply some rational basis to how it works? Sure. Maybe they've decided that if you're really powerful you'll start stumbling across Jedi abilities without needing anyone to teach you. I mean, we've got that kid at the end of TLJ, after all, who's using telekinesis casually...

Using TK casually is apparently not that weird; again, Ezra does it in Rebels too. It's what Rey associates most with the force (moving rocks). It's also the most instinctive one; it requires no manipulation of mind powers or subtle things or sped up powers, it's brute force...uh...force.

One of the staples in the movies seems to be that once a force user sees a power used, they can at least try it. Luke sees Obi-Wan use TK and later can use it. Rey sees Ren try a mind trick, and then can use it. Rey sees Ren use TK and then uses it. I get that this isn't the most satisfying thing, but that appears to be basic power. Now, being able to use it well, or use it tactically - that's another matter. Or do something like what Luke does at the end of TLJ, for that matter.