Star Wars: a story for every fan? (Andor Spoilers)

[Relic]

50 minutes ago, Myrddin said:

I'll end with the rest of Luke's quote, which actually is him completing his second (on screen) hero's journey: The Rebellion is reborn today... And I will not be the last Jedi. ... See you around, kid.

He completes his hero's journey by both cryptically and smugly telling the kid he literally drove into the arms of the darkside that he will see him around? Very heroic.

[Darryk]

As Luke is not the main character of the sequel trilogy, he didn't need a character arc. He already went through the Hero's Journey in the OT. There was no reason for the character to be "different" in TLJ.

His role in the ST was to be the wise, all-knowing mentor, an even more powerful version of Obi-Wan. He should have been an even more sanguine version of what he is at the end of ROTJ.

[Corvinus85]

One of the main problems is the lack of information on why Ben Solo turned to the dark side. So Luke has a vision, mkay. In TFA we have a short line from Leia that Ben has too much of Vader in him. But even if we try to not consider the prequels where we see the exact motives, the OT had a better inkling - Anakin turned to the dark side in a time of war; good people can turn bad in wartime. But what events influenced Ben? How did Snoke even get in contact with Ben? 

[Kalbear]

Which would make zero sense in the context of TFA.

That is the real problem - TFA. You understand why Yoda still hides after ANH to a point - he remained terrified of the Emperor and justified his inaction by pinning his hopes on the new guy. But Luke after rotj has absolutely no excuse to stop fighting, especially when Han's son and his former student would be involved. And then he continues to do nothing after the obliteration of a whole planet?

That whole setup makes zero sense for Luke unless he has gone through some massive trauma and has chosen something different. He can't just be retired, and he can't just be not knowing - he has to actively be choosing to hide.

Now that all sucks! It's fair to say that Luke quitting after Ren massacres all his students is some bullshit. It's fair to say that him being the macguffin at all is bullshit. But none of that is TLJ's fault.

 

[Lord Varys]

3 hours ago, Myrddin said:

To quote our subject: Amazing. Every word you just said was wrong.

Not sure you even understand the topic at hand. Luke being a hermit isn't the issue - Yoda and Obi-Wan became hermits, too, you know, and nobody complains about that. However, in the shitshow that's the ST Luke is not just a hermit but an asshead hermit who pisses on the legacy of the Jedi and who abandoned his twin sister, nephew, whatever friends he had left, and the galaxy at large to the mercy of Snoke and Palpatine.

At the end of ROTS the Jedi are destroyed and hunted, so it makes sense for Obi-Wan and Yoda to hide. But Luke has no motivation or good reason to do this. His actions are the actions of an inconsistently written asshead.

3 hours ago, Myrddin said:

Well, most of them. I do agree that they left too much out of his journey between RotJ and his hermit hut, but 30+ years is a long time. Luke's whole OT Hero's Journey was covered in 3-5 years. A blink of an eye. Your assertion that he should never change after that flies in the face of human nature. Goes against the cyclical nature of mythology too.

Mythology doesn't have to be cyclical and Star Wars wasn't cyclical prior to the asshead ST which completely recycled the plot and setting of the OT. It is a bad decision to have Luke as a cyncical asshole and not explaining this.

Luke has no right to mope around even if he blames himself that his sucker nephew turned evil. Obi-Wan also failed to prevent Anakin's fall to the dark side, but did he mope around, refuse to train Anakin's son, or mumble nonsense about the Jedi having to end? Nope, he did not.

And, you know, Luke Skywalker is thrice the hero Obi-Wan Kenobi ever was considering Luke's belief in the goodness of his father against the judgment of both Obi-Wan and Yoda. He is the real hero of this story, and would never act the way he acted in the ST.

Luke's characterization is as convincing as ANH reintroducing Palpatine as a benevolent Emperor who fell in love with Mon Mothma between the trilogies, married her, and turned to the light side to be worthy of her. Such an asshead development you could also justify with 'twenty years passed, a lot can happen in twenty years.'

 

[Slurktan]

2 hours ago, Darryk said:

As Luke is not the main character of the sequel trilogy, he didn't need a character arc. He already went through the Hero's Journey in the OT. There was no reason for the character to be "different" in TLJ.

His role in the ST was to be the wise, all-knowing mentor, an even more powerful version of Obi-Wan. He should have been an even more sanguine version of what he is at the end of ROTJ.

Well for one Luke most definitely did not go through the complete hero's journey in the OT.  He went through a part of it.

This to me is the biggest problem of the sequel trilogy :how they set it up.  I'd be fine with Luke starting as the disgruntled hermit if he was the main character so we could get into what made him be like that and then see his eventual redemption.  As one of the writers noted (Arndt whose script was thrown out) its hard to have Luke Skywalker be in the movie as a side character because the movie inevitably all becomes about him any scene that he is in. This rears its head in TLJ because everything in that movie that doesn't involve Luke is either downright terrible (Finn/Leia/Poe) or is interesting only because it is tangential to Luke (Rey).

Also of course Rian Johnson cut the best scene filmed for TLJ (and thematically one of the most important ones to the "Saga" as a whole) of Luke mourning Han.

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, Darryk said:

As Luke is not the main character of the sequel trilogy, he didn't need a character arc. He already went through the Hero's Journey in the OT. There was no reason for the character to be "different" in TLJ.

His role in the ST was to be the wise, all-knowing mentor, an even more powerful version of Obi-Wan. He should have been an even more sanguine version of what he is at the end of ROTJ.

I don't understand why Luke shouldn't have been one of the main characters of the ST. He could have been a great lead even if he was an old guy.

That said, if he is a secondary character then the best way to depict him would have indeed been to have him in the obvious role of the Jedi Master who rebuild the Jedi Order. Thanks to the asshead ST the very title of the movie 'Return of the Jedi' is now wrong. The Jedi never returned after that movie, and it seems they are gone for good considering that Rey burns her lightsaber in the very end of the ST.

2 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

One of the main problems is the lack of information on why Ben Solo turned to the dark side. So Luke has a vision, mkay. In TFA we have a short line from Leia that Ben has too much of Vader in him. But even if we try to not consider the prequels where we see the exact motives, the OT had a better inkling - Anakin turned to the dark side in a time of war; good people can turn bad in wartime. But what events influenced Ben? How did Snoke even get in contact with Ben? 

That entire plotline makes no sense. The biggest issue is the guy's Vader fetish. No sane person would ever idolize the cripple who betrayed the Sith at the end of his life as some force of evil. Vader was not only a cripple who could never use his full Force potential, he was also a weakling mentally because he betrayed his master and the Sith and returned to the light to save his son. That would have been the story any descendant of Anakin's would be told by his family and thus anyone being tempted by the dark side would never idolize that traitor.

2 hours ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

Now that all sucks! It's fair to say that Luke quitting after Ren massacres all his students is some bullshit. It's fair to say that him being the macguffin at all is bullshit. But none of that is TLJ's fault.

That is not true. TFA does establish Luke's disappearance as silly MacGuffin, yes, but it was TLJ decision to have Luke go away because of he was tempted to murder his nephew in cold blood. It was also that movie's decision to establish that Luke didn't rebuild the Jedi Order, that his nephew murdered all other Jedi (students).

Luke could have had a different reason to be on that planet - he could have been stranded there, he could have gone there because he was looking for something, because he had to do something there, etc. It was the decision of TLJ to turn Luke into a cynical asshead.

In fact, the whole nonsense from TFA of there being a map to Luke Skywalker - as if Luke himself was a place and not a person - implied that Leia and her people knew where Luke wanted to go. And perhaps also why he wanted to go there.

The idea that the cynical asshead Luke from TLJ would have told his twin sister or anyone that he would be going away or where he would be going or that the place he would be going to could be found by some weirdo MacGuffin map is obviously ridiculous.

It must also strike as very odd that Leia would ever want her asshead brother back if the guy actually contemplated to murder her only child ... and failed so spectacularly as a teacher and uncle.

Also, of course, the implicit implication of TFA is that Luke Skywalker's presence really can make a difference in the struggle against the First Order and Snoke. People would not look for him if he was just an impotent, nearly dead wreck who gets high from sucking milk from the teats of alien cows. They would only look for him if they had reason to believe he had crucial knowledge or means to challenge Snoke and the First Order.

[Ran]

2 hours ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

But none of that is TLJ's fault.

Of course it is, since there were plenty of options to split the difference between Luke's heroism and Luke not being involved in the fight, like this idea I noted back in the day. Johnson would both have gotten his guilt-ridden character and Hamill would have gotten his heroic character both in the same film, and I think a lot of people would have been a lot happier. 

 

[Kalbear]

11 minutes ago, Ran said:

Of course it is, since there were plenty of options to split the difference between Luke's heroism and Luke not being involved in the fight, like this idea I noted back in the day. Johnson would both have gotten his guilt-ridden character and Hamill would have gotten his heroic character both in the same film, and I think a lot of people would have been a lot happier. 

 

That doesn't work though. It explains why he is on the island but does nothing to explain why he didn't go after ren or snoke right then after the temple destruction. It also doesn't jive with him being all about his friends and withholding all that from Leia or his droids.

Maybe you don't personally care about that level of continuity- and JJ certainly doesn't- but Rian Johnson absolutely did.

[Lord Varys]

4 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

That doesn't work though. It explains why he is on the island but does nothing to explain why he didn't go after ren or snoke right then after the temple destruction. It also doesn't jive with him being all about his friends and withholding all that from Leia or his droids.

Maybe you don't personally care about that level of continuity- and JJ certainly doesn't- but Rian Johnson absolutely did.

As I said, that shit only comes up in TLJ. TFA didn't have that yet, so the inconsistent/mad nonsense in Luke's actions in TLJ are all on Johnson. Abrams only created the nonsensical 'Where's Luke?' MacGuffin plot.

The man's silly obsession with maps returns in TROS with the map to Palpatine crap.

(And by the way - there is no way the galaxy would buy the nonsense about the return of the Emperor just on the basis of some holo message as per the opening crawl. Fetish Guy only buys it after he sees Palpatine ... but the good guys never do, so the idea that they actually buy this 'the Emperor has returned from the dead' nonsense just because of hearsay/propaganda of their enemy is utter horseshit.)

[Ran]

1 hour ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

It explains why he is on the island but does nothing to explain why he didn't go after ren or snoke right then after the temple destruction.

"I had a vision from the Force that said the only way to make sure Snoke did not succeed was to find this place, Ahch-to. There was something there, something so important that I knew this was the place I had to be. I left a map for my friends to find me, if they really needed me, but I had to make the trip alone."

"But then, once I spent time here, I realized that I had to stay here for good, because if I ever left, even worse would happen. Worse for Leia, for Han, for the Republic, for the galaxy."

I mean, this is easy stuff?

1 hour ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

Maybe you don't personally care about that level of continuity- and JJ certainly doesn't- but Rian Johnson absolutely did.

If he did, he would have listened to Hamill and worked to find the middle path, like the above or something else that suited. It's not hard. Johnson was just set on having a specific vision of Luke as a broke-down Jedi so riddled with guilt that he decided nothing was more important than his wallowing in his guilt.

[Raja]

There was plenty heroic about Luke in TLJ

[Relic]

2 minutes ago, Raja said:

There was plenty heroic about Luke in TLJ

Yeah, he died on his hill, i guess. Cool.

[Raja]

4 minutes ago, Relic said:

Yeah, he died on his hill, i guess. Cool.

You can reduce almost anything to a pithy sentence like above, doesn't make it mean much

IMO, Luke had one of the best arcs in the sequel trilogy and certainly an interesting one. I also think it was a really good ending for him.

[Kalbear]

Vader died doing a clean jerk so

[Corvinus85]

 

[Rubicante]

Who is the bigger asshead in TLJ?  Luke, or Poe for that prank call scene at the start of the movie?

The more I reflect on TLJ, the more I hate it.  I can’t believe I am going to say this, but I think I like AOTC better than TLJ.

[karaddin]

9 hours ago, Raja said:

You can reduce almost anything to a pithy sentence like above, doesn't make it mean much

IMO, Luke had one of the best arcs in the sequel trilogy and certainly an interesting one. I also think it was a really good ending for him.

Personally for me its one of the most "jedi heroic" act in all 9 movies. I never expect to convince people that hated the movie to actually like it, but I wish my liking it (at least until tRoS retrospectively ruined a lot of that) was also accepted as valid rather than being referred to as Disney propaganda or whatever the fuck it was someone said upthread. 

[Ran]

Luke's heroic sacrifice was breathtaking and gorgeous and I've never had a problem with that specific act.

I wish it had been couched in a different 2 hours prior to it, is all, in regards to what Luke was doing on Ahch-to and why. 

 

[Heartofice]

There are a lot of good conceptual ideas in TLJ, a lot of nice ideas, but having nice ideas is the easy bit. Execution is the hard bit and TLJ is full of absolutely awful execution.

I have no problem with Luke being a hermit, I didn’t mind his ending, I hated pretty much everything else he did in this movie.. starting with drinking Green alien milk. That kind of sums up pretty much everything wrong with TLJ.