I love Hamill, I love Luke. After reflecting on the movie for a few a months, the portrayal of an aged fallible Luke was honestly inspired. It humanized him instead of mythologized, all it needed was to stick the landing in the third movie. Luke’s plot wasn’t over just because he died, he still needed to guide Rey and understand how the failures of the Jedi led his father to become Vader. Self improvement isn’t a linear line, it has it’s ups and downs amd we have to keep trying to do better even after we fuck up. That is the story we got, it’s relatable as fuck.
That would have been an endearing and ultimately satisfying end point for a nine movie franchise spanning decades.
He was already humanized in the original trilogy by not cutting off all his feelings and family connections (Jedi side) or falling so far into his feelings that he became a monster (Dark Side), but by striking a balance between the two and overcoming evil alongside his friends.
A better story would have been showing his training and becoming disillusioned at how hard it was to teach people to strike a balance instead of making that a flashback of absolutes where one dark thought undid all of this experience in balancing good and evil. What we got was awful and made Luke a caricature, not relatable.
Hell, they already had a decent premise for Luke’s self-exile but explored it in the wrong way imo.
Rather than have Luke go “I failed myself because I was about to give into fear to protect the ones I loved”, they could have framed it as “I failed myself because I was ready to kill somebody I loved to protect the ones I loved” or something along those lines. They could literally keep all the footage the same and just change Luke’s reasoning to something that would be 100% in character for him and would rattle him to his very core after the realization. Like, that would been a very dark thing for Luke to experience and live with - and it would explain the self-imposed exile waaaaay better because if he failed his core beliefs, then could he fail anyone?
Sadly, we instead got… well, whatever we got in TLJ’s character assassination of Luke.
There was no reason for Luke to almost kill someone he loved, that was the core problem with how his character was done wrong by the new trilogy. Feeling like a failure because evil was on the rise again could have been enough for him to lose hope if done right and would not undo the character growth from the original trilogy.
His whole arc in the sequels was a perfect example of hack writing.
It was more of an example of something easy they could have done to make it less shit since iirc they really went all in on the “I gave into fear” as his main reason for exile - but it’d still be a polished turd regardless because of what you said. With how it currently is, it would be at best a decent premise to explore if they spun it in a different light than what was shown in the final release, if that makes sense.
I still like the idea of Luke becoming a jaded hermit tbh, but the execution has to be done well for it. I personally like your idea of Luke becoming tired of people failing to find that balance and either becoming too much like the Jedi of the prequel era or becoming easily tempted by the dark side - with Kylo becoming the straw that broke the camel’s back for Luke.
Yeah Luke has never before almost killed a family member instinctively due to the influence of the dark side of the force. He certainly doesn’t have an ounce of evil impulse in his blood either.
If the movies had set up any precedent for this then it might make sense.
You mean attacking Darth Vader who was actively trying to kill him? While telling him that he’d turn his sister to the dark side? After the emperor was gloating over his friends getting ambushed and slaughtered? That’s the situation you’re referring to?
Also, I don’t think that just because Anakin, who Luke never met while growing up, killed tuskens and younglings, Luke would act entirely differently than in the original trilogy. That’s just weird.
A few days late and not OP but they aren’t referring to that, but the scene further along where Luke cuts Vader’s hand off as he is down on the ground beaten and the emperor to push him fully to the dark side says something like “finish him” in his sinister tone. And then luke has a revelation where he was about to kill his father and the roles were reversed from bespin. Luke then chooses to not kill his father and threw his lightsaber down. Then gets electrocuted by force lightning and causes anakin to redeem himself saving luke and “killing” the emperor.
Do no wrong? Did you even watch the OT? TLJ didn’t do anything new with his character. They erased it. The wiped out all of his character development to tell a Star Wars story that had already been told multiple times before, and told far better too.
![[SWSW] Clearly...](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/09343564-a72f-447b-92e4-0913d00c7ec6.jpeg){kind=link}
I love Hamill, I love Luke. After reflecting on the movie for a few a months, the portrayal of an aged fallible Luke was honestly inspired. It humanized him instead of mythologized, all it needed was to stick the landing in the third movie. Luke’s plot wasn’t over just because he died, he still needed to guide Rey and understand how the failures of the Jedi led his father to become Vader. Self improvement isn’t a linear line, it has it’s ups and downs amd we have to keep trying to do better even after we fuck up. That is the story we got, it’s relatable as fuck.
That would have been an endearing and ultimately satisfying end point for a nine movie franchise spanning decades.
He was already humanized in the original trilogy by not cutting off all his feelings and family connections (Jedi side) or falling so far into his feelings that he became a monster (Dark Side), but by striking a balance between the two and overcoming evil alongside his friends.
A better story would have been showing his training and becoming disillusioned at how hard it was to teach people to strike a balance instead of making that a flashback of absolutes where one dark thought undid all of this experience in balancing good and evil. What we got was awful and made Luke a caricature, not relatable.
Hell, they already had a decent premise for Luke’s self-exile but explored it in the wrong way imo.
Rather than have Luke go “I failed myself because I was about to give into fear to protect the ones I loved”, they could have framed it as “I failed myself because I was ready to kill somebody I loved to protect the ones I loved” or something along those lines. They could literally keep all the footage the same and just change Luke’s reasoning to something that would be 100% in character for him and would rattle him to his very core after the realization. Like, that would been a very dark thing for Luke to experience and live with - and it would explain the self-imposed exile waaaaay better because if he failed his core beliefs, then could he fail anyone?
Sadly, we instead got… well, whatever we got in TLJ’s character assassination of Luke.
There was no reason for Luke to almost kill someone he loved, that was the core problem with how his character was done wrong by the new trilogy. Feeling like a failure because evil was on the rise again could have been enough for him to lose hope if done right and would not undo the character growth from the original trilogy.
His whole arc in the sequels was a perfect example of hack writing.
It was more of an example of something easy they could have done to make it less shit since iirc they really went all in on the “I gave into fear” as his main reason for exile - but it’d still be a polished turd regardless because of what you said. With how it currently is, it would be at best a decent premise to explore if they spun it in a different light than what was shown in the final release, if that makes sense.
I still like the idea of Luke becoming a jaded hermit tbh, but the execution has to be done well for it. I personally like your idea of Luke becoming tired of people failing to find that balance and either becoming too much like the Jedi of the prequel era or becoming easily tempted by the dark side - with Kylo becoming the straw that broke the camel’s back for Luke.
No matter what happened with Luke in 8 it required 9 to follow up and stick the landing.
Yeah Luke has never before almost killed a family member instinctively due to the influence of the dark side of the force. He certainly doesn’t have an ounce of evil impulse in his blood either.
If the movies had set up any precedent for this then it might make sense.
You mean attacking Darth Vader who was actively trying to kill him? While telling him that he’d turn his sister to the dark side? After the emperor was gloating over his friends getting ambushed and slaughtered? That’s the situation you’re referring to?
Also, I don’t think that just because Anakin, who Luke never met while growing up, killed tuskens and younglings, Luke would act entirely differently than in the original trilogy. That’s just weird.
A few days late and not OP but they aren’t referring to that, but the scene further along where Luke cuts Vader’s hand off as he is down on the ground beaten and the emperor to push him fully to the dark side says something like “finish him” in his sinister tone. And then luke has a revelation where he was about to kill his father and the roles were reversed from bespin. Luke then chooses to not kill his father and threw his lightsaber down. Then gets electrocuted by force lightning and causes anakin to redeem himself saving luke and “killing” the emperor.
I believe that’s what they were referring too.
I read the comment I was replying to as being sarcastic but I might have been incorrect to do so, in that case you’re entirely right.
Inspires? It was just a rehashed story we’d seen over and over again.
Because the chosen one who can do no wrong would have been somehow more original?
Do no wrong? Did you even watch the OT? TLJ didn’t do anything new with his character. They erased it. The wiped out all of his character development to tell a Star Wars story that had already been told multiple times before, and told far better too.