Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker [spoilers] (Page 3 of 4)

I do think there's a certain courage in refusing to make Episode IX by pretending that Carrie Fisher isn't dead, accepting that reality and trying to work with it?

The CG Tarkin and Leia in Rogue One were necessary for telling the story of the Death Star and leading into A New Hope, but if not for that narrative purpose, they probably wouldn't have done it.

Well, with Anton Yelchin, I think it's an easy fix.  Chekov, the excellent officer he is, got his own command.  He's doing great.  Kirk just had dinner with him right before this new adventure began - he's gonna make admiral soon enough.  Has a wife.  A kid on the way.  Nothing can stop him.

Chekov is part of the family, but nothing is tying him to the Enterprise.  So he can go off and have his own adventures without Anton Yelchin.  We can be happy for him, even as we're saddened by what happened to Anton.

With Leia, I don't think it's that easy.  We don't know, at all, where her character ends up in episode 8.  Maybe there will be a natural breaking point where she can go off and live happily ever after.  But right now?  Sure, her husband's dead.  But her son is a major villain that she desperately wants to save.  Her brother has just been found.  The war isn't close to being over.  If she ran off now, it'd feel just as cheap.

The question is....would Leia be justified to abandon the war if it all just became too much.  Her planet.  Her mother.  Her adoptive parents.  Her husband.  Her brother.  If they all die, would it be okay for Leia to get in a ship and never come back?  Try to find a little happiness after this damned war took everything else from her?

Because that's the only way I could write it.  She did her part.  Lost enough.  And wants to salvage what's left of her life.  Let someone else be the hero for once.

Is there any precedent (EU or otherwise) for a non-Jedi to become a force ghost?

Right, but even if Chekov lives happily ever after, there is no way to address that fact or not address it without it being a huge distraction to the overall plot. It's all any of us will be thinking about.

Leia was a much bigger player, but the problem remains the same. There simply is no good solution. It is a bad situation. People die and they leave a hole in the place they should be standing. No matter what they do and how well it blends into the story, it will still be a hole where she should be standing and we will all be thinking about it every time we watch the movie.

Is Leia a Jedi?  Is it established that she ever trained?

And I was under the impression that becoming a Force Ghost was something that had to be learned.  I guess if Leia trained as a Jedi (between ROTJ and TFA), she might've learned that trick.  But if she was just a general the whole time, would she have learned how to become one?  I thought the deleted scene in Revenge of the Sith implied that Qui-Gon had figured it out after a long time of people not knowing how to do it.

A Force Ghost is a pretty solid way to show that she's still "alive" and "happy" if that's an option.  I just had no idea if that's even something that could be considered.  Because even though she's Force sensitive, it takes a special training to become a Force Ghost, and like you said, even other Jedi in the prequel don't become Force Ghosts.

I actually looked into the Vader thing today, and there's a theory that sorta works on how Vader would've learned how.  He would've seen Obi-Wan disappear and would've been freaked out by it.  A student of the Force, he'd look into how that was possible (much like Qui-Gon did), maybe even following Qui-Gon's footsteps.  He might've studied it, not knowing that it only works for Jedi....or possibly learned it anyway...and then it worked when he redeemed himself.

It's very flimsy, but it's the only theory people seem to have on how Vader could've learned it.

Too close to Snookie.

True. I guess it doesn't matter as much for me, since I've never been able to take the franchise too seriously. I honestly laugh whenever I see Luke get his hand cut off and discover that Vader is his father.

I would do the same. I think it's a mistake to have this hanging over their heads for a couple more years.

Actually, if she and Luke died together, that would be kinda poetic. Twins and all that.

Hmmm, yes.

The third act, with all the action, was well done.  And it did establish that the Death Star had hyperspace capability.

I still maintain that the last 3 minutes is the most entertaining scene/scenes in Star Wars history.  I think it's what I've always wanted Star Wars to be, especially in terms of Vader.  And I liked it better than I liked Force Awakens because I think both are flawed and I wasn't caught up in all the "original trilogy" nostalgia because I'm not the world's biggest Star Wars fan (and I didn't love Force Awakens).

My biggest complaint wasn't with the script - I think Felicity Jones was way too wooden.  I don't know if she can act or not, but it was a prequel-quality performance.

Rogue One was a terrific film for Star Wars fans, but with a Mission Impossible or James Bond feel for most of the film.  I think it's finally on Netflix so I may give it another watch tonight!

PS: Most of those CG people were in fact not CG!  ha ha.

SPOILERS

I see a lot of the issues you raise, but I also think THE LAST JEDI is addressing them. THE LAST JEDI is effectively a repudiation of the prequels and THE FORCE AWAKENS. The prequels declared that the Old Republic was a time of peace and prosperity -- but what we saw onscreen (in addition to some unbelievably boring films and the lamest love story ever lensed) was a theocratic government (run by Jedi) that was so clumsy, inept and incompetent that an idiot like Jar Jar Binks could hand it over to a Sith Lord whom the Jedi never even noticed rising within their own regime.

Add that to the fact that despite the supposed peace of the Old Republic, it was a time in which this peaceful government raised its own clone army with one hand being ignorant of the other, where a peaceful world like Naboo could be invaded with no action from the Republic and where slave labour unfolded on Tatooine without a flicker of concern from the supposed Jedi peacekeepers. And yet, Obi-Wan Kenobi described this era as "before the dark times; before the Empire" except the Republic was at best less malicious and genocidal while not being able to actually prevent any coups that led to Death Stars blowing up planets.

And then we have THE FORCE AWAKENS which, in reverting to the STAR WARS (1977) playbook of gleeful adventure with rebels against the establishment, reversed the ending of RETURN OF THE JEDI by establishing that the Rebels ultimately didn't win the war. As a result, THE LAST JEDI presents Luke Skywalker declaring that the Jedi have been a complete and total failure across the board; they failed to stop the Sith; they failed to stop the Empire; they'll fail to stop the Order. By the end of THE LAST JEDI, the Rebels/Resistance are reduced to whoever can fit aboard the Millennium Falcon.

THE LAST JEDI is effectively declaring the Republic/Rebels/Resistance vs. the Sith/Empire/Order war to be a dead-end for STAR WARS as a continuing franchise, with Luke observing that STAR WARS' central conceit, the Force, is about the light and energy between all living things and the idea that the Jedi's absence would mean the absence of light is absurd and arrogant -- meaning that there have to be new ways to tell STAR WARS stories that aren't just remaking the 1977 film (like THE FORCE AWAKENS) or trying to lead into the 1977 film (like the prequels). There's quite a bit of this with Kylo Ren too, urging Rey to "let the past die, kill it if you have to."

And Yoda urges Luke to stop thinking in terms of who won or lost which war when, but instead look to need: who needs him and for what and what can he offer and give to those who are suffering?

And when Luke dies, the narrative onscreen indicates that Luke has cut himself off from the Force, but now he gives himself over to the Force which is why he looked reborn to youth in his projection. He is giving up his physical body to become one with the elemental nature of reality and STAR WARS stories themselves, allowing himself and the STAR WARS franchise to potentially be reborn into something new.

However, I concede that all this content about renewing the STAR WARS formula and casting off the old tropes is presented in a movie that is entirely about presenting the STAR WARS formula of heists and space battles and lightsaber duels, so it could be somewhat muted and hypocritical and EPISODE IX will be from staunch traditionalist JJ Abrams who made the very sort of film THE LAST JEDI is trying to leave behind.

STILL SPOILERS

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I do worry about what JJ will do with the series where it is now.  I've read a lot of people criticizing The Last Jedi because it "wasted" a lot of the potential of The Force Awakens.  That it doesn't answer/address several critical questions that JJ set up. 

But, as someone who thinks TV-style questions in movies (even episodic movies) is insulting to the audience and ridiculous in today's Reddit culture, I think Rian Johnson took all the parts of the Force Awakens that he thought were interesting and moved forward with it.  I don't know how much freedom he had to answer anything he wanted, but some of it would've required some backbending.

For example, I've seen people upset that they don't answer how Maz got the lightsaber.  I don't think that was supposed to be some big mystery - she's a "person" who knows everyone and who deals with scavengers and smugglers on a daily basis.  Someone on Cloud City found it.  JJ Abrams didn't answer the question in his movie because a) he/the writers couldn't think of an answer or b) the answer doesn't matter.

Or there have been complaints that Rey's parents were a letdown.  Why did they use Ewan McGregor's voice if they weren't going to reveal that she's a Kenobi?  Why was it made to be such a big mystery if the answer was going to be so dumb?  But I think the answer is perfect - as someone on the Internet said, it completely fits the narrative.  Rey and Kylo are opposites.  Light and dark.  Male and female.  But, most importantly, Kylo is this princely character born of these insanely significant figures, and Rey is.....no one.  People wanted her to be significant, but her insignificance is crucial to her character.  The last shot of the slave (?) boy on the Casino World is exactly the point - anyone can be a hero in the galaxy.  You don't have to be a Skywalker or a Kenobi or a Solo.  Just embrace the Force and embrace the light and even you can blow up the Death Star.

And now that JJ is back for IX, I think he's going to take things in a more traditional direction.  But Rian Johnson didn't really set up anything for him.  The plot has been left in an interesting place, but there aren't mysteries for JJ to solve.  Which is the way I think it's supposed to be.

I really like that.  And I think it makes sense....I wish that was conveyed by the movies themselves, though.

A lot of my problems are simply a lack of context that the movie needs to provide.  You know my disdain for "here's the product....if you want to understand it, here's your extended universe homework" stuff.  And I think a lot of this stuff doesn't have to have grand, Episode-I like political discussions.  I think small snippets of dialogue can help.  The problem is that The Force Awakens didn't even give us much of any background.

The Republic was small and weak -

CHARACTER 1 - "They're going to attack the Republic's home system!"
CHARACTER 2 - "The Republic?  They're still around?"
CHARACTER 3 - "I thought they collapsed years ago."

Was it corruption?  A lack of resources?  How do you go from a galaxy *starving* for freedom (as the end of Return of the Jedi shows) to a Republic that is only really active in one star system?  I was expecting a failing government (think the League of Nations or the United States under the Articles of Confederation).  What we got was....the state of Petoria?

http://familyguy.wikia.com/wiki/Petoria

Was the First Order a new thing or a rebranding of the Empire?  How was that sold to people? 

CHARACTER 1 - "They sold the First Order as the New Republic.  Using the enemy's old weapons to bring peace and freedom to the galaxy."
CHARACTER 2 - "People needed to feel safe.  They chose to believe Snoke's lies."

What's the difference between the Resistance and the Rebellion?

CHARACTER 1 - "This is it?  This is the Rebellion that took down the Empire?"
LEIA - "The Resistance.  When the Empire fell and was replaced by the First Order, the Republic was too weak and too scared to start another Galactic War.  So they signed peace treaties.  We're the only ones fighting them, and we have to stay strictly off the books, or the First Order will crush what's left."
CHARACTER - "The Resistance?"
LEIA - "The Empire rebranded.  So did we."

I like the disillusionment of the galaxy.  They won something big and then realized that the enemy was still as strong as ever.  So why keep fighting?  *Cue Sonic Youth song*  It isn't worth it.  I'm done fighting.  Done trying.  Who cares?

It would just be nice if the characters in the movie would fill in the gaps for me

Wouldn't it be more likely that the galactic government would collapse and local/planetary governments would take over? 

That's what's sorta weird about the Star Wars universe.  There's clearly a Republic at one point, but what role do they serve?  Naboo gets literally invaded in Episode 1, and there's no "Republic Army" to defend a Republic planet.  They send in two Jedi to act as peacekeepers and nothing else.  It was basically up to the people of Naboo to save themselves.

The Empire, after the Senate was dissolved, probably had Palpatine-picked regional or planetary governors that were in charge of....collecting taxes?  And standard leadership stuff?

I'd assume when the Empire fell that those governors would be given the boot, and each planet would then elect their own leadership.  Planets that already had trade (?) relations, would probably form small versions of the Republic.  Maybe, this time, with actual forces to defend themselves.  Maybe a captain of a Star Destroyer from Tatooine (which, we know, has an Imperial academy) would decide that, with the Emperor dead, he has more loyalty to the new Tatooinian government and enlist his ship to his new government's defense.

So instead of a Republic, you'd have a collection of different "states" that would operate independently until a more centralized government was established.  It'd take a long time to rebuild to the Republic, but it'd move in that direction.

My guess is that the Empire would move to the next in the chain of command, but the Empire lost so much of their chain of command (losing both Death Stars, Tarkin, Krennic, and their top two leaders).  So I'm guessing imperial leadership would be a street war of different captains of commanders at an identical rank (plus political leaders - like the different governors I'm talking about) fighting each other. 

Imperial soldiers, from grunt stormtroopers to commanders of smaller ships, would have to fight between loyalty to the now-scattered empire, their own home-planet governments, and people vying for control.  We're talking a civil war between several factions with giant weapons.  I don't think that gets sorted out very quickly.  And even when it does, it'd wipe out a ton of the Empire's weapons.  Even if someone (Snoke) rose to take command very quickly, I still think the Empire would be too weak to have complete control over the galaxy.

What seems to have happened, however, is.....nothing.  Snoke, who almost-certainly had to have been a key member of the Empire who already had power and respect, took command of the Empire's forces and renamed it the First Order for his own reasons.  Even though the war was over and their leader was dead, the millions/billions of stormtroopers remained loyal and nothing across the galaxy changed.  One star system declared themselves "the new republic" but didn't have connections (politically or militarily) to any part of the rest of the galaxy.  The remainder of the Rebellion simply renamed their forces to be the Resistance and kept doing what they were doing until they were whittled away to nothing.

In a universe as simplistic as Star Wars' seems to be, I guess it makes sense.  What might've been more interesting would've been for Snoke to have led some sort of "Outer Rim" military to take over while the Empire was in chaos and the Republic was fledgling.  It'd give the filmmakers the ability to redesign scary-looking new ships that could terrorize both the Republic and the remnants of the Empire.  Maybe the Resistance would be a combination of imperial forces and the rebels - working together to try and defend themselves.  Imagine the Resistance having a Star Destroyer that's easily destroyed by one of Snoke's new ships.

But what's clear to me is that Abrams just wanted to remake a New Hope and didn't care about drawing a line between the Force Awakens and Return of the Jedi.  Like ireactions said, he wanted the Empire and the Rebels.  And he got it....except he renamed it the First Order and the Resistance.  For some reason.

It’s crazy the spectrum on this thing.

I have a friend who went with 7 other people and they all hated it. 

I thought it was okay.  Not the movie I would have made.

One of my other friends liked it, but said it ranks above the prequels and that’s as high as he would put it.

Another friend loved it.  He has an answer for every complaint anyone has with it.  Will quote what’s cannon from the books as explanations for things.

He also doesn’t believe that anyone actually hates the movie and that the rotten tomatoes score is the work of a small group of disgruntled fans.

The one friend who hated it told me it made him wish George Lucas was still in control.

—Chaser9

I don't think Luke would have killed Kylo Ren. He sensed the dark side and instinctively triggered his lightsaber. But then he held back -- except the boy woke up before Luke could switch off the blade. I don't think Luke was really admitting that he would have killed Kylo Ren, just that it was his instinct to do so and not one he would have followed through on. And I think Mark Hamill is just flat out wrong to say it's out of character because Luke has been a killer from his first appearance to now. I think Mark Hamill doesn't quite understand the Luke Skywalker character.

In the original STAR WARS, Luke sees his uncle and aunt incinerated. He watches Obi-Wan slice off a man's arm. He's aboard the Falcon when it comes out into Alderaan's orbit and they find scattered rubble where there were once several billion people. Luke shoots at least 50 stormtroopers. There is no reaction that you'd expect for a boy making his first kill. Later, Luke sees all his comrades in Rogue Squadron aside from Wedge killed by TIE Fighters; Luke then blows up the Death Star, presumably killing about 800,000 to 1 million people.

And there is no trauma, no survivor's guilt, no discomfort with taking life. On one level, Luke was very thinly written. He wasn't a character in STAR WARS; he was an audience surrogate and that audience, as envisioned by Lucas writing STAR WARS as a FLASH GORDON knockoff, was adolescent boys who wanted to imagine themselves having all these adventures and engaging in all these battles. But looking at Luke more seriously, the simplest explanation is: Luke is a killer.

More specifically: Luke grew up in a desert wasteland with little law enforcement, predatory wildlife and people looking to rob, steal and kill their victims. So, at an early age, Luke probably had to learn to defend himself. He had to learn how to hunt, how to fight, how to carry a weapon and how to survive -- and, living in the desert, Luke also became acclimatized to violence and death and accepted it as the cycle and circle of life. Luke probably had to kill people who attacked the farm for its equipment. He must have seen friends and neighbours die. Luke specifically says he used to "bullseye womprats," which could have been for sport -- but I think it's more likely that Luke was hunting for food. Luke must have killed people long before he shot his first stormtrooper.

However, because none of that is in the scripts and George Lucas does not direct actors, Mark Hamill couldn't and doesn't see any of that. Luke Skywalker was a blank slate in the scripts, so Hamill's attitude was to project his own personality into the role. Mark Hamill is a gentle, thoughtful, sweet-natured Californian, so he played Luke as himself. And the result is a fascinatingly multi-faceted character because through Mark's performance, Luke becomes this young survivalist who has developed combat and piloting skills simply to stay alive, but his innate personality is the warmth and tenderness of the actor playing the character. The warrior is who he had to become, but the vegetarian charity worker is who he is inside.

We have an interesting conflict in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK where Luke severs the arm of the wampa with his lightsaber. Mark Hamill was furious when he saw the movie; he'd been told on set that the lightsaber would merely scare the animal away. But the slashed-off-arm was added in editing to liven up the scene. "Luke would never do this!" Hamill protested, worrying that the poor wampa would be maimed, die of an infection or worse, be unable to hunt for food or defend itself against other predators. But Hamill's wrong; Mark Hamill would never hurt a wild animal. Luke would. Luke has had to kill to survive and STAR WARS would indicate he killed people long before he brought the droids to Obi-Wan.

And Hamill not really being in tune with the Luke Skywalker character is precisely why he's the best actor to play him. He's a very nice man in conflict with a very violent role and that, onscreen, produces a fascinating personality conflict between the farmer and the soldier inside Luke and it's what made him so iconic and memorable.

Really great analysis, but that seems to also apply to Star Wars fans as a whole.

What's funny to me is my idea of Luke as a fringe fan of Star Wars.  I've seen every movie, and I appreciate them all.  But they're not movies I've seen a ton of.  I've seen A New Hope a couple dozen times, but I'm not sure I've seen Empire or Jedi more than a couple times each all the way through (I've seen pieces of them a lot since they're always on TV).  In a recent discussion about the quality of the prequels, I realized that I think I've only seen episodes II and III once each (again, aside from scenes here and there on TV).

But, for some reason, Luke holds a place in my heart.  And as Episode VIII approached, I started to worry that Luke could die.  Or, possibly even worse, go to the dark side.  I felt that, in some way, my heart would break a little for him to not be alive.  After all, he'd been alive and young my whole life.

The movie actually handles Luke, for the most part, in a way where I was okay with him going.  After all, we know Luke will live on in the Force so he's not really gone.  And even as someone who's a fan of Luke, I wasn't really bothered by the Luke stuff in the moment.  I was surprised, but I wasn't offended.

I agree with everything you said.  Luke is, on paper, a cold-blooded killer.  I watched "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" the other night, and Robert Downey Jr. gives a great performance when his character shoots and kills a bad guy in the middle of the movie.  He breaks down at the idea of shooting someone....even as a career criminal who killed a truly bad guy in self defense.  As you said, Luke killed millions of innocent people but doesn't really seem bothered by it.

And yet....killing a child in his sleep?  At least Anakin did it to the younglings when they were awake and could, at least theoretically, defend themselves.

The only thing I can really think is that they wanted Kylo to have this tragic backstory.  And it really does make him a truly interesting character.  Kylo is this kid who romanticizes his grandfather (who had his own tragic backstory) and feels this pull to the Dark Side.  He has this mother who cares so much about her Rebellion and a father who's not really built for fatherhood.  Then his parents sent him away to live with his cooky uncle, while this other dude is pouring propaganda in his ear from across the galaxy.

Then, one night as he's as conflicted as ever, his uncle tries to kill him.  Whether or not Luke meant to do it or not, that's Kylo's backstory.  He truly believes his uncle tried to kill him.  And then he starts to wonder....wait, did my parents send me to die?  Is all the love I had as a child a lie?  Is the only one who has truly cared about me....Snoke?

It happens all the time.  Kid gets betrayed by his/her family and falls into the arms of an abusive relationship.

The problem with the Last Jedi is that it doesn't really excuse any of it.  Even with all the talking from Kylo and Luke, there's still not enough context to understand what really happened.  What did Kylo really do that scared Luke so much?  What did he do where Luke would even consider that Kylo couldn't be saved?

You say that Luke was working off instinct, but that's not really what Luke says.  If he'd explained it that way, I think there's a chance they could've sold it.  When I watched it, it seemed like Luke was saying that he *did* want to kill him, but it was just for a moment.  Because he definitely walks in, thinks about it, and then ignites the saber.  It didn't seem, at least to me, that he got caught up in the moment.

So to me, and to a lot of people in the audience....they turned Luke into a guy who'd consider murdering kids.  And, yes, I agree that he's probably killed kids in the past (you'd gotta think that some families were on the Death Star).  But this was so much different that that that, I think, it really bothers people.  Thus the hate.

And so I wondered, was there a way to give Kylo this cool backstory without harming Luke's legacy?  Some ideas:

1. I like the idea that he's working off instinct.  I also love the idea that Luke, flat out disagrees with the teachings of the Jedi.  So what if you combined those two things?  Luke goes to the Jedi Temple and learns an old Jedi technique for defeating evil - Force Meditation (name can be workshopped).  As a Jedi Master, Luke can meditate and enter a sort of trance where he becomes one with the light side of the Force and can seek out true evil.

Luke enters one of these trances in an attempt to find Snoke.  And in a sleepwalking state, he finds a strong Dark Side presence, and the Force Meditation draws him to it.  And draws him to destroy it.  Maybe it's Ben himself or maybe it's Snoke's Force projection.....but either way, Luke (still "sleepwalking") ignites his lightsaber.  Ben wakes up....and so does Luke.

So Luke isn't doing it...this flawed Jedi artifact did it.  The Jedi aren't interested in saving people - they're interested in killing bad people.  If the Jedi had been around to fight Vader and Palpatine in A New Hope, they'd have killed Vader and then lost to Palpatine.  It took seeing the good in Vader to save the galaxy, and that's why the Jedi are flawed.

2. Do the twin brothers.  I know in the (abandoned) expanded universe, the Solos had twins.  So maybe you bring that back.  Ben and Lando Solo are twins that are sent to train with Luke.  Ben is a quiet boy with a strong love for his family.  Lando is a wild and rebellious son with an obsession with his grandfather Anakin.  At the Jedi Temple, Lando keeps asking about the Dark Side.  He starts experimenting.  He builds a....red lightsaber.  Ben tries to talk to him, but he loves his brother.  He wants to save him from these dark thoughts.  Lando is drawn away from Ben to a new father figure - Snoke.  And through Lando, Snoke starts telling Ben that their family abandoned them.  Han and Leia don't love them.   And, one day, Luke will try and kill them.

At training, there's a tragic accident.  Lando is sparring with another student and accidentally maims/kills him.  Ben is horrified - Lando doesn't seem bothered by it.  Luke keeps an eye on him....and, yet, it happens again.  So Luke, in the middle of the night, goes to take Lando away from the Academy.  Lando defends himself with his lightsaber.  Ben wakes up, Luke loses his concentration, and Luke slices through Lando.

Luke has no time to explain.  Ben simply sees Luke kill his brother, and Snoke's prophecy is coming true.

Luke does kill a Solo twin - but it was one who was definitely a Dark Side user.  But it still drives him to exile, and it still drives Ben to become Kylo.

3. Just make it the Dark Side.  What if Snoke was influencing them both?  What if Luke starts seeing all the students turning evil....not just Ben?  Meanwhile, Ben is getting the same sort of influence?  Luke doesn't sense it, but Snoke starts feeding the lies to Luke.  "Your nephew is evil."  "Your uncle will try and kill you."

And Luke falls for it.  He lets his hate and his fear and his jealousy turn him to the Dark Side....and he tries to kill his nephew.

Mark Hamill wanted this as far back as Episode VI.  He thought it was where the saga was going and pitched it to George Lucas - so it would've been interesting to see that come true on the screen.  It wouldn't be a full Dark Luke - just enough Dark Luke to try and kill Ben.

Luke snaps out of it, but it's too late.  So he does go into isolation and close himself off from the Force - he can't trust it again, and it keeps him safe from Snoke's influence.

I think if you do something like that, you protect Hamill's vision of Luke.  Which, it seems, is a lot of Star Wars' fans visions of Luke.

Ha, well having just admitted to only seeing the OT movies a handful of times (and the prequels less) and admitting to not being a big fan, I'm not surprised that I don't understand how the Force works.

The problem with that scene is a lack of clarity and context.  I definitely don't remember exact details, but my memory tells me that Kylo was asleep.  Maybe they could've shown Kylo to be awake and having a discussion with Snoke (like he does when he catches Rey and Kylo talking).  Or maybe they could've shown flashbacks to show more of what other dark side stuff Kylo was dealing with.  I think I remember Luke saying that he had darkness inside him, but I don't remember him saying anything specific.  Maybe there's more flashbacks in the deleted scenes - it sounds like there were plenty.  And since the movie was already too long, I think it's probably a bad idea to recommend adding more.

Whether or not he intended on killing Kylo, it does seem that Luke thinks he did.  And I think people are feeding off that in their complaints.

What's funny, to me, is that Luke raising a new school is actually a very interesting premise.  And since the movie's plot amounts to "the Resistance goes a little distance and ends up escaping on the Falcon", I might've enjoyed an entire movie focusing on Luke/Rey and flashbacks of Luke/Kylo.  It would've been an even more unusual Star Wars movie, but I think it could've been great.

In the commentary for REVENGE OF THE SITH, Lucas says that droids did most of the work that in our world would be assigned to servants, janitors, chefs, etc.. I guess, even though he sold the franchise and presented Yoda in the prequels as a humourless bureaucrat and incompetent and had all the Jedi wearing Tatooine costumes and had Leia's mother die at childbirth and declared that a broken heart is a reasonable cause of death... we still have to take his word for it?

Regrettably, the prequels remain canonical as Ewan McGregor had a voiceover in THE FORCE AWAKENS and Luke in THE LAST JEDI refers to Darth Sidious (a name only used in the prequels) and also describes the prequels' events as why he considers the Jedi to be the most useless band of incompetents in history who are best allowed to go extinct.

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Luke specifically says he felt Snoke in Kylo Ren's mind and the dark side and saw all the people Kylo Ren would kill, hence his igniting the blade. If you didn't understand that Force users are Professor Xavier-level telepathic, you may have misunderstood the scene and the dialogue.

It's very interesting to watch THE FORCE AWAKENS now because it's very obvious -- at least to me? -- that Rey is meant to be Luke's daughter.

Kylo Ren goes ballistic when he hears that there was a girl who made off with the map to Luke. The implication of the scene as performed: he knows who she is and he's afraid of her. The lightsaber imbued with Anakin Skywalker's Force presence calls to Rey twice, once in the underground chamber and once in the forest when Kylo Ren tries to claim it for himself. Rey also has flashbacks of the night Kylo Ren burned down the temple. And the final scene of Rey reaching out to Luke is meant to mirror Han reaching out to Ben earlier -- the child at a distance from the parent, one reaching out to the other.

However, what was implied was not stated outright and left THE LAST JEDI with a lot of room to dismiss the implications as misdirection without contradicting any outright declarations of fact. Why did Kylo Ren go nuts hearing about "a girl"? He sensed the involvement of a Force user. Why does the lightsaber call to Rey? Because it's really calling to Luke thorugh Rey. The flashbacks aren't flashbacks; they're Force visions of events for which Rey wasn't present. Why is Rey approaching Luke meant to mirror Han reaching out to Ben? THE LAST JEDI actually cuts that, having Rey approach an unmoving Luke with the lightsaber and putting it in his hands -- only for him to throw it over his shoulder.

**

I liked THE LAST JEDI well enough, but there was stuff I didn't. I didn't like Rose's musical theme; it seemed awkwardly out of place with the militaristic and somber tone of the film.

In addition, the First Order being able to track the Resistance ship through lightspeed is declared as an impossibility; then immediately understood as a technological concept by those who moments ago called it impossible. It's arbitrary and forced.

A lot of people hate the movie for a very simple reason: the heroes didn't really accomplish much of anything. Rey going to see Luke didn't lead to the Resistance winning; Finn and Rose's mission didn't lead to saving the fleet; Poe's big revelation is that they have been defeated and need to flee; Luke's return saved a small number of Resistance fighters, a complement so small they can all fit aboard the Falcon.

This isn't what modern blockbusters have taught audiences to expect; a film where history has put our heroes on the losing side and all they can do is get by without affecting events significantly is confusing when you have Captain America and Ant Man outgunned, underpowered and saving the day. THE LAST JEDI was an attempt to do something different and to also point out that THE FORCE AWAKENS, in returning to the Rebels vs. Empire dynamic, basically declared that the good guys lost and THE LAST JEDI showed what THE FORCE AWAKENS didn't: defeat and what happens next.

The Canto Bright sequence was very awkward and I totally understood why they wanted some comic relief in the middle of the film, but when the Resistance ships are being picked off one by one, this wandering through a different setting felt clumsily mismatched to the rest of the film. In fact, the idea that one vessel could flee without notice even as as the First Order's fleet pounds away at the remaining Resistance ships was confusing to me: if one can get away, why not more? Admittedly, this sets up how Vice Admiral Holdo is planning to do exactly that with the escape pods, but it's distracting.

Another problem with Canto Bright: it is ridiculous to have Rose and Finn coincidentally imprisoned with a codebreaker, DJ, who is exactly the person they need to do exactly what their mission entails. The level of happenstance is absurd. The only way such a scene could have worked: DJ needed to be a character we'd met before, a character whose familiarity would make his appearance so pleasing the viewer would ignore the implausibility of his presence. Basically, DJ shouldn't have been DJ; DJ should have been Lando Calrissian.

Johnson had meant for Lando to be the codebreaker. But then he realized he didn't want a beloved original trilogy character to sell out Rose and Finn and the Resistance, especially when Lando was the only significant person of colour to be found in the original films. He put in another character. A new character. But he seems to have kept the same introduction and it's a problem.

I don't know what pre-existing character could have replaced Lando. I might have suggested Lobot, Lando's silent aide from EMPIRE, but the actor is dead. Perhaps it should have been Wedge Antilles (Denis Lawson), but you wouldn't recognize him as Wedge at this point (in fact, can you recognize Wedge if he's not in his X-Wing pilot suit and helmet?).

The only other character I can think of whose actor might be available and who might have been recongizable is General Crix Madine (Dermot Crowley) who delivered a mission briefing in RETURN OF THE JEDI and I don't know if anyone outside of obsessive fans would remember him. And I don't know how you rewrite DJ's introduction because the Canto Bright sequence is already too long despite being made as short as possible.

Maybe it should have just been Lando, but he'd also do something to help Holdo target the Star Destroyer and hit it in precisely the right spot and leave Rose and Finn a way to escape? I dunno. It's a flaw and I don't know how to fix it because Johnson's reasons for replacing Lando were very understandable.

Seeing this again today.  Gonna focus on the Luke stuff and see how it comes across.