Initial Thoughts of The Last Jedi
Walking out of the theaters for The Last Jedi, I was disappointed. I thought the film was overlong. Canto Bright didn’t feel right to me for numerous reasons. Poe’s character became too cocky and didn’t really have the moment of reckoning for his actions.
I did enjoy the way the story treated Kylo and Rey.
And, I needed Luke to have the story he did.
Why Luke’s Story Feels Right To Me
Too many people think Luke Skywalker is a hero that is also a perfect knight. I don’t. He can’t be. Too much happened to him:
- the only parents he has ever known are burned alive because he decided to buy that droid.
- on his way to see a princess, he finds the planet destroyed
- he rescues the princess, but only to find the mentor he had been searching for his entire life dead right in front of his eyes
- he blows up the Death Star. Now, this is a heroic action, but it also brings about a significant loss of life and he probably knows not everyone on the ship is not evil.
- his second mentor tells him saving his friends lives is the worse thing he can do giving him an impossible choice.
- finds out the guy that killed his first mentor is his father. Not only that, but he now knows that his parents and mentors have lied to him.
- he finds out a girl he kissed his sister
- watches his second mentor die
- can only save his father by offering himself up for sacrifice which in turn ends up saving but killing his father.
- failing Ben Solo
It is incredible that he doesn’t go to the dark side. His PTSD has PTSD. He has every reason to give up. He is a good man, but good men can only take so much.
Heroes are not infalliable
This is not unfamiliar in hero stories. All heroes have moments of doubt and failure. Jesus has the garden. Luke has Ahch-To.
What makes Luke a hero is that he doesn’t stay on Ahch-To (ok, well he does, but…). He chooses to act. Answering the call to action, even when you have lost faith, is a hero’s action. However, while I do think Luke has had a crisis of faith, he hasn’t lost hope. Rey, who has nothing but faith, has inspired Luke. Rey is not a Mary-Sue; she is a true believer. Luke has always struggled with faith (again see above as to why), but he finally sees the why he should have faith in the force.
Hope exists. He saw a new hope in Rey. He can continue and complete, as much as any character in Star Wars can, the hero’s journey.
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All the points you mentioned (except failing Ben Solo) had already happened by the end of Return of The Jedi. And by the end of ROTJ, Luke has overcome them all and has a big smile on his face and all has been come to terms with. And mind you Luke, as per George Lucas himself, is the greatest/most powerful Jedi ever. So it not only makes no sense what Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy did to the character of Luke, it negates the original trilogy to a very large degree. That’s simply unforgivable.
I disagree with him coming to terms with it. I can understand people thinking that he put the past behind him at the funeral pyre, but that’s not my interpretation. I always thought the smile had a lot of pain with it. And yes he is the most powerful, but he is not infallible. And the failure with Ben shows that the cycle can repeat. Now, I do understand the argument that he took much time off, and that one makes more sense.