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Obviously Bricky was just too valuable to the morale lose.
Unfortunately he was on one of the blown up transport ships anyway. Because nothing you do in this movie matters.
We'll miss you Bricky.
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She’s part of the Resistance, she sacrificed herself to save what was left of it. She’s a hero.A dead hero. Which is exactly what the Resistance doesn't need at the present time (see also Leia's comments about losing all their bombers and a fair chunk of their interceptors to the Dread).
Her nobly going down with the ship is romantic and heroic I guess, but it's also dumb and counter to the big picture of what the Resistance needs. And it's not like you can say this is just nerds being overly critical and armchair admiraling. The movie said more or less the same thing at the start of the movie.
At the start when the Reistance didn’t number in a single dozen and a half. At the end the Resistance needs people, period.
Holdo sacrificing herself wasn’t a choice between leader and hero, it was a choice to save as many of the Resistance as she could. A dead hero vs a leader with nothing but dead heroes.
No it wasn't. If there really wasn't an autopilot, any moron could have kept the cruiser running forward in context to having plan A (IE not the suicidal lightspeed jump which is its own kettle of fish). If you are given the choice between sacrificing your vice admiral versus say some random protocol droid or techie, I'd like to think the choice is pretty self evident. And again, you can't fall back on genre conventions to handwave it because the movie makes it pretty explicit that noble sacrifices aren't a good thing right now.
Simply put, it's easier to replace a Rose or C-3PO than it is a Holdo or even a Poe who's basically a lesser version of Wedge Antilles (Wedge would have soloed the Dread and one of the other SDs in the same time period totes).
and again, see my post about people actually having a soul.
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Dafuq?
So the problem with Finns attempted sacrifice was that he wasn't saving Rey? Everyone else in the cave can just get slaughtered?
*backfoot headscratch*
Finn loves Rey. She's kind of his sole motivation for.. well. Everything since escaping the first order.
If you die to protect what you love, that's okay.
So if Finn died to protect Rey, that would have been alright, but dying to protect everyone in the cave (or at least buy more time for help to arrive) isn't the right thing to do because....?
I honestly have no idea how you got that from anything I wrote.So Rose is an idiot and Finn should have tried to save what little of the Resistance was left by sacrificing himself. Ok...She’s part of the Resistance, she sacrificed herself to save what was left of it. She’s a hero.A dead hero. Which is exactly what the Resistance doesn't need at the present time (see also Leia's comments about losing all their bombers and a fair chunk of their interceptors to the Dread).
Her nobly going down with the ship is romantic and heroic I guess, but it's also dumb and counter to the big picture of what the Resistance needs. And it's not like you can say this is just nerds being overly critical and armchair admiraling. The movie said more or less the same thing at the start of the movie.
At the start when the Reistance didn’t number in a single dozen and a half. At the end the Resistance needs people, period.
Holdo sacrificing herself wasn’t a choice between leader and hero, it was a choice to save as many of the Resistance as she could. A dead hero vs a leader with nothing but dead heroes.
Oh, sorry about that. I misread your comment. Just edited with last comment with more explanation and I think a better reading if what your talking about.
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Dafuq?
So the problem with Finns attempted sacrifice was that he wasn't saving Rey? Everyone else in the cave can just get slaughtered?*backfoot headscratch*
Finn loves Rey. She's kind of his sole motivation for.. well. Everything since escaping the first order.
If you die to protect what you love, that's okay.
So if Finn died to protect Rey, that would have been alright, but dying to protect everyone in the cave (or at least buy more time for help to arrive) isn't the right thing to do because....?
He wasn’t dying to protect Rey though, he was dying to hopefully buy the Resistance some time... which his death wouldn’t have done.
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Isn't there not being an autopilot or a droid capable of piloting the ship just a contrivance of the plot, so that Holdo can nobly die (read: get fridged for the sake of a male character's arc) and Poe can get the mantle of leadership?
When I think about it that way everything kind of makes sense. Poe needs to become the leader of the Resistance by the end of this film, and thus Holdo must die regardless of the narrative hammering in that noble sacrifices are dumb and that strong, experienced leaders are needed.
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He wasn’t dying to protect Rey though, he was dying to hopefully buy the Resistance some time... which his death wouldn’t have done.
Because Luke ex machina was coming and the other rebels weren't.
Which.. they had no idea about.
I think i can sum up whats wrong with the movie. It absolutely enforces a you must metagame rule. Acting in character with character knowledge just gets you a smack down.
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She’s part of the Resistance, she sacrificed herself to save what was left of it. She’s a hero.A dead hero. Which is exactly what the Resistance doesn't need at the present time (see also Leia's comments about losing all their bombers and a fair chunk of their interceptors to the Dread).
Her nobly going down with the ship is romantic and heroic I guess, but it's also dumb and counter to the big picture of what the Resistance needs. And it's not like you can say this is just nerds being overly critical and armchair admiraling. The movie said more or less the same thing at the start of the movie.
At the start when the Reistance didn’t number in a single dozen and a half. At the end the Resistance needs people, period.
Holdo sacrificing herself wasn’t a choice between leader and hero, it was a choice to save as many of the Resistance as she could. A dead hero vs a leader with nothing but dead heroes.
So Rose is an idiot and Finn should have tried to save what little of the Resistance was left by sacrificing himself. Ok...
I get that the numbers changed at some point but themes need to be consistent, right? You can't just say that sacrificing yourself is bad than say it's fine under these circumstances but later on say it's bad again. It's gives the audience mixed messages and is hampered by the fact that the First Order doesn't seem to actual suffer that much when heroic sacrifices are made in almost any situation.
I hope that made sense to you Rysky. I don't want this discussion to go toxic.
That’s exactly what happens, circumstances changes things.
And again, the First Order’s entire fleet, including their Capitol ship, was crippled.
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He wasn’t dying to protect Rey though, he was dying to hopefully buy the Resistance some time... which his death wouldn’t have done.Because Luke ex machina was coming and the other rebels weren't.
Which.. they had no idea about.
I think i can sum up whats wrong with the movie. It absolutely enforces a you must metagame rule. Acting in character with character knowledge just gets you a smack down.
Huh?
Not sure how you got that from my post. Or whatever it is you’re going on about.
His death wouldn’t have done anything because I don’t think his sacrifice would have stopped the bunker buster, the same thing would have played out, only he’d be dead.
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He wasn’t dying to protect Rey though, he was dying to hopefully buy the Resistance some time... which his death wouldn’t have done.Dafuq?
So the problem with Finns attempted sacrifice was that he wasn't saving Rey? Everyone else in the cave can just get slaughtered?*backfoot headscratch*
Finn loves Rey. She's kind of his sole motivation for.. well. Everything since escaping the first order.
If you die to protect what you love, that's okay.
So if Finn died to protect Rey, that would have been alright, but dying to protect everyone in the cave (or at least buy more time for help to arrive) isn't the right thing to do because....?
But doesn't that sound exactly like what Holdo did?
I really do wish that the First Order actually suffered consequences from their mothership getting destroyed and their leader killed, but instead they just keep moving on to kill our heroes as if nothing ever happened.
Starkiller Base getting destroyed. Doesn't matter.
The supership that destroyed the original rebel base getting blown up itself. Doesn't matter.
The Supremacy getting blown up? Doesn't really matter except for the tracker getting destroyed, but I guess they can always build another one.
The First Order really needs a nerf.
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Does anyone think the film would have been more interesting or exciting if the New Republic was still around on some level and the battle between the First Order and the Resistance was a bit more evenly matched?
I don't like the prequels but they at least managed to convince me that an intergalactic war was going on.
The whole resource-starved underdogs vs all powerful empire is starting to get stale in my opinion.
I really do wish that the First Order actually suffered consequences from their mothership getting destroyed and their leader killed, but instead they just keep moving on to kill our heroes as if nothing ever happened.
Starkiller Base getting destroyed. Doesn't matter.
The supership that destroyed the original rebel base getting blown up itself. Doesn't matter.
The Supremacy getting blown up? Doesn't really matter except for the tracker getting destroyed, but I guess they can always build another one.The First Order really needs a nerf.
Don't forget the timescale of all this. In between TFA ending and TLJ starting (which is basically a few hours at best), The First Order has conquered the Republic off-screen, located the secret base of the Resistance, mobilized a Star Destroyer battlegroup, and effortlessly mopped them up. Also their R&D department has designed and produced better Star Destroyers, AT-ATs, TIEs, and a better Death Star. Also they gained the power to just write out the Republic's standing navy (that or the Republic scrapped every ship that the Resistance didn't steal for some reason).
Honestly, if I was some random citizen, I'd just shrug my shoulders and declare that the Dark Side and galactic facism just works. I mean geez, at some point you need to just realize that evil gets results and good is dumb.
This is a quote from someone talking about the political landscape of Star Wars being chaotic to say the least.
"The title “Star Wars” is no lie. Someone born during the Separatist Crisis would be in their sixties by the time of Hosnian Prime’s destruction. In his life, he would have seen the fall of three galactic governments, and the total decapitation of two by outside hostiles. The Star Wars galaxy has political stability comparable with the Middle East."
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His death wouldn’t have done anything because I don’t think his sacrifice would have stopped the bunker buster, the same thing would have played out, only he’d be dead.
Oh come on. Everything bright and glowy in the star wars universe explodes dramatically when you crash a ship into it.
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THEN i'm going to violate the laws of physics and do an FTL ram into the ships, which kinda makes any other sort of ship to ship combat obsolete. But it will look awesome.
Honestly, this is what bugged me the most.
That said, there was a lot I really liked about TLJ.
One thing I can't help wondering about, though, applies to the new SW movies and the Marvel-verse.
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Does anyone think the film would have been more interesting or exciting if the New Republic was still around on some level and the battle between the First Order and the Resistance was a bit more evenly matched?
I don't like the prequels but they at least managed to convince me that an intergalactic war was going on.
The whole resource-starved underdogs vs all powerful empire is starting to get stale in my opinion.
I'd heartily approve for one. I honestly liked the premise that TFA implied with the First Order being a bunch of insane clowns in the space boonies who had exactly one Star Destroyer and Starkiller Base as the sum total of their big assets (also explaining why they had to invest in shields for their TIES since they can't do the old Imperial TIE Swarm on account of manpower issues).
For all TLJ's talk about killing the past, the movie ended up with the exact same core premise as the original trilogy which is beyond lazy.
That's basically the fundamental problem of the sequel trilogy. They have good characters but premises and plots that are stale.
I think spoilers are unnecessary now Kirth Gersen.
I think spoilers are unnecessary now Kirth Gersen.
People's definition of spoilers varies, please err on the side of adding spoiler tags.
Just following directions like a good little Paizoan.
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“Well I’m in charge and important and this is a suicide mission so I need someone who I think is less important to sacrifice themselves in my place” said no one with a soul ever.
It's called "asking for a volunteer."
I immediately recognized that Holdo was doing the whole "captain* goes down with the ship" thing, but that's not the correct thing to do when you're the g@%&!*n admiral charged with coordinating the entire Resistance, and presumably not actually replaceable.
But Holdo was also written to be terrible, so a heroic sacrifice was essentially what Rian Johnson (who I think is sole writer for this, actually) came up with to redeem her.
* Did that ship even have an actual captain charged with running the ship itself? What the hell sort of ship has nothing but admirals on the bridge? That's not what admirals are supposed to be doing.
Oh well.
Again, my evaluation of this movie is I enjoyed it, AND nearly every complaint about it is completely right.
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She’s part of the Resistance, she sacrificed herself to save what was left of it. She’s a hero.
Which, once again, makes all of the patient lectures Poe gets about distinctions between leadership and heroics utterly moot.
It's a narrative jumble.
I mean, going down the line of characters whose actions I can be bothered to remember from this flick-
Holdo is shafted by the script. Her plan is pretty dumb (even before the other idiots start to sabotage it, because yes, she is most definitely not the one who made it turn into a total bloodbath), her leadership style is a bizarre mixture of Olympian detachment and little flashes of personality when no one is around. Frankly, if they'd based her off of Jellico from the old Star Trek TNG "Chain of Command" episode, she'd have come out looking more solid- harsher and less forgiving than what Our Heroes are used to, but not exactly sparing with information to the command staff. And having her make a suicidal heroic charge within five minutes of being told "she cared more about saving the light than being a hero" is bupkiss. "Whoops, time to write Laura Dern's character out of the story, instead of, you know, letting her and Oscaar Isaac play with the fun dynamics of coming to terms with one another in the wake of a total disaster."
Hux is a complete buffoon- some of that is played for laughs, but he's also just an absolutely lousy commander. Since he's a villain with quite limited screentime, this isn't such a big deal (how many of those old Imperial admirals could even tie their shoes? Few enough that nobody in the Empire wore laced boots!), but it definitely undercuts his ability to be even remotely menacing- or terribly interesting.
Poe is, in isolation, a wonderful examination of a hotshot flyboy having to grow up.... except that the specifics of his arc are badly handled, since, again, when he sees what the plan is, he goes, "oh, cool!" It badly subverts the presentation of our shoot from the hip space cowboy idiot (which, love him though I do, Poe absolutely is) when his response to the plan once he knows what it is is total acceptance- with every indication that he has no serious qualms about it. That doesn't indicate growth, that indicates a lack of communication. Had Holdo told him the plan (which would have made her look like a much stronger leader) and Poe had objected based upon things like, "it's a cul-de-sac, you're gambling our lives on help that might not come in a situation without an escape hatch, I have to DO THINGS!!!" the arc would have been stronger.
Finn is totally and utterly shafted by this script. He's brave... we knew that. He's hung up on Rey... we knew that. He learns nothing through most of his time in the flick. He gets a girlfriend. Yaaaaayyyyy. He is, if anything, a strong repudiation of the idea that this film throws old characters under the bus to promote the new ones, because poor Finn is definitely a third wheel in this situation.
Rose... well, I like her, but her character likewise gets to do little besides grieve for her sister, fall for Finn, and save his stupid life at the end (man, she has a LOT of faith in the safety features of those stripped-down terrible old speeders!). She and Finn are both stuck in a side quest with that miserable casino sequence at the heart of it. Sad thing is, I DO like the payoff where they make everything worse, but how unfortunate that these two characters do most of the suffering involved in their terrible plan and still end up playing second banana to most of the plot.
Chewbacca is Chewbacca. Without Han around, he's actually quite interesting to watch, because the poor guy just keeps going. Helps that, long as Wookiees live, he probably knew he was going to outlive Han anyway. As in Return of the Jedi, he's saddled with carrying the cute plush toys around as sidekicks.
I loved Luke's whole arc, with one glaring exception- that <redacted> Yoda scene- and even that miserable nostalgia-baiting scene couldn't really derail one of the best character bits Star Wars has ever given us. Luke Skywalker as a non-boozy Kid Shelleen was a delight.
Kylo Ren was wholly salvaged by this movie. Lampshading his Diet Vader status in his first scene, having him trash that absurd mask, and then letting us look into the pain underpinning his turn to the dark side was wonderful. He's a case where a character's cognitive dissonance works out beautifully- he claims to be out to destroy the past, but it's Luke, not Kylo, who makes an actual change. Kylo still thinks it's going to come down to him versus Luke Skywalker in a lightsaber duel because of course it is! That's how it always goes! Might be my favorite treatment of a character in this film.
Rey... got some great scenes, some wonderful interpersonal dynamics, and I LOVE the reveal on her parentage. My only gripe is that her lack of any prior training or background turns her Force Awakens actions into exactly the sort of garbage the surlier corners of the internet accused it of being. I can forgive it only because her character is more interesting than the character's capabilities, and because her interplay with Ren was a pure joy to watch.
Phasma delivered all we could reasonably expect of her in the role Force Awakens assigned to her. I can't help thinking, however, that for all of her limitations, that she, not Hux, should have been the commander of the Diet Empire's military forces. It's not like he's displayed enough command ability to make her a lesser option, and she had a lot more presence and fear factor. If she's dead, we'll miss her, because she was the only truly menacing heavy the First Order had.
Snoke was terrible, but that was his job. His sheer hubris was fun, and while we still know nothing about where he came from, it's not like I actually care...
Benicio Del Toro (whatever the hell his character's name was) was less of a character than an object lesson. I did like the fact that he was absolutely the mercenary scum that he seemed to be. Casually selling out the Resistance (dooming so very many of the escape shuttles and the people in them) to make a few bucks and get in good with the guys who looked like they were winning was a wonderful bit of scumbaggery.
Maz... was a really terrible inclusion in the fashion they did it, because if Poe could get a hold of her during the slow-speed space chase, then why weren't the Resistance calling their allies as they ran? It's not like they needed to worry about giving away their position... or their course or heading. The bad guys could see it. No reflection on Maz as a character, but the use of her- like the use of Yoda- was an unfortunate choice.
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** spoiler omitted **
One thing I can't help wondering about, though, applies to the new SW movies and the Marvel-verse. ** spoiler omitted **
In E4, of the main cast of youngsters:
Success for the good guys was not possible without ALL THREE OF THEM.
But in E7-8, Rey can do all of that by herself. Poe, Finn, and the others don't actually bring anything to the table; they're more like C3PO than like Han Solo.
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Someone finally mentioned the Maz scene. I really tried to forget that part of the movie. It just didn't work..I'm not sure if Rian was trying to be comedic there, but it fell flat on its face, and comedy wasn't required there in any case. Could/Should have just been a sub space voice message save a minute or two of run time for some better dialog somewhere else.
I've been after the fact nitpicking this movie, but that scene in particular, more so than anything else in the movie (yes, even Leia's Mary Poppins act), really struck me as stupid just as I watched it.
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My God, when Leia was floating like that I seriously thought I was hallucinating. I had to quickly scan the rest of the audience just to make sure they were seeing what I was.
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Isn't there not being an autopilot or a droid capable of piloting the ship just a contrivance of the plot, so that Holdo can nobly die (read: get fridged for the sake of a male character's arc) and Poe can get the mantle of leadership?
When I think about it that way everything kind of makes sense. Poe needs to become the leader of the Resistance by the end of this film, and thus Holdo must die regardless of the narrative hammering in that noble sacrifices are dumb and that strong, experienced leaders are needed.
I've never liked Threepio, so I kind of wanted him to have to pilot the ship. :)
Then again, maybe ships don't take commands from droids (particularly commands to ram other ships, which probably triggers some sort of safety alert...), as a safety feature, which is why we never see droids piloting ships by themselves?
But yeah, they kind of stepped all over their message there. Holdo sacrificing herself to buy time for the others was heroic. Finn sacrificing himself to buy time for the others was foolish? The only difference I see is that one still had a contract to appear in another movie...
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He wasn’t dying to protect Rey though, he was dying to hopefully buy the Resistance some time... which his death wouldn’t have done.Dafuq?
So the problem with Finns attempted sacrifice was that he wasn't saving Rey? Everyone else in the cave can just get slaughtered?*backfoot headscratch*
Finn loves Rey. She's kind of his sole motivation for.. well. Everything since escaping the first order.
If you die to protect what you love, that's okay.
So if Finn died to protect Rey, that would have been alright, but dying to protect everyone in the cave (or at least buy more time for help to arrive) isn't the right thing to do because....?
But doesn't that sound exactly like what Holdo did?
I really do wish that the First Order actually suffered consequences from their mothership getting destroyed and their leader killed, but instead they just keep moving on to kill our heroes as if nothing ever happened.
Starkiller Base getting destroyed. Doesn't matter.
The supership that destroyed the original rebel base getting blown up itself. Doesn't matter.
The Supremacy getting blown up? Doesn't really matter except for the tracker getting destroyed, but I guess they can always build another one.The First Order really needs a nerf.
Maybe they found the StarForge?
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I've never liked Threepio, so I kind of wanted him to have to pilot the ship. :)
Making a droid do that would get us into issues of slavery that the good guys in Star Wars don’t particularly embrace in that blatant a form.
But yeah, they kind of stepped all over their message there. Holdo sacrificing herself to buy time for the others was heroic. Finn sacrificing himself to buy time for the others was foolish? The only difference I see is that one still had a contract to appear in another movie...
Not foolish as much as there was someone near Finn who could stop him and keep him from following through on his decision. The needs of the narrative don’t necessarily make all sacrifices (or attempts to do so) equal.
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Isn't there not being an autopilot or a droid capable of piloting the ship just a contrivance of the plot, so that Holdo can nobly die (read: get fridged for the sake of a male character's arc) and Poe can get the mantle of leadership?
When I think about it that way everything kind of makes sense. Poe needs to become the leader of the Resistance by the end of this film, and thus Holdo must die regardless of the narrative hammering in that noble sacrifices are dumb and that strong, experienced leaders are needed.
I've never liked Threepio, so I kind of wanted him to have to pilot the ship. :)
Then again, maybe ships don't take commands from droids (particularly commands to ram other ships, which probably triggers some sort of safety alert...), as a safety feature, which is why we never see droids piloting ships by themselves?
But yeah, they kind of stepped all over their message there. Holdo sacrificing herself to buy time for the others was heroic. Finn sacrificing himself to buy time for the others was foolish? The only difference I see is that one still had a contract to appear in another movie...
Holdo sacrificed herself so the cause could survive. Finn was going to sacrifice himself so they could win. The Resistance had already lost enough. At this point they needed to survive.
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Finn was going to sacrifice himself so they could win.
No. Absolutely not. Winning was not an option at that point anymore. He was trying to save the people inside the bunker, the exact same way Holdo was sacrificing herself to save the fleet. But its wrong to do because... reasons. And they survive being in front of the at at walkers because... reasons. To show reasons.
Muddled is a vast understatement for the theme and message here.
Someone finally mentioned the Maz scene. I really tried to forget that part of the movie. It just didn't work..I'm not sure if Rian was trying to be comedic there, but it fell flat on its face, and comedy wasn't required there in any case. Could/Should have just been a sub space voice message save a minute or two of run time for some better dialog somewhere else.
I've been after the fact nitpicking this movie, but that scene in particular, more so than anything else in the movie (yes, even Leia's Mary Poppins act), really struck me as stupid just as I watched it.
Personally, I thought that scene was great. It made Maz infinitely more interesting than the not-quite-force-sensitive sage we've seen a million times in Star Wars already.
Haven't really gone through the whole thread, so not sure if I'm in the minority on this one, but was anyone else completely satisfied with Luke's arc? I thought it was perfect, there's truly not a thing I would change about how he was presented in TLJ. I might go so far as to say his story may be one of my favorite things in Star Wars since Yoda's first appearance in episode V. It was wonderfully true to what the Jedi were implied to be in the original trilogy. Space Mystics, not a bunch of bureaucratic wizard-knights like they were in the prequels.
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Haven't really gone through the whole thread, so not sure if I'm in the minority on this one, but was anyone else completely satisfied with Luke's arc?
Absolutely- in my gargantuan character assessment hidden behind that spoiler tag a few posts up, I say pretty much the same thing- Luke's arc was fantastic. One thing this movie absolutely NAILED.
One thing that is explained in recent novels is that Hux didn't rise to his position on the base of merit, but rather that his daddy was a high ranking imperial officer who early on joined with the First Order and who was responsible for the stormtrooper programming regime. So yeah Hux being incompetent does make sense. You get shades of this in TFA, as in why he was so defensive when Kylo pointed out whether clones were better than the brainwashing system.
One does wonder how this is going to play out in the future movies. The First Order seems to now be in possession of the largest intact fleet, but between the emotionally unstable Kylo Ren and the uh...not terribly bright Hux, they are in a rather poor position leadership wise.
Luke, Kylo, and Rey by far had the best arcs, which I think even the detractors of this movie would probably agree with.
I actually think Finn also had a decent arc, it just maybe wasn't as tightly tied into the plot as some would have liked.
Someone finally mentioned the Maz scene. I really tried to forget that part of the movie. It just didn't work..I'm not sure if Rian was trying to be comedic there, but it fell flat on its face, and comedy wasn't required there in any case. Could/Should have just been a sub space voice message save a minute or two of run time for some better dialog somewhere else.
I've been after the fact nitpicking this movie, but that scene in particular, more so than anything else in the movie (yes, even Leia's Mary Poppins act), really struck me as stupid just as I watched it.
Personally, I thought that scene was great. It made Maz infinitely more interesting than the not-quite-force-sensitive sage we've seen a million times in Star Wars already.
Haven't really gone through the whole thread, so not sure if I'm in the minority on this one, but was anyone else completely satisfied with Luke's arc? I thought it was perfect, there's truly not a thing I would change about how he was presented in TLJ. I might go so far as to say his story may be one of my favorite things in Star Wars since Yoda's first appearance in episode V. It was wonderfully true to what the Jedi were implied to be in the original trilogy. Space Mystics, not a bunch of bureaucratic wizard-knights like they were in the prequels.
Luke's arc was the best part of the movie. There is still a lot of potential quibbles about the direction-why did Luke leave a map if he wanted to be left alone? But Mark Hamill stepped up and did an amazing job with what he was asked to do. I think his final scene was a given outcome, so wasn't a shock to me, but I really do think the films strongest scenes are those on Ach-To
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Luke's arc was the best part of the movie. There is still a lot of potential quibbles about the direction-why did Luke leave a map if he wanted to be left alone? But Mark Hamill stepped up and did an amazing job with what he was asked to do. I think his final scene was a given outcome, so wasn't a shock to me, but I really do think the films strongest scenes are those on Ach-ToLuke's arc only really works if he was just some anon hermit honestly. In terms of what we know of him from the OT, it's more or less pure character assassination. I mean, they want me to believe that Luke, the guy who went against Yoda and Obi-Wan to (successfully) redeem Vader, one of the guys who is the reason the Rebel Alliance triumphed, just decides to sod off and let the galaxy burn because he's jaded of the Jedi due one of his students going nuts? I just can't see it. Plus saying the Jedi are a bunch of jerks for monopolizing the Force is pretty bunk. I mean, not like the Sith, the Knights of Sirs Not Appearing in this Film Ren, or however Snoke learned his stuff are Jedi.
There's more I could complain about with Luke's bits, but it's one of those things I chock up to the writer(s) just haphazardly tossing the stuff in the prior movies away because he's got deconstructing to do.
Obi-Wan the champion of the Clone Wars, killer of General Grievous, and Darth Maul, gets his heartbroken by Anakin. So he hermits himself on a desert planet for 17 years.
Yoda, 882 year old Jedi master, loses a duel to Darth Sidious and hides in a swamp for 18 years. Hoping that someone else can clean up the mess the Jedi made.
Luke Skywalker was 18 years old when he won against Vader and Palpatine. With an idealists view of the Force. In that time he trains Leia in the Force (but she is too busy running a government to become a knight. Still she is as talented as the Skywalker bloodline promises). However it’s clear that he starts a Jedi temple or academy. Based on his view of the Jedi, an incomplete view, that doesn’t take into account the Jedi capacity for failure. He was overconfident when he took his nephew as an apprentice.
Luke misunderstands his mistake, he always had Anakin’s brain, but Padme’s compassion. (Leia has Padme’s brain, but Anakin’s anger at injustice).
He thinks that the Jedi creates monsters that the Galaxy has to pay the price for. That their manipulations of the Force creates the imbalances. “No more Jedi,” he decides, “let the galaxy sort out its own problems without the Jedi.”
He’s wrong. As Obi-Wan was wrong about Vader being more “machine than man”, as Yoda was wrong about the corruption in the republic.
Rey arrives, to a Luke that has closed himself off from the Force. Stewing in regret. Rey arrives, begging for Luke to return to the fight. To save the Galaxy. Like Obi-Wan before him, he teaches Rey to save the Galaxy. But she doesn’t fear the Dark Side. Like Ben once didn’t. Remember Luke’s failure at the cave on Degobah? He fears the Dark Side. He still fails to understand the failure of the Jedi. To cut off the Darkside is to ignore half of what the Force is. Rey understands though.
Luke redeems himself for his mistake, he learns to trust his student, not to build a world as he envisions it, but to build something better. To build a galaxy that embraces the entire Force.
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Haven't really gone through the whole thread, so not sure if I'm in the minority on this one, but was anyone else completely satisfied with Luke's arc?Absolutely- in my gargantuan character assessment hidden behind that spoiler tag a few posts up, I say pretty much the same thing- Luke's arc was fantastic. One thing this movie absolutely NAILED.
Luke's send-off really worked for me. He had retreated from the galaxy and it's troubles, much in the way that Obi-Wan and Yoda had, in the original series (and even hanging out right next to a place powerful in the dark side, like Yoda!), and was dragged back into it to make a difference.
It also contrasts pretty strongly with Han's departure in the previous movie, which was, in essence, 'Harrison Ford is too old for this ****. Buh-bye Han. Buh-bye Decker. Guess what's gonna happen in the next Indiana Jones movie???' :)