So, there's a new Star Wars trailer...

[Zevox]

For you maybe. Honestly for me the Luke bits were the only part of TLJ l though, yeah, that’s good.

For me definitely. There's two main reasons my opinions of that film are as strongly negative as they are, and the treatment of Luke is one of them.

And Hell, choosing to die as a last minute disruption of the villain’s plans in a way to inspire the next generation of heroes? Oh yeah that’s good stuff.

If he had actually done that, I... would still have hated it, honestly.* But as-is, it isn't even that coherent, as there's no apparent reason why he would die for doing that. Yes yes, strain from the difficulty of maintaining a force projection over such a distance, it's still very much not obvious or necessary and comes completely out of left field in the moment, while also killing any chance of future movies fixing his character. That moment is the final one that sealed how irredeemably bad the film is to me.

*For two reasons. One, it would be a rehash of Obi-Wan's fate from the original film. Two, if Kylo had physically killed Luke, that would incense me to no end, as I hate Kylo as a character and consider him completely undeserving of that moment. I was honestly afraid as I was watching the scene that it was going to end with that, and actively thinking to myself that if it did, I was done with the sequels then and there. Which is also part of why I hated Luke's actual death: they gave me that brief hope that they'd averted that and instead had Luke brilliantly trick and humiliate Kylo in a manner he thoroughly deserved, only to kill him off anyway for no good reason. That might anger me a bit less than Kylo actually being the one to kill him, but not nearly enough.

But I’m willing to listen. If you can think of another reason for Luke to run off to nowhere and make a ridiculously complex way so that no one can find him, that keeps the focus of the story on the melodrama of the new main characters (meaning at least one of Rey, Ben, or -technically- Finn) I wanna hear. I legitimately love hearing stories and analyzing story structure.

The most obvious alternative reason for him to gone off, given that I'm pretty sure we were told it was looking for the first Jedi Temple already in TFA, is that he was seeking some lost Jedi knowledge or secret that he thought would be of some use in either dealing with the First Order or saving Ben. And quite unlike what we got, where him leaving any way to find him makes no real sense given he didn't want to return even if he was desperately needed, he could feasibly have wanted to leave a way for someone to track him down in an emergency if something to that effect were what he was up to. The reason for breaking the map up into two parts I couldn't tell you either way, but that's not something that can really be fixed I think.

And that's just the most obvious alternative, I'm sure someone sufficiently creative and interested in doing so could come up with something else too. Personally though my interest in such an exercise is nil at this point.

[Morgana]

I mean, Luke going off to find a temple just sounds...really boring. Luke went off and didn't tell anyone, and it's cause uuuh...he wanted to find an ancient thing. That reasoning doesn't really explain why he'd go off on the way he did, nor does it develop his character in any way, rather than I guess that now he's a strong jedi person or something.

[Zevox]

I mean, Luke going off to find a temple just sounds...really boring. Luke went off and didn't tell anyone, and it's cause uuuh...he wanted to find an ancient thing. That reasoning doesn't really explain why he'd go off on the way he did, nor does it develop his character in any way, rather than I guess that now he's a strong jedi person or something.

Like I said, we were already told that he went to find the temple in TFA. The question we were left with is why. And honestly, the answer we got doesn't make sense - if he just wanted to go off somewhere and die there, he could have picked any barely-habitable backwater world, rather than the one the first Jedi Temple happens to be on.

[Narkis]

That's the first time I've heard my writing style described as concise.

That said, I aim to please! (and I'm also interested in the other two times)

That would be those two posts:

That is impressively wrong. There is no Rebel Alliance, because there's nothing to rebel against; the New Republic rules the galaxy.

The Resistance (because they're resisting the First Order) is not based in the Hosnian System, and is in fact not officially backed by the New Republic at all.

The First Order is portrayed as significantly smaller and having fewer resources than the Empire, but had a superweapon at a massively larger scale than anything done by the Empire. An obvious implication (that the following SW media bucked) was that this would be a crippling blow for the First Order.

The planets that were destroyed was the temporary location of the NR government, which was nowhere near all the FO wanted destroyed. For example, if Starkiller Base hadn't been destroyed, then the FO could have also blown up the actual Resistance base, which they are shown invading in the beginning of Episode VIII. Or, if you would like an even more blatant example, they are charging up Starkiller Base for a second shot during the climax of Episode VII, so even only watching that movie without the followup demonstrates that they absolutely wanted to destroy more planets.

Bloodlines established the New Republic as pretty different than that; not too bureaucratic to militarize, but rather not wanting to be too strong and centralized like the Empire was and overcorrecting in the opposite direction. Also, that book and the Aftermath books* establish that the First Order, to the extent that anyone outside is aware of it, is very much a fringe element and nobody knows the true scope (which isn't openly revealed until the TLJ opening crawl).

Indeed, nobody hates Star Wars as much as Star Wars fans.

*

Spoiler: on the Aftermath books...

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I'm annoyed that most readily available images with that text can't be bothered to even get the right scene.


Because you're relatively new to liking it, you may have missed the massive amounts of criticism that got lobbied at Lucas over the prequel trilogy (and, unfairly, at the actors, including the ten-year-old Jake Lloyd (whose career was basically killed by this, and again, was a freaking child) and Ahmed Best, who nearly committed suicide over fan backlash directed at him. And if you don't even know who he is, that's even worse because he never even showed his face in those movies and STILL got the ridiculous amounts of hate over something he had no control over).

Also, there was Lucas actively going out of his way to get people to criticize him.

Spoiler: Any sane person's reaction to that article

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The most obvious alternative reason for him to gone off, given that I'm pretty sure we were told it was looking for the first Jedi Temple already in TFA, is that he was seeking some lost Jedi knowledge or secret that he thought would be of some use in either dealing with the First Order or saving Ben. And quite unlike what we got, where him leaving any way to find him makes no real sense given he didn't want to return even if he was desperately needed, he could feasibly have wanted to leave a way for someone to track him down in an emergency if something to that effect were what he was up to. The reason for breaking the map up into two parts I couldn't tell you either way, but that's not something that can really be fixed I think.

And that's just the most obvious alternative, I'm sure someone sufficiently creative and interested in doing so could come up with something else too. Personally though my interest in such an exercise is nil at this point.

Before TLJ came out, I was sure Luke was training a new generation of Jedi in secret. That would explain the title ("The Last Jedi" is plural and refers to the younglings no one knew existed), why he hid (he already failed once to protect his students from Snoke), why he left breadcrumbs to his location (he always planned to return), and sets up a conflict with Rey (his students aren't ready, he doesn't want to abandon them, he doesn't think it's time to return) similar, but not the same as his own conflict with Yoda.

[Morgana]

Literally his whole character was not being able to escape his past, and constantly reminding himself of his failures and pondering about the jedi and their legacy, and the force in general

[Peelee]

That would be those two posts:

In that case, let me double down on "I've never heard my writing style described as concise!"

[Narkis]

In that case, let me double down on "I've never heard my writing style described as concise!"

It's possible my perspective's been skewed by reading (and writing) too many walls of text in similar discussions. I still stand by my statement though.

[Aeson]

For those of you who feel that Luke went off to die or drown his sorrows in a bottle or whatever, I ask you this: Who the hell leaves behind a map - even a fragmented map - showing where they actually went and stays there for twenty years with no indication that they intend to leave any time soon if they don't want to be found? If you don't want to be found, either don't leave behind a map at all, or if you must leave behind a map, leave one that shows that you went literally anywhere except where you've actually gone, especially when there's a literal galaxy full of planets that they'd have to search if you don't tell them where you're (actually) going.

Someone who leaves behind a map like that wants to be found. Not, perhaps, by just anyone, but they do want to be found by somebody, eventually. Maybe Luke changed in his twenty years as a hermit and became a bitter old fart who gave up on everything, but he wasn't looking to go off and drown his sorrows in the bottom of a bottle or anything like that when he left.

[Peelee]

For those of you who feel that Luke went off to die or drown his sorrows in a bottle or whatever, I ask you this: Who the hell leaves behind a map - even a fragmented map - showing where they actually went and stays there for twenty years with no indication that they intend to leave any time soon if they don't want to be found? If you don't want to be found, either don't leave behind a map at all, or if you must leave behind a map, leave one that shows that you went literally anywhere except where you've actually gone, especially when there's a literal galaxy full of planets that they'd have to search if you don't tell them where you're (actually) going.

Someone who leaves behind a map like that wants to be found. Not, perhaps, by just anyone, but they do want to be found by somebody, eventually. Maybe Luke changed in his twenty years as a hermit and became a bitter old fart who gave up on everything, but he wasn't looking to go off and drown his sorrows in the bottom of a bottle or anything like that when he left.

You're assuming that it's supposed to make sense. Why did R2 suddenly wake up and furnish the missing part of the map?

Luke left a map because Abrams wanted a story where there was a map, it seems.

[Zevox]

Before TLJ came out, I was sure Luke was training a new generation of Jedi in secret. That would explain the title ("The Last Jedi" is plural and refers to the younglings no one knew existed), why he hid (he already failed once to protect his students from Snoke), why he left breadcrumbs to his location (he always planned to return), and sets up a conflict with Rey (his students aren't ready, he doesn't want to abandon them, he doesn't think it's time to return) similar, but not the same as his own conflict with Yoda.

That would certainly be another much better story that's more consistent with Luke's character, I'd say.

Literally his whole character was not being able to escape his past, and constantly reminding himself of his failures and pondering about the jedi and their legacy, and the force in general

Was that supposed to be a response to my last post? Because it doesn't seem to address anything I said. And it's stretching quite a bit, since the only thing remotely like "not being able to escape his past" in the OT is his relationship to Vader.

Wanting to learn about the Jedi and carry on their legacy was a/the major part of his story - but in TLJ he apparently decided to just drop that the moment that something went wrong with it. And completely gave up on his nephew because he turned to the dark side, rather than even trying to save him as he did Vader, despite the fact that he'd have much more of a relationship with and reason to care about the former than the latter. Yeah, the writers for TLJ clearly didn't understand Luke in the slightest.

[Saintheart]

Like I said, we were already told that he went to find the temple in TFA. The question we were left with is why. And honestly, the answer we got doesn't make sense - if he just wanted to go off somewhere and die there, he could have picked any barely-habitable backwater world, rather than the one the first Jedi Temple happens to be on.

TFA did leave an interesting implication for why Luke left: simply put, because his attempt to restart the Jedi Order had failed cataclysmically, Luke therefore went looking for the first Jedi Temple to see if he could pick up any clues or pointers for how the original Jedi had first put their order together. That is, he went looking for a way to make the Jedi Order flourish, he went looking for wisdom from the past.

TLJ went with refuge in stupidity and/or audacity and concluded that Luke, on finding the Temple, dissolved into a sort of walking catatonia, and that he didn't even read the texts, didn't taste the knowledge he had implicitly gone looking for in the first place.

The storytelling problem, though, doesn't come from TFA. It comes from ROTJ, and from the fact that ROTJ was -- despite George Lucas's promises -- pretty clearly intended as a final stop on the grand story of Star Wars. It was intended as the climax of the entire series, with all major character arcs concluded. We can try and write Rian Johnson and JJ Abrams' scripts for them and say Luke's story wasn't really concluded, but like it or not, that's the way the story was left.

And in particular, one exchange between Luke and Obi-Wan Kenobi which was not dealt with by Abrams and worse still was papered over ineptly by Rian Johnson:

Luke: I can't do it, Artoo. I can't go on alone.
Ben: Yoda will always be with you.

This is the one exchange that makes it so much harder to have a story involving Luke failing at Jedi mastery - because from that moment on it's not just Luke teaching, it's Obi-Wan and Yoda teaching as well through Luke. By the point in the trilogy that line is given, Obi-Wan has grown into a literal rather than figurative presence: where once he could only invisibly whisper thoughts in Luke's ear, he's now visible and, worse still, so physically present he can sit his non-corporeal butt on a convenient fallen log and chin-wag with Luke about stuff for ages. He doesn't even fade out at the end of the scene; for all we know, Luke and Ben could've been talking about blue milk flavours for hours. Yoda is also visible at the end of the film - the implication being he's just as present as Obi-Wan, and just as able to guide Luke with long conversations about stuff as Obi-Wan is.

This doesn't preclude a story about Luke still failing at being a Jedi Master, but that massive, obvious, non-implied plot point means you have to put a lot more work into the storytelling than Abrams or Johnson did.

(By contrast, compare how Timothy Zahn dealt with the problem, right at the beginning of Heir to the Empire: he removes Ben - and implicitly Yoda - as a resource by outright saying they're moving on and won't be around to help Luke into the future. The above problems with TFA and TLJ are precisely why Zahn stated that right up front, in literally the first scene after the prologue and Thrawn's first appearance: because Zahn recognised you cannot have that artillery available to your protagonist. Indeed Luke's first line in that book - "Been a long time, Ben" - implies that Ben's plot-altering presence has not been around a lot recently, helps set the groundwork to stop the audience asking why they haven't been involved in events so far. Hell, notice the way ESB dealt with it: when Luke goes to confront Vader, Ben flat-out says that he 'cannot interfere', thus raising the stakes and telling the audience very clearly that Ben's plot-destroying powers will not be available.)

As a result, even Abrams' implicit reason for Luke disappearing has a plothole in it: Luke shouldn't need to go looking for the first Jedi Temple if he can just phone-a-friend with Yoda and ask for some pointers.

But I would still class Johnson as making the problem worse, because if you leave some things silent, you leave implication and speculation alive, you give the audience a prompt to speculate that there's some other reason for why something is not covered. Johnson, however, pulls an explanation out of his Unknown Regions and has Rey (sigh) intuit that Luke's been cutting himself off from the Force, implying heavily that this is why Yoda hasn't shown up to whack him round the head with his cane. And then, he makes it even worse by having Yoda show up again without Luke clearly inviting him back, demonstrating that Yoda can spectacularly affect the physical world, and summing up a good twenty years' needless death and suffering with a giggle and a fortune cookie that failure is the best teacher. The film simply would have been better if they had not addressed this plothole at all, just as Abrams chose to ignore it.

These problems, these abject failures of storytelling, crop up in my view because Abrams, Johnson, and all the writing/continuity team at the Mouse do not understand the material they are working with at a deep level, or don't understand storytelling at a deep level. The script is replete with the writer wanting to have a particular moment or a particular bit of iconography and then writing the script to get it, without regard for whether that script works as a story. TFA's plot gets wrenched around because it absolutely has to be a carbon copy of ANH, because Abrams either has no faith in his ability to tell an original story or has been commanded from the heights of the Disney Magic Castle to write something that any flathead in the world will "recognise as Star Wars". TLJ's plot goes nonsensical because Rian Johnson -- who is on record about this -- wanted to tell a story that was personal to him, i.e. he wanted to tell his own story with a Star Wars coat of paint. Which is nice and all, spoilers on race cars look nice and all that, but hammering that spoiler on an Aston Martin and then screaming at people that they're just fanboys/misogynists/not developed enough/not imaginative enough because they point out the spoiler just doesn't fit is at worst insulting, at best amusing.

[deuterio12]

TFA did leave an interesting implication for why Luke left: simply put, because his attempt to restart the Jedi Order had failed cataclysmically

The way that happens is itself quite mind-blogging because the failing of training a new generation of Jedis is because Luke is about to lightsaber skewer one of them in their sleep and that drives the student right into the dark side.

Are we expected to believe this is the same Luke that when having Darth Vader at his mercy lowered his lightsaber and forgave him, hoping the child-slaughtering evil general who had wasted countless planets filled with people could be redeemed after all?

When did Luke exactly went from "There is hope even for my greatest nemesis" to "That kid is looking funny, better get ready to drive my hot sword inside him while he's in bed"?

[Morgana]

I was talking about his character in the last movie, and Luke in the original trilogy never showed a particular interest in learning ancient jedi history, that was a later addition that legends made and even there Luke did saw tons of faults with the Jedi. And honestly every alternative I've seen fans come up for what they should do with Luke is just so boring...it's basically he's this uber mega powerful jedi that solves all the problems in the movie and has no flaws whatsoever, even though the only thing consistent in this franchise is that the jedi are always doomed to be their own worst enemies.

Like, why even have Luke at all if he's just going to be a generic uber powerful jedi figure? Even Yoda, who is generally portrayed as aside from legends Luke the most powerful jedi ever, is a deeply flawed figure that literally argued for Luke to just straight up let his friends die in the orignal trilogy. And people talk like Luke tried to butcher his nephew, when in actuality all he did was instinctively draw his lightsaber after being triggered by feeling the darkside, something he had spend his whole life fighting in his own nephew. And no, Luke wasn't responsible for Kylo turning to the darkside, that was Kylo's own doing, considering even if he thought Luke was going to attack him, that hardly seems like justification to right afterwards butcher all his colleages.

[deuterio12]

Since when did Luke develop an "instinct" to draw his lightsaber just because he sensed the dark side of the force?

Because again Luke actually puts down his lightsaber when facing dark sith lord Darth Vader. Trying to solve his problems with a lightsaber was actually the closest Luke himself was to falling to the dark side.

And if there's a reason to go on a murdering spree, it's when your honored teacher is sneaking inside your own bedroom with a big hot sword looking like he's about to penetrate you while you were sleeping. At that point the lesson was clearly "kill or be killed, sword others before they sword you". Kylo rightfully didn't feel like taking his chances that it was just a big misundersanding.

Luke had one job, make Kylo feel safe, guide him, keep him away from the dark side, and instead he failed miserably at it because for some reason he developed an "instinct" to point lightsabers at people just because they seemed funny. While they were asleep.

One wonders where Luke picked up such an "instinct" because it was nowhere to be seen in the original trilogy's Luke who knows how to keep his cool and lower his lightsaber even when faced with a pair of uber sith lords that had countless worlds worth of blood in their hands.

Or again why original trilogy Luke has hope even for a sith lord that had gone as deep as possible to the dark side, showing zero signs of remorse or mercy, but new Luke is sneering and condescending towards an inescure and confused Kylo.

[Morgana]

You mean the scene that right before pummeling Vader into the ground Luke kept angrily beating him while he was still down and was clearly seconds away from finishing him off even though he posed no threat anymore? Also, you can't really expect Luke to be the same after decades of fighting. And like...no, it's not really killed or be killed, I really don't see how any reasonable person would come to the conclusion that any of the students(who by Kylo's age were probably quite young, and probably there were some children amongs them) who were actively just going about their bussiness, probably sleeping considering the time, were in any way a threat to you.

Also, you mean on their final confrontation? Cause at that point Kylo was occupying the same position as the Emperor and was full on villain gloating on how he was gonna murder a bunch of people and conquer the galaxy, and keep in mind that Luke was taunting him cause that was a distraction

[Saintheart]

And honestly every alternative I've seen fans come up for what they should do with Luke is just so boring...

Are you seriously contending that this plot path for Luke was the only possible path available, and that this story was worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars, that they paid JJ Abrams and/or Rian Johnson to serve up for our amusement?

it's basically he's this uber mega powerful jedi that solves all the problems in the movie and has no flaws whatsoever,

Stormwind Fallacy. That aside, gosh, you're right, the franchise has never had to deal with a mega-powerful Jedi before...

Spoiler

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...oh wait.

even though the only thing consistent in this franchise is that the jedi are always doomed to be their own worst enemies.

Ironically, that, too, is an import from later EU and from the excremental script of TLJ, not from what we saw on film. In the OT, it was clear the Jedi had been purged: they were operational "for over a thousand generations" and were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic ... before the Dark Times. Before the Empire. Ben may have lied about Vader, but nowhere is it suggested he lied about that.

And what we saw in the PT was a secret cabal of Dark Side users who had been extinct and in hiding for over a millennia, including a Dark Side user so powerful he could literally sit right in front of some of the strongest Jedi in the galaxy and leave no indication that he's present. On top of that, it was when the Jedi chose not to stick to the traditions that had sustained them for a thousand generations and agreed to train Anakin Skywalker that was the catalyst for their destruction.

Even Yoda, who is generally portrayed as aside from legends Luke the most powerful jedi ever, is a deeply flawed figure that literally argued for Luke to just straight up let his friends die in the orignal trilogy.

The word is 'uncompromising and cognisant of wider suffering', not flawed. And you are quite disingenously taking that remark out of context: when they have that conversation, Ben and Yoda are quite clear with Luke -- and they are entirely correct -- that Luke's friends are being tortured because the Emperor wants his abilities. Vader tortures Han on Bespin with precisely that intent. This is a similar ethical dispute to the dilemma anyone being asked to pay a ransom faces, because it is beggar-thy-neighbour: if you pay a ransom, your loved one will be freed, but it will encourage other kidnappers because they know ransoms will be paid. Luke, Ben and Yoda's conversation is as follows:

Yoda: Luke! You must complete the training.
Luke: I can't keep the vision out of my head. They're my friends. I've gotta help them.
Yoda: You must not go!
Luke: But Han and Leia will die if I don't.
Obi-Wan: You don't know that. [appears in spirit] Even Yoda cannot see their fate.
Luke: But I can help them! I feel the Force.
Obi-Wan: But you cannot control it. This is a dangerous time for you, when you will be tempted by the dark side of the Force.
Yoda: Yes, yes! To Obi-Wan you listen. The cave! Remember your failure at the cave!
Luke: But I've learned so much since then. Master Yoda, I promise to return and finish what I've begun. You have my word.
Obi-Wan: It is you and your abilities the Emperor wants. That is why your friends are made to suffer.
Luke: That's why I have to go.
Obi-Wan: Luke, I don't want to lose you to the Emperor the way I lost Vader.
Luke: You won't.
Yoda: Stopped they must be. On this all depends. Only a fully trained Jedi Knight with the Force as his ally will conquer Vader and his Emperor. If you end your training now, if you choose the quick and easy path as Vader did, you will become an agent of evil.
Obi-Wan: Patience!
Luke: And sacrifice Han and Leia?
Yoda: If you honor what they fight for, yes.

Yoda, in short, was arguing the lives of Han and Leia against the lives of everyone in the galaxy; there were no other Jedi left and Yoda didn't see any path forward other than Luke at that point, even if "there was another". In particular, if Yoda was referring to Leia, then this was a doubly stupid situation: because Luke was now putting the lives of both remaining Jedi candidates in the hands of the Emperor.

[Morgana]

I didn't said that this was the only way, just that the everything the fans have came up with thus far has been kinda uuh not good. And you can't really compare Luke and Yoda, one is way more plot integral than the other, and even Yoda is consistently shown to fail and make bad decisions. Hell, one of the major reasons Vader even fell for the dark side in the first place was cause of the Jedi council which Yoda was part of being REALLY bad with mentoring people dealing with emotional issues. Also, I like how you say I made a stormfront fallacy while completely ignoring most of what I said, and only focusing on the powerful jedi part lol

And the underlying theme of the dilema of Luke choosing between his friends or his training, wasn't just about the risk of Luke losing his life. It was ultimately Yoda being fearful that by choosing his friends over spiritual fullfilment, Luke would fall to the dark side just like Vader did. Cause jedi philosophy is all about the severement of such bonds so you can reach enlightment, ultimately Luke was the middle man of the jedi ideal of dettachment to the extreme and Anakin being utterly controlled by the fear of losing those he loved and this fear being what drove him towards the dark side. Saying it's a hostage situation while not incorrect, sorta goes over some pretty interesting themes that the prequels(despite all it's flaws) and the original trilogy set up.

And calling Luke's decision stupid while making a certain sense from a logical standpoint, kinda misses that it was his empathy that ultimately made him redeem Vader and beat the emperor, so as far as the movie was concerned having attachments and standing up for your friends is a good thing(even though at the same time, it was his bond with Leia that almost made Luke strike down Vader in anger, which would solidify his turn into the dark side as far as the emperor was concerned. So again, balance is required).

[Saintheart]

I didn't said that this was the only way, just that the everything the fans have came up with thus far has been kinda uuh not good.

Yes, because you're implying that just because the fans haven't come up with something to interest you, that this somehow makes The last Jedi good or its script decisions good. Neither hold.

And you can't really compare Luke and Yoda, one is way more plot integral than the other, and even Yoda is consistently shown to fail and make bad decisions. Hell, one of the major reasons Vader even fell for the dark side in the first place was cause of the Jedi council which Yoda was part of being REALLY bad with mentoring people dealing with emotional issues.

(1) Yoda disagreed with the Council's decision to train Anakin, and specifically disagreed with the decision to let Obi-Wan Kenobi train him. That's right there in The Phantom Menace, towards the end of the movie. Can't put the blame for those decisions at his feet.

(2) The Jedi Council didn't seem to have any problems mentoring people dealing with emotional issues for the previous thousand generations or so, as evidenced by the fact that they exist and have existed for a thousand generations. The Council had a problem mentoring someone who'd been told by Qui-Gon Jinn that he was the Chosen One, who had been targeted by a very potent and largely invisible Sith, had been groomed for much of his life by said Sith ("Your guidance more than my patience"), but I can see the most competent of psychologists and psychiatrists not doing much better in that space.

Seriously, this 'lol Jedi Council doesn't know how to mentor people dealing with emotional issues' is on a par with the assertion that Yoda was perfectly on board and okay with Luke's friends dying: it really, really misses even the context the films give it. And it's a depressingly common misapprehension from the fandom so far as the prequel trilogy is concerned.

[Morgana]

Yeah, cause the Jedi order has such a good track record of not having their members turn to the dark side...honestly the writing was on the wall really. And I was refering to Yoda's terrible mentoring of Anakin during their session, when he pretty much told him to suck it up, also I literally never said that Yoda was ok with Luke's friends dying?? Just that he advised him to let them die, and the reason he did that was partially due to his belief that for one to reach enlightment they should learn to not avoid attachment. Like, you say I don't understand the prequels, but the whole point of the prequels was showing the council as the burocratic and hypocritic bunch they were, and how Palpatine used that to his advantage to seize power and destroy them. I honestly can't understand how one can watch those movies and not see that all that happened to them was very much out of their own doing.

Hell, you used Yoda disagreeing letting Obi Wan train him as an argument, but honestly Obi Wan was actually his best mentor figure out of anyone on the order

[Saintheart]

Yeah, cause the Jedi order has such a good track record of not having their members turn to the dark side...

I count two on the entirety of the universe shown on film: Count Dooku and Anakin Skywalker. Two in one thousand generations, which on straight extrapolation would seem a rather good percentage. And to do so they had to bring in one of the most powerful Sith in history. Would you like to specify any others we're told about in the film franchise as opposed to the slowly-spreading pool of EU material?

And I was refering to Yoda's terrible mentoring of Anakin during their session, when he pretty much told him to suck it up,

As any psychologist, psychiatrist, or counsellor will tell you, there is no magic bullet to getting people to open up and frankly disclose their fears, no way to help someone if they won't open up fully to you. Even the best psychiatrists will often insist on multiple sessions, so rapport can be built up and the person builds enough confidence to disclose their problems to you. Anakin came to one session with Yoda prepared to withhold the truth if not outright lie. As is consistent with someone falling to the Dark Side: Anakin wanted a quick and easy way to solve his problems. And in getting his answers, he didn't want to disclose his secret obsession either. Yoda didn't grill him, didn't push him to disclose the person he was concerned about. Note very carefully that Yoda didn't say he had to give up the people he cared about, only that he had to train himself to let go of what he feared to lose. They are two very different things.

Yoda: Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed that is.
Anakin: What must I do, Master Yoda?
Yoda: Train yourself to let go... of everything you fear to lose.

also I literally never said that Yoda was ok with Luke's friends dying??

You certainly said Yoda is "a deeply flawed figure that literally argued for Luke to just straight up let his friends die in the orignal trilogy." Make up your mind, is Yoda an unfeeling monster in your book or not?

Just that he advised him to let them die, and the reason he did that was partially due to his belief that for one to reach enlightment they should learn to not avoid attachment. Like, you say I don't understand the prequels, but the whole point of the prequels was showing the council as the burocratic and hypocritic bunch they were, and how Palpatine used that to his advantage to seize power and destroy them. I honestly can't understand how one can watch those movies and not see that all that happened to them was very much out of their own doing.

You can begin to understand by training yourself not to so completely buy into Anakin's warped point of view. The prequels are a six hour examination of narcissism. Not grandiose egotism - the two are simple to confuse - but plain old narcissism, in which a person's sense of self becomes so warped that they begin to see themselves as the protagonist of their own movie, and see the people around them as essentially just extras. It's not sociopathy, it's not that the narcissist doesn't realise other people exist, it's just they're ... not as important in the grand scheme, whilst the narcissist is indeed the most important person around.

The heart of narcissism is this: I am special, I have an excuse; I am not like all these other automatons marching to their doom. That's Anakin Skywalker: it's never his fault, but always about him. He doesn't abuse his wife, he loves her. He doesn't try to kill her, he just acts in self-defence. He doesn't lie to Yoda, he just ... withholds things from him. What's the first thing he thinks when he sees Obi-Wan on Padme's ship? He thinks she's (at best) brought Obi-Wan to Anakin to kill him, or (as implied, and indeed as very explicit in a lot of really bad fanfiction) he thinks Padme is rubbing uglies with him. Do you see the self-centredness at play? That's narcissism. At its heart - and this is both its tragic beauty and its dreadful horror - the PT is a six hour excuse for Anakin's actions, and the real tragedy is that so many people bought into that excuse rather than saw it for what it was. Large sections of the fandom included.

Hell, you used Yoda disagreeing letting Obi Wan train him as an argument, but honestly Obi Wan was actually his best mentor figure out of anyone on the order

Obi-Wan who, on Anakin's own account, is overly critical, never listens, who screams at Anakin to not go and rescue Padme because he'd be expelled from the Jedi Order, who he tells always to do his duty, who fobs off Anakin's dreams about his mother by saying "dreams pass in time".

Yeah. Totally great mentor by some standard, but probably not the one you're looking for.

[deuterio12]

Obi-Wan who, on Anakin's own account, is overly critical, never listens, who screams at Anakin to not go and rescue Padme because he'd be expelled from the Jedi Order, who he tells always to do his duty, who fobs off Anakin's dreams about his mother by saying "dreams pass in time".

Yeah. Totally great mentor by some standard, but probably not the one you're looking for.

Don't forget how at the end of the prequel Obi-Wan just leaves a still breathing Anakin to slowly roast. No mercy kill, no dragging his ass to an hospital, just let his ex-apprentice behind being well cooked. Truly there was never a more caring master.

[Saintheart]

Don't forget how at the end of the prequel Obi-Wan just leaves a still breathing Anakin to slowly roast. No mercy kill, no dragging his ass to an hospital, just let his ex-apprentice behind being well cooked. Truly there was never a more caring master.

I'm prepared to at least allow Obi-Wan some vindictiveness there; Anakin had, after all, just gone and murdered just about every friend Obi-Wan had ever known. If Obi-Wan needed some sort of psychic defence for allowing himself to feel that, he certainly could have retreated into the idea that Anakin was truly beyond saving both in a physical and spiritual sense.

[deuterio12]

I'm prepared to at least allow Obi-Wan some vindictiveness there; Anakin had, after all, just gone and murdered just about every friend Obi-Wan had ever known. If Obi-Wan needed some sort of psychic defence for allowing himself to feel that, he certainly could have retreated into the idea that Anakin was truly beyond saving both in a physical and spiritual sense.

Thing is, as pointed out it was Obi-Wan himself who dragged Anakin out of his home and pushed for the rules to be bent to allow him to be trained as a jedi and then screwed up said training.

Anakin was Obi-Wan's responsibility, and when he falls to the dark side Obi-Wan just goes " not my fault, not my problem anymore", and then Palpatine gets himself his uber sith servant.

If Anakin was truly beyond saving, then just end his suffering already. And if there was any hope of Anakin redeeming himself, then drag his sorry ass to an hospital. But instead Obi-Wan refuses to make a choice, he refuses to take responsibility for his own decisions.

That's why Luke was a superior jedi, he was willing to forgive Vader/Anakin who had gone around razing planets instead of chopping off 3/4 of his limbs and leaving him to a slow painful death. Except by the time of the new trilogy Luke's somehow gone from that to a bitter old man who goes around at night sneaking inside boy's rooms with his hot sword ready to penetrate them while they sleep. Boys that he was supposed to teach and guide.

[Sapphire Guard]

He couldn't bring himself to kill him. Obi is very reluctant through that whole duel, he rarely goes on the offensive and seems to need to psych himself up first.

I don't really feel that Luke triumphed where the old Jedi order failed. He had an avenue open to him that they didn't. Palpatine's policy is 'try to turn inexperienced Jedi, if they don't turn, kill them'. He knows Yoda and Obi will never turn, so he'd just kill them off the bat, and he'd never let them get anywhere near him. If Obi Wan surrenders to Imperial forces, Palpy just orders his execution, he doesn't summon him to his throne room.

The PT Jedi are extraordinarily unlucky, they make basically all the correct calls, but Palpatine's just that good. Qui Gonn's dying promise forces Obi to take on Anakin's training, and it all goes downhill from there.

Re Alternative Luke storylines, the easy one is that he's training new Jedi secretly, in hiding after his last school was destroyed. Apparently the NR didn't do anything after the first massacre, why would he trust anyone this time?

It's not clear if he did leave the map, Lor San Tekka could have just discovered where the 1st Jedi temple was independently, and R2, as Luke's droid, had his navigational data.

Re: the first massacre, we still have very little context for that. We don't know why Luke felt the need to read his mind in his sleep. We also don't know for certain that Kylo did kill the other students, as we only get Luke's perspective from under the hut. Maybe Snoke's forces arrived and burned everything or something. We really should know more about the most pivotal scene in the plot.

Luke's plot nearly works in TLJ. The problem is that he dies at the end. I'm not saying that because I can't bear for Luke to be flawed, but because it flies in the face of the film's two core themes.

'Learn from failure': Luke does, and this results in his death.

'(Don't) kill the past': Luke ends up dead, the last link to the past (except for the books, but very easy to miss and almost worse, 'we have the books now, we don't need you anymore, die, old man.'

Edit:

Thing is, as pointed out it was Obi-Wan himself who dragged Anakin out of his home and pushed for the rules to be bent to allow him to be trained as a jedi and then screwed up said training.

That was Qui Gon.

See also

Obi Wan Kenobi: I have failed you, Anakin. I have failed you.

[Saintheart]

That's why Luke was a superior jedi, he was willing to forgive Vader/Anakin who had gone around razing planets instead of chopping off 3/4 of his limbs and leaving him to a slow painful death. Except by the time of the new trilogy Luke's somehow gone from that to a bitter old man who goes around at night sneaking inside boy's rooms with his hot sword ready to penetrate them while they sleep. Boys that he was supposed to teach and guide.

I completely agree. My issue is with this strange, memetastic idea that the PT shows the Jedi are a 'orrible, dastardly group of people destined for destruction. That's a gross mischaracterisation of how the PT portrays the Jedi, and as I keep saying, the only reason the Jedi do catalyse their own destruction is because they disobey their longstanding, presumably-ancient Code and take Anakin on for training.

But we've got nothing to worry about in that space, because Rey knows everything in the magic books she stole for no apparent reason, although even Yoda giggles after wielding Mjolnir and pronouncing they weren't exactly page-turners.

[Devonix]

I completely agree. My issue is with this strange, memetastic idea that the PT shows the Jedi are a 'orrible, dastardly group of people destined for destruction. That's a gross mischaracterisation of how the PT portrays the Jedi, and as I keep saying, the only reason the Jedi do catalyse their own destruction is because they disobey their longstanding, presumably-ancient Code and take Anakin on for training.

But we've got nothing to worry about in that space, because Rey knows everything in the magic books she stole for no apparent reason, although even Yoda giggles after wielding Mjolnir and pronouncing they weren't exactly page-turners.

She doesn't steal them for no reason. She steals them because it's one of the core messages of the film, that learning from the past is important, being trapped by the past is dangerous. And Yoda saying that to Luke was a joke to try and shake him out of his funk.

I still feel that training Anakin wasn't a mistake, the whole only training kinder gardeners was a rather stupid last minute retcon. It made far more sense in the original draft where anakin was 17 but even then it didn't sit well with me. The downfall of the jedi was because of their dogmatic view of the world, a view that yoda was a part of and one of the reasons that Luke almost failed in Return. He had to turn away from what the Jedi wanted, to do what he wanted.

[Saintheart]

She doesn't steal them for no reason. She steals them because it's one of the core messages of the film, that learning from the past is important, being trapped by the past is dangerous.

And there we have one of big problems I've already identified with TLJ: there's no plot reason, no storytelling reason for her take the books, which is what I was alluding to in saying there's no reason for her to take them. She steals them Because The Theme Says She Must Take Them. Just like we have to make ships into hyperdriven torpedoes, because The Spectacle Says So. And we have to have Yoda proving worthier than Captain America, Because We Want That Image. No matter what ripples it sets off backward through the six or seven films already gone.

Yeah, I know that's not what you were saying. But the fact that's how you (as in the Platonic ideal of a moviegoer, not you personally) put the causality is telling. As the hacks at Red Letter Media tell us, you might not have noticed, but your brain did.

[Devonix]

And there we have one of big problems I've already identified with TLJ: there's no plot reason, no storytelling reason for her take the books, which is what I was alluding to in saying there's no reason for her to take them. She steals them Because The Theme Says She Must Take Them. Just like we have to make ships into hyperdriven torpedoes, because The Spectacle Says So. And we have to have Yoda proving worthier than Captain America, Because We Want That Image. No matter what ripples it sets off backward through the six or seven films already gone.

Yeah, I know that's not what you were saying. But the fact that's how you (as in the Platonic ideal of a moviegoer, not you personally) put the causality is telling. As the hacks at Red Letter Media tell us, you might not have noticed, but your brain did.

There's plot reasons, but this is also just how I've always seen fiction. It annoys some of the people I watch movies and read books with.

Rey taking the books is completely in line with her character and personality. Who she is, is a legend obsessed fangirl. She defines herself and her view of the universe on things that the heroes of the past did. And if one of those heroes won't help her, she'll take the next best thing, the books. After all Luke's not using them.

So there is a plot and storytelling reason for her to take them.

[Saintheart]

There's plot reasons, but this is also just how I've always seen fiction. It annoys some of the people I watch movies and read books with.

Rey taking the books is completely in line with her character and personality. Who she is, is a legend obsessed fangirl. She defines herself and her view of the universe on things that the heroes of the past did. And if one of those heroes won't help her, she'll take the next best thing, the books. After all Luke's not using them.

So there is a plot and storytelling reason for her to take them.

Nah. Of course you're at liberty to believe otherwise, but Rey's character is essentially plastic wrap. Like the rest of the ST, it apes the iconography but gives us nothing else. You can mould it around any message you choose to see in it, but it isn't much more than a Rorschach inkblot.

[Annehn]

I seriously don't care alot about the SW universe anymore.. the first two movies were sooooo long! And the content was pretty average.