Star Wars 8 The Last Jedi destroyed the Star Wars saga on purpose

[ProdglArchitect]

ProdglArchitect:

Prequel trilogy Yoda always struck me as way too serious after seeing him for the first time in Empire.

Hm, interesting point. I guess the difference between me and many other fans is that I never had any strong feelings against the prequels, especially not story-wise. So you’re right in saying (implicitly) that my view of Yoda is a prequel-type Yoda and probably less a 4-5-6 Yoda. To be honest, I don’t remember much Yoda comedy from the original trilogy, though I’m sure it was there. Maybe it’s time to watch them for the umpteenth time

I actually liked a lot of stuff in the prequel trilogy… except for Anakin. The Cinema Wins channel did videos for each movie that changed my view on them a lot. Yoda just bugged me though.

As for Yoda’s comedy:

Just jump to around 1:40. We know Yoda is being serious and learning about Luke, but his entire presentation is all comedic. My favorite is a 3:00 when he starts hitting R2 XD

I always found Yoda to be hilarious, and TLJ was a return to form in my eyes.

My biggest issue with that scene is that now Force Ghosts can totally destroy stuff in the real world. Yeah, it looked like it took a lot of effort, but Yoda, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and Anakin are all super powerful, and now thanks to the re-edit of Return of the Jedi, we know that they are all force ghosts. (Qui-gon is implied at the end of revenge of the sith).

They should be able to single handedly wipe out any of the bad guys… Also, Anakin should get his force-ghost butt in gear and tell Kylo to stop being an emo brat.
…

I loved that scene, but I definitely have some problems with its implications for the greater Star Wars universe… which increasingly seems to be my sentiment for this movie…

This is interesting too, and has a direct bearing on my original hypothesis. To me, Luke giving up on the Jedi order is somewhat analogous to a knight giving up on the Church after some serious setbacks. Sure, Luke has his reasons – but why can’t he get over them? Anyway, I do see that your interpretation is plausible at least. I’ll give it some thought.

I’m off to bed now. Thanks for some good discussion.

He can’t get over them for the same reason a lot of people can’t get over their own faults, but that’s bringing actual religion into Star Wars, and I’m not going to be the one to breach that divide on this thread.

 

[abucs]

I think it is true that Mark Hamill would be very critical if he wasn’t under contractual obligation.

It is interesting to ponder why the story went in a different direction. I agree with the above comments that a large part of the writing of the new episodes was SJW political correctness inspired instead of telling a breathtaking adventure story based on the force.

I haven’t watched the Last Jedi because if I did I think it would be a negative for me in how I see Star Wars. I think I have seen dozens of youtube videos critiquing the movie so I think I know enough not to watch it.

My impression is that the writers were anti Force in wanting to downplay it and brush it aside. because the Force does have a spiritual dimension I think it is fair to call it a (film) religion and in this sense it does seem to be anti-religion.

I think SJW does wreck good things be it Football or films like Star Wars or StarTrek Discovery.

 

[Usagi]

Luke does get over it — with a push from Rey, because she’s the central character now and he’s the grumpy old guy who has to have his faith restored.

It’s not the older Luke I expected to see, for sure (and Mark Hamill is on board with us there), but it’s one way for a movie made 40 years later to use Luke as a supporting character for the next generation of heroes. And he does get one amazing last stand, doing exactly what he cynically mocked earlier in the movie (one guy with a laser sword standing against the entire First Order), and triumphing as the wise and clever old master letting Kylo lose control and humiliate himself, rather than by brute force.

 

[Alex337]

Alex337:

Following on from this, Disney has actually made Star Wars seem more religious at times. Look at Rogue One;

Yes. But I made my point on the basis of SW8 The Last Jedi, which as you know is the most recent instalment. That film made a total break with a religiousness that was present in earlier episodes, including Rogue One.

So Disney made it more religious all in order to make it less religious? That seems unlikely. Also, the 8th film doesn’t seem to have destroyed religion at all so much as put forth the idea that the Force as a belief system is open to new revelation.

 

[Alex337]

Roguish:

Yes. But I made my point on the basis of SW8 The Last Jedi, which as you know is the most recent instalment. That film made a total break with a religiousness that was present in earlier episodes, including Rogue One.

For me the force was something very mysterious and a major attraction of the whole Star Wars story. It had a transcendent spiritual component and it took a long time for someone to master themselves and have access to the force. The more in tune with the force the more powerful one could become, either on the good side or the bad side.

Yet, Rey becomes the most powerful Jedi without any knowledge or spiritual journey at all. It is just a physical ability with her and yet she is more powerful than Luke within a week of just hearing about the force!

That writing ruined the whole idea of a spiritual and mysterious force, Such a shame. The force was Star Wars.

But she did have a spiritual journey? I mean she even had the inner cave part. She’s better at fighting than Luke was when he began, which isn’t surprising given her life as a scavenger gave her more opportunity to learn to fight than the farm boy.

 

[Alex337]

abucs:

For me the force was something very mysterious and a major attraction of the whole Star Wars story. It had a transcendent spiritual component and it took a long time for someone to master themselves and have access to the force. The more in tune with the force the more powerful one could become, either on the good side or the bad side. […] That writing ruined the whole idea of a spiritual and mysterious force, Such a shame. The force was Star Wars.

Yes. The concept of The Force (as we knew it) was destroyed in TLJ. The dialogue that Luke and Rey have during her first training session on the island basically wipes out everything we’ve come to understand about it, and it’s turned into a joke. Even Yoda is turned into a comedian when he sets fire to the Jedi scriptures and comments “Page turners they were not, were they?” The underlying message: the Force is nothing special, nor are the Jedi, and scripture isn’t worth preserving. Anti-religious? Me thinks so. Even the dark side is mocked when Snoke tells Kylo to remove that “silly mask”. Apparently we, the viewers, too were silly to ever think of Vader’s mask as menacing.

It’s telling that Mark Hamill confessed in an interview that he was very puzzled about Rian Johnson’s take on Luke Skywalker in TLJ. Hamill even told Johnson so, but to no avail. And of course Hamill was under contractual obligation to act the part according to the script, so he himself couldn’t do anything about it, even though acting out a Luke that was totally different from the Luke he’d played in 4-5-6 was visibly (in the interviews, not the film) agonizing for him.

That seems a strange reading of it. Yoda still extolled that an understanding of the Force was important but that old understandings were not always the be all and end all. And those books hadn’t even come up before now, so it doesn’t seem like they were terribly important in the old films either.

 

[Alex337]

I believe it failed due to Kathleen Kennedy using it as an excuse to promote her political SJW philosophy. Can’t have strong male characters, female characters are always right (even when they’re not), male characters are dumbed down as much as possible, female characters have no flaws, adds a long, boring, tedious scene to try to demonize rich people, etc etc

And then when fans criticized the problems, rather than addressing them, the higher ups at Disney/Lucasfilm called the fans racist, sexist, etc. Claimed the problem is that most critics are white males. Apparently, you’re not allowed to criticize a poorly written character.

So your main issue was that there were women in it who did things? Weird issue. I mean I like the old trilogy even though it had men in it who did things and the female characters were largely useless.

“Have no flaws”? So you missed how Rey has been partially coerced by the dark side? Her self doubt?

No strong male characters? Fin and Poe seem quite good to me; what’s wrong with them? If it’s that they have flaws then I’ll refer you to the point earlier where you seem annoyed when a character doesn’t have flaws.

 

[abucs]

But she did have a spiritual journey? I mean she even had the inner cave part. She’s better at fighting than Luke was when he began, which isn’t surprising given her life as a scavenger gave her more opportunity to learn to fight than the farm boy.

Firstly if we are talking about the traditional understanding of the nature of the force, physical fighting experience takes a backseat to knowledge of the force. This is why someone like Yoda can be a Jedi master.

Secondly Luke trains with Obi Wan and then Yoda twice, saves the galaxy by trusting the force by blowing up the Death Star, communes spiritually with Obi Wan and later Yoda, struggles with the truth that Darth Vader is his father and needs to rebuff the emperors plans to turn him to the dark side before he became a Jedi, he then saves the galaxy again in Return of the Jedi, he battles with the decision to help his friends or continue training, he has the connection with his sister through the force, he has the pressure of being the last Jedi, is the sole leader of a Jedi school teaching the young in order to save the religion, he has the horror of the vision of his efforts bolstering the dark force through his nephew he has the experience of self exile at the Jedi Temple with ancient texts.

If that is not a spiritual journey in the force I don’t know what is. Rey is introduced to the concept of the force and a week later she is more powerful than Luke.

I am sorry, that is poor writing and doesn’t make sense within the Star Wars story.

No Rey hasn’t had anywhere near the spiritual journey with the force as Luke has had.

 

[Alex337]

I’m aware, but a knowledge of how to swing a weapon is one of the things people tend to point to as being a problem. So nipping that in the bud.

Luke’s training with Obi Wan was lacklustre at best, and the training with Yoda mirrored Rey’s with Luke quite well (super intentionally).

Now Rey is introduced to the Force surrounded by people who are very, very aware of it in an environment that supports the prospect of the Jedi. She meets Leia early on and is given yet more support. She has battled her entire life with the prospect of who her parents are and how they relate to her, she was raised alone on a world with no familial support learning to be self reliant and with plenty of time to consider life the universe and everything. She communed with Luke and past Jedi through the vision with the lightsabre. She too had to determine whether to stick around and help her friends or not, and to encourage Finn to do likewise.

She came face to face with the dark side of the Force and Kylo’s offerings, she fought him as he tried to lure her. She sought out Luke and trained with him. She faced her deepest fears in the mirrored room and the felt the draw of the dark side more keenly than any other Luke had seen. She fought to try to bring Kylo back to the light, engaging in force connected philosophical discussions with him. Her spiritual journey was discovering that she wasn’t special by birth but through actions.

And yes she hasn’t taught young Jedi, neither had Luke at this point in his story. Nor is she more powerful than Luke (I didn’t see her force project in such a way as to fool an entire army, I may have missed that bit?)

Sorry but the whole point of Rey from a story telling point of view is that her heros journey does closely mirror Luke’s. They have all the same plot beats from struggles with friends, doing the right thing, leaving mentors, intense personal discovery, wrestling with the dark side, etc.

Star Wars follows a formulae and it has continued to do so. Rey’s personal discovery is different to Luke’s; her parents aren’t evil, they’re just unimportant and uncaring, but still an important discovery.

 

[abucs]

I have to disagree. I just laid out Luke decades old journey with the force as a novice, apprentice, hero, Jedi and master. He trained with Yoda alone for months if not years and that doesn’t include his communing with yoda after he passed.

It is just not sensible to say Rey had anywhere near that experience.

How long did she train with Luke? Did she get to a week?

What did he teach her? Hardly anything at all.

No, I agree with the original poster. This movie just ignored the reality of what the force meant as understood in the previous movies.

 

[Alex337]

I don’t think we have any evidence that Luke was with Yoda for years. But yes, he is more powerful than Rey after his decades of training.

Could it also be that Luke’s method of teaching was actually better than Yoda’s? Remember, Luke as you said spent decades training young Jedi. Yoda primarily was a council member, no longer actively training padawan. It seems reasonable that Luke’s training methods would be more effective.

The force has always been set up as something people have an innate aptitude in. Training helps but a person comes to it with some ability, look at Annakin and his innate ability.

 

[abucs]

That is why I asked what you think Luke taught Rey. What was this training that would fast track Rey to be more powerful in 1 week?

Remember that with Luke (and even Anakin) Yoda complained that he was too old to even start the learning process. Luke trained with Yoda in the swamp if I remember at the end of Empire Strikes back. He broke off this training and tried to save his friends and went back to train with Yoda at the end of the movie. Given the return of the Jedi starts sometime after the Empire Strikes Back and Yoda’s comment infers that training would take a long time it is extremely probable that the story suggests Luke spent a lot of time (years) training with Yoda.

 

[Alex337]

Indeed; Yodi did assume Luke was too old and likely attempted to train him in the same manner he would have done for a child. While from what we can see Luke had trained adults before, so was used to a different mode of teaching.

Neither of us are Jedi (I assume?), so it is impossible to speculate on how one can successfully train a space wizard. But what I put forth is that Luke was more experienced in training not only in general but particularly in training adults than Yoda was. And we see that Yoda has had second thoughts on how the old style of training was done, and that Luke’s success as a Jedi flies against the idea that adults can’t be taught.

 

[abucs]

ok well there are lots of reasons why I don’t agree but it is not for me to try to spoil your enjoyment of the film. If you are happy with the movie and like the way the story progressed then that’s fine with me.

 

[Alex337]

ok well there are lots of reasons why I don’t agree but it is not for me to try to spoil your enjoyment of the film. If you are happy with the movie and like the way the story progressed then that’s fine with me.

Thanks It’s been a good discussion, I do love film theory. I suppose I like to take the optimistic approach and say that Luke’s just a better teacher than we’d have imagined. He is pretty epic after all.

 

[Roguish]

I actually liked a lot of stuff in the prequel trilogy… except for Anakin.

Same here. Actually even Anakin was okay for me when considered as a character. I just thought Christensen didn’t play him well.

He can’t get over them for the same reason a lot of people can’t get over their own faults,

Precisely. So psychologically Luke is reduced to a normal guy - “just a human being” in modern parlance. Sure, he still has super powers and gets to use them in the film, but his fundamental character has changed. He’s been reduced from a supernatural hero to a natural guy with special powers. It is the supernatural aspect that is discarded – not by eliminating it altogether as a concept, but by depicting Luke as having lost his faith in it. In a way he goes from being a Superman to being a Batman – the former is supernatural first and has powers only because of that; the latter is a hero only because he has powers (i.e. what would Batman do without his tech?). Is it any different with TLJ Luke in the end? It’s his powers that make him special now, not his faith – because that’s gone. Yes, he comes out of retirement for a last stand, but a last stand alone does not restore the optimism and innocence that characterized him in 4-5-6.

@Usagi

There’s a First Jedi Temple, and Ancient Jedi Texts. Luke’s description of the Force to Rey is deeper and more mystical than we’ve heard in a long time.

The temple and texts, yes – they are overtly religious. But the temple has been abandoned and the texts get destroyed (or so it seems – your point about Rey still having them noted, though I couldn’t find it on a quick scan of the final 15 minutes). So to me it seems that these religious elements are intentionally introduced to depict them as worthless. It’s precisely this kind of thing that makes me suspect intent behind what I consider to be the watering down of religious concepts in TLJ.

Similar for Luke’s description of the force: it didn’t work for me. I found it too glib. It could have come out of any spiritual self-help book. And apart from the substance of it, I found the very presence of this kind of exposition in the film, jarring in itself. Did we ever have exposition of that kind before in Star Wars, i.e. explicit clarification of mystical-spiritual concepts? I’m not the best at remembering every scene from every episode, so I could be wrong, but to me it felt like a first: “Let’s take a moment to make sure Rey [and the viewers] understand what the Force is.”

As for your point that the Force and the Jedi are still (or again) very important by the end of the movie – you’re absolutely right. But I feel that the movie redefines them in ways that make them considerably less religious, which is really the basis for my original post.

 

[Alex337]

ProdglArchitect:

He can’t get over them for the same reason a lot of people can’t get over their own faults,

Precisely. So psychologically Luke is reduced to a normal guy - “just a human being” in modern parlance. Sure, he still has super powers and gets to use them in the film, but his fundamental character has changed. He’s been reduced from a supernatural hero to a natural guy with special powers. It is the supernatural aspect that is discarded – not by eliminating it altogether as a concept, but by depicting Luke as having lost his faith in it. In a way he goes from being a Superman to being a Batman – the former is supernatural first and has powers only because of that; the latter is a hero only because he has powers (i.e. what would Batman do without his tech?). Is it any different with TLJ Luke in the end? It’s his powers that make him special now, not his faith – because that’s gone. Yes, he comes out of retirement for a last stand, but a last stand alone does not restore the optimism that characterized him in 4-5-6.

Luke was always mortal, always had some flaws. What we see in TLJ is him questioning himself and his own worthiness, his own understanding of the nature of the Force, and coming to an understanding of it that leads to self sacrifice. It seems super religious in many ways, it was a long night that he had to go through.

 

[Roguish]

The but with the Ancient Jedi Texts is another matter of misdirection. Rey still has them at the end of the movie, and sly old Yoda undoubtedly knew that when he appeared to destroy them to shock Luke into realizing that he did value them after all.

@Usagi OK, I think I found what you’re talking about. Around 2:21:50, Finn opens a drawer to grab his jacket, and we are shown that the Jedi texts – or at least some of them – are in the drawer. Who brought them aboard the Millennium Falcon? You’re right, it could only have been Rey, and you make a valid point too that Yoda must have known that. This really adds to my understanding of the film. Thanks for pointing it out

The Force […] exists beyond the constraints of Jedi or Sith, and raises up champions for itself without need of gifted bloodlines or extensive training.

Well, yeah, since TLJ, that is – not in the earlier episodes. So I believe that supports my point that it has been changed from something that felt similar to traditional religion, to something that’s more akin to new-age spiritualism.

Consider one of Luke’s lines from the dialogue between him and Rey during her first training session: “That Force does not belong to the Jedi. To say that if the Jedi die the Light dies, is vanity, can you feel that?” (around 00:50:07) Basically Luke is saying that it’s wrong to have a priesthood, a knighthood, or anything of the sort that sets some people apart to fulfill special roles in the service of the supernatural Good.

The scene also conveys the message that “everybody can be a force user”. For as @abucs has pointed out, what it depicts is that Rey needs practically no training at all. It’s apparently just a matter of sitting down and doing a 1-minute guided-meditation session. And we can’t fall back on the idea that only Rey could have gotten in touch with the Force this easily because she’s special – for an hour later we discover that Rey is not special at all; she’s the child of “filthy junk traders who sold [her] off for drinking money” (Kylo at 01:48:54) – an unnecessarily cruel line in the film, delivered to a crying Rey. This was another moment that made me feel something had gone awry in TLJ, and gone wrong not in a clumsy way but in a somewhat sinister way.

 

[Roguish]

I dunno about new fans. People prefer complex impossible characters these days.

Interesting point. (Forgot to reply earlier.) I think you’re right, and in my opinion that supports my original argument. A traditional hero isn’t very complex – not psychologically anyway. He’s simple – simply good. In SW, Luke is the simplest guy, in the sense of being simply good. Han is the more complicated guy, more human, more selfish, more conflicted – and therefore less heroic. What TLJ does is turn Luke into a complicated guy – more complicated at least than he was before, and therefore less heroic. He’s not as simple as he used to be, not as innocent, not as hopeful.

Because tbh even the original movies were more like voodoo but do it with responsibility than actual religion. It was more like martial arts not religion…

Okay, but I’d like to comment that traditionally martial arts were entirely tied up with religion. The old traditional martial arts were taught in temples, not gyms, and they were taught to men and women who had dedicated themselves to protecting religion and their king (who was coronated by priests) – so a warrior caste basically. Conversely, religion fulfilled an instrumental role in the training process – and this is still the case in Kendo, for example. So religion and martial arts stood in a symbiotic relationship to one another.

For me SW is a dead end once they put in parallel universes…anything can happen…etc.

I don’t follow you on this point. I don’t think anything of the sort has been put into SW?

 

[Rhubarb]

The writers didn’t try to take religion out of Star Wars.

They were trying to break the mold and get away from the start wars of the 70s and 80s. Because that time is done and it isn’t going to go anywhere as s franchise if that connection hangs around.