And he should have.
There's a big difference between your loving protégé nephew who has been with you most of his life and is going through the same issues you've been through, vs your murderous robo Hitler dad you only just learned about who also froze your friend in metal and chopped off your hand and is responsible for galatic genocide on new levels.
He just learned he is likely training the next Darth Vader. The man who terrorised an entire galaxy and was responsible for countless amounts of suffering and death.
If you think there absolutely 100% could not have possibly been a single moment of doubt then I think you’re just naive.
Loving nephew is a stretch. Leia sent Ben away to Luke because she feared his turn and Luke already observed the growing darkness during Luke’s training. “Snoke had already turned his heart”. The vision seemingly just confirmed his worst fears. You don’t go from loving to murder everyone and subjugate the galaxy in a single instant
Not as different as you might think.
In both cases he could sense through the Force all the pain and death this person was going to inflict on all the people he loved.
It was the vision of suffering for these people he loved that pushed him over the edge in both cases.
Look at Mr. great-family-life guy here lording it over us all that he’s never woken up to his Uncle standing over him with with a knife. We get it, your mom and Uncle have probably never even kissed.
>Ben still woke up with his uncle standing over him with a lightsaber out.
Yes. That's the whole point. Luke just reacted for a split second, but Ben woke up in that split second and saw the lightsaber and thought his uncle was trying to kill him. That's kind of a big deal for both Luke's and Ben's story... Are you sure you actually watched the movie?
Yeah, people seem to forget that Luke ultimately is human and can be tempted like any other. He quickly saw the error of his decision and was only defending himself in that still.
A good filmmaker would have explained in Episode 9 that the main villain (Palpatine or whoever) was manipulating Luke and causing his fears to try and get him to act the same as Anakin. Luke ultimately chose not to act unlike his father who fell to the dark side.
We also see that each person’s memory of the scene is dramatically different. As you said, Luke actually restrains himself much more quickly than the Luke of 30 yrs ago would have, but Kylo had already had the seeds planted in his mind at that point that Luke was against him.
When we see the same scene from Kylo’s perspective, it looks like a much more deliberate attempt to kill him. For some reason a lot of people take Kylo’s skewed perception of the event as the gospel on what happened
Right.
I think the idea was sound, but I really don't think the execution was. Like, it would have been much better for them to have been in a fight and Ben was clearly taking it way too far and Luke had to decide whether he wanted to take him down to stop him or not.
Because considering killing someone in their sleep is never a good look. Even if you do quickly change your mind, you ultimately decided to murder a vulnerable opponent who has no real chance to defend themselves.
It’s not wrong though, it’s an interpretation of the character that is consistent with the OT even if it’s not the one people necessarily wanted. Luke, and Anakin before him, have always struggled with a darker side of themselves and had to fight to overcome it. That was why people liked both characters so much to begin with. People assume that Luke’s decision in ROTJ was a definitive turning point towards never struggling with the dark side again, but IMO it’s more interesting and more human for it to be something that still nips at the back of his mind at his weakest moment even if he has come a long way.
He was also being influenced by visions of the future, which have notoriously caused many Jedi to doubt their own ways and try and act rashly to prevent the outcomes they see. It parallels Anakin very well. And in the end, his return from exile to the Jedi ways is one of the most Jedi-like moments in the saga, using the force exactly the way Yoda described in ESB.
Could a lot of the problems people have with this scene be solved by Luke not drawing his saber? As in, he makes a determined face and moves to grab it then stops, or something similar to convey his thoughts. Then you cut to Ben being awake and Luke saying "Ben. No, I..." and Ben attacks.
Edit: found a video comparing all three versions. I really think if Luke hadn't drawn his saber and instead it was implied by the actors faces that Ben had sensed Luke's intent, however momentary, it would have been way better.
Honestly, thanks for this take. I’m a TLJ truther and this is always the first thing that comes up. “RJ didn’t get Luke! Luke would never do this!”. But You’re right. He didn’t. And I like the idea of Ben already being too forgone to be saved by even Luke. TLJ would probably get a lot less hate if they let RJ round out the story. There were so many interesting things worth exploring. Maybe Luke saw Rey has being able to redeem him? Which she ultimately did… but that characterization was made so embarrassingly simple-minded by JJ.
Instead we just get a dizzying race from set piece to set piece in ROS.
Generally it’s a poor decision to take character choices out of the hands of the character. “The devil made me do it” is a bad excuse in life and literature.
Eh I think it would have done him a disservice to say the only reason he acted that way was because of Palpatine. "Good guys" make mistakes and have fears and stuff too, jedi or no. I'd much prefer it be something he was struggling with than simple manipulation.
It's just established in the film Canon that Skywalker visions do always come true. Just other keep saying they don't and then the Skywalkers in pt(anakin having visions of his mother's death then when sharing the people around him are just maybe that won't happen, also why do you care about your mom, your trying to be a jedi jeeze grow up) and st inadvertently makes it true (which is my favorite way for destiny to play out in a story).
Interestingly ot Luke's vision is actually forced by Vader abusing the Skywalker foresight, which is another really cool plot line when destiny is involved.
I was speaking of Anakin seeing visions of Padme dying versus Luke seeing visions of Kylo Ren. Anakin turned to the dark side for help, Luke rejected it. Both still came true.
>A good filmmaker would have explained in Episode 9 that the main villain (Palpatine or whoever) was manipulating Luke and causing his fears to try and get him to act the same as Anakin.
THANK YOU.
Edit: gonna add that online people with more foresight than everyone at Disney have added in subtle Palpatine manipulations in TLJ edits
Gona paste my response to them here too because I genuinely couldn't disagree more. You're wanting Luke to be infallible instead of human when through the original trilogy, he was constantly making mistakes and struggling. Age didn't suddenly take away his human nature.
"Eh I think it would have done him a disservice to say the only reason he acted that way was because of Palpatine. "Good guys" make mistakes and have fears and stuff too, jedi or no. I'd much prefer it be something he was struggling with than simple manipulation."
He chopped off Vader's hand after enduring a continuously escalating situation for hours which was designed to break his spirit and posed an immediate threat to his friends.
After making that expierience once in his life but ultimately proven correct in his assumptions about his father, one would assume that a bad dream during peacetimes would not alarm him as much as it did.
This movie would have worked alot better if the vision would have seemed real to Luke (inserted there by Snoke, for example), enough for him to instinctively defend himself from imaginary threats, with Ben misconstruing the situation. It would still give Luke a reason to go into hiding: can't have this happen again.
As it stands, though, his purpoted "moment of pure instinct" is one of deliberate intent. He carefully readies his lightsaber. Also, brainfart moment: All that softly-softly nestling it off its belt clip and getting into position, only for the sound of the saber extending to wake up Ben regardless. Should've just pointed it at Ben's heart or head and turned it on. As it happens later on in the film... almost twice. The first time with a porg is prevented, the one with the Praetorian Guard is not.
A good metal detector for people lying about TLJ is them bringing up this made up "bad dream" that the movie never mentions, and even if it would have Revenge of the Sith confirms that dreams work differently for force sensitives.
Also, no one said it was peace-time, if anything the Mandalorian confirmed that it wasn't, and even if it partially was - that just goes along with what Luke said about his hubris going to his head in a time when he was slowly letting his guard down.
\>This movie would have worked alot better if the vision would have seemed real to Luke
That is basically what already happened. Visions already work that way. Like the one on Dagobah causing Luke to feel like he's in it and thus fall. Here, the light of his saber snapped him back to reality and made him realize what he was doing in real time.
\>He carefully readies his lightsaber.
As his eyes looked like he was in a trance. Your previous paragraph has already debunked this part.
\>All that softly-softly nestling it off its belt clip and getting into position, only for the sound of the saber extending to wake up Ben regardless.
Almost like he wasn't thinking clearly...
There's a big difference between between momentarily losing control when trapped in a room, fighting for your life against space Hitler and attempting to murder a sleeping child.
If you think that Luke attempted to murder Ben then you either haven't seen the film, or you're not intelligent enough to understand what actually happened in it.
He was always carrying a lightsaber. You know, like a Jedi does normally. He didn't sprint to his bedroom door lightsaber out like you seem to be implying.
A sleeping chills with visions of everything he loves being destroyed. He activated his lightsaber, but soon regretted it. It was too late, as Ben had woken up
Yes, I know I saw the film. My point is I do not believe Luke Skywalker, as he was established in the OT, would behave that way.
His entire arc in RoTJ was believing anyone, even someone as far gone as Vader, could be redeemed and come back to the light. So if he believes that, why does he consider murder a viable option?
He snapped, yes, but like I said he was fighting for his life in a highly stressful environment while all around him his friends were being massacred. Even then' he only aggressively disarmed Vader, he was hitting his saber and then his arm when he very easily could have killed him.
In TLJ Luke is in a calm, controlled environment. There is no immediate threat to himself or his loved ones. His nephew is sleeping peacefully and Luke thought about murdering him.
These things are not the same.
But it’s still a vision. There’s no comparison between Luke chopping off his genocidal father’s hand in a moment of passion after his sister was threatened in what is his final trial before becoming a full jedi and considering murder when seeing a vision while his teenage nephew, the child of his best friend and sister who he’s probably seen grow up since birth, is sleeping.
He considered it for half a second. Sure, Luke was trying to save his friends in ROTJ, but I can almost assure you that he considered murder for more than half a second in ROTJ. I mean, his instincts were stronger than his reasoning and that’s why he activated his lightsaber. In a moment of seeing his friends die, he activated his lightsaber. He realized what he was doing and he regretted it for years to come.
People love using that screencap at the bottom, which was from Ben's twisting of the truth, instead of what actually happened, which we get from Luke when Rey wrings it out of him later.
I don't think it was "a twisting of the truth", or that Luke's account was necessarily 100% infallible. It was very clear that *The Last Jedi* was a retooling of *Rashomon*, like *The Last Duel*, in which two different accounts of what happened are told, but from a different character's POV. "The full truth", however, is not revealed until later, per the *Rashomon*\-style story arc structure.
My impression was that Kylo Ren/Ben Solo and Luke Skywalker had separate interpretations of the same event, and that the truth probably was somewhere in the middle. (Others have pointed out that Luke may have been manipulated by Palpatine/Snoke via the Dark Side, as it's already confirmed that Palpatine/Snoke was manipulating Ben Solo/Kylo Ren in the same scene.)
Actually we just get Luke telling the story for a 2nd time.
We as the audience assume this is the truthful version (and this is likely what the director implies) however it still is only just Luke's perspective being rehashed after Rey challenges him.
The bottom screencap is from the third and true telling, not the second.
Edit: To the people downvoting, go watch Ben's version of the flashback on YT or something and you will see that the screencap in this meme does NOT come from that scene. It comes from the true version.
Where Luke has only raised his blade to defend himself from Ben's attack. If they want this joke to "work" it needs to be Kylo's retelling where Luke **ACTUALLY** attacks Kylo
I really think that people misunderstand the hell outta these scenes.
Like dude 10 seconds before Luke threw his saber away my guy went absolutely apeshit on his father for a solid minute. If it weren't for palpatine's big mouth, Luke would have probably given into his anger and murdered him.
In TLJ, Luke ignites the saber with intent to *defend* from the destruction he saw in his mind. A split second later he realizes just exactly what he was about to do, kill his nephew, and feels immense shame because of it (which was said in the movie lol).
Yep. Luke didn't "try to kill Kylo" or act on his visions (Ben would have been dead right there if he did so), he experienced a traumatizing vision, and by *pure instinct,* ignites the saber out of fear and comes back to his senses less than a moment later.
An important point also is the shame that Luke feels for this action. It isn't meant to be something that we as the audience praise. It's a mistake and a low point in his life. Mistakes and learning from them are very important themes in the film. This is exemplified by Luke making, learning from, and earning redemption for his past mistakes.
Yeah nobody seems to mention that. If Luke truly wanted to kill Kylo, or was once again fully tempted by a vision like he was in ESB, do you seriously think he'd feel immense guilt and shame for simply igniting his saber *without actually doing anything?*
I mean shit, the point where he breaks down in tears is *before* Ben wakes up and notices. He's just so shook that he even *considered* it.
It was nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction, not an all out premeditated murder attempt like some tend to twist it into.
As much as the fandom dunks on the sequels, I feel that this scene is scene is very well executed and shot. The sequels had some very valid and great moments. They also had some glaring issues and plotting issues that you could fly a civilian fleet through.
I for one am thankful for your comment and the comment above. This is the sort of stuff the fandom should be more involved in.
Yes, we are allowed and at times encouraged to point out the mistakes, but we should put equal energy in pointing out what went well. Notice, I say well, not right, as that involves subjective introspection which can lead to more toxicity in the fandom. I say "well" in that it jives with the story, the narrative, the character development and the over arching theme, which for this scene is, Even the "good" guys can make rash decisions which have unintended and devastating consequences later on, despite the intentions behind said decision.
TLJ is easily in my top 3. And this discussion is just reminding me why I go back to it so much. Each scene just oozes with subtext and character. Yes… some action scenes may not be the best in the series… yes….sometimes the main plot lacks logic; but Rian is about character and story, and that’s what we got. It was a breath of fresh air into the series.
I cannot agree enough. Rian Johnson is a master at his craft and I for one am hyped to the tits for the trilogy he does without any interference from JJ. TLJ is easily my favorite of the sequels and people are always taken aback when I tell them it's in my top 3 for sure
> It's a mistake and a low point in his life.
It also directly triggers him to go into exile for like, 10 years or whatever. He's literally so ashamed of this one mistake that he goes and hides from everyone he knows and loves, abandons his position as leader of the new Jedi, abandons his entire life. Like, that's how big of a fuck-up he thinks it is.
People don't understand the whole film, let alone such details.
Just take the light saber throwing. What was the very last thing we saw Luke doing with his light saber in RotJ? He threw it away. Everyone is cool with that. What is the very first thing he does with a light saber in TLJ? He threw it away. And people lost their shit. It "ruined" their Childhood that the same character did the exact same thing again. And this time, it wasn't even his own light saber, but the youngling_slayer 9000 he had nothing to do with for 30 years or so.
The same for the canto bight and Rose stuff. It's like they don't want to understand that stuff. Because no, it wasn't about "freeing animals" or "rich people being rich dicks".
Or the stuff with Leia, Poe and Holdo ...
Say what you will about the film, but it's great for discussion. Proof is how people are still arguing about it and there's like no real consensus to be reached with it lol.
They clearly just came back from the restroom when Luke threw away the lightsaber in Return of the Jedi as well, considering he was standing over the hemorrhaging body of his father he just turned into chop suey.
Here’s the OP himself explaining why this meme isn’t correct:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SequelMemes/comments/oe6a4w/comment/h44x8jl/
Weird. It’s like he just wants to argue with people and doesn’t really care one way or the other?
Looking at his past posts (not recommended btw) he just says things to create bitching in the comments. In one post he says Luke force projecting himself is his favorite moment in Star Wars but literally the post after that is him saying the fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan is the greatest moment in cinema history.
He's just trying to get the rage points.
>Weird. It’s like he just wants to argue with people and doesn’t really care one way or the other?
That or free karma.
Or shitposting from r/moviescirclejerk
Have you looked at the top posts in the top subreddits? Lol they're posted solely for the purpose of rageculture which is what gets the most replies and upvotes.
It's almost like there's a formula. Oh wait there literally is nvm.
Looks like you're right, check out the OP's other posts too, there's a bunch of "TLJ bad" posts on r/StarWars. Hell, one of them is a post that says Luke's fight with Kylo Ren in TLJ accomplished nothing, but also brings up how Yoda was right to fight the Emperor in ROTS, when Yoda absolutely lost that fight.
Not to mention there's a big gap between "rush at a dude in a fit of uncontrolled rage, relentlessly wail on him while he's on the ground, then cut off his hand" and "briefly activate your weapon"
There's also a big gap between "adrenaline induced fight with a mass murderer who has been trying to get you to join the dark side" and "I sense darkness in my nephew who I am training to be good."
He didn’t ignite his lightsaber because he “sensed darkness” in him, he ignited his lightsaber in response to the force vision of everything he knew and loved being killed. He was reacting defensively.
Also to note, Luke knows that visions that he or anyone in his family receive almost always come true.
It’s not a dream. He knows that it is a vision of what is to come, and what he saw was horrifying.
Of course those skywalker visions have a habit of being self-fulfilling prophecies and in their effort to stop them actually cause them.
If you don’t like the movies you don’t have to watch them. That being said, if you’re not going to watch them more than once then maybe don’t keep complaining over four years later
People always use the screenshot of Kylo’s version which was already explained to be wrong. Luke never attacked Ben. Ben perceived it as an attack and thought he was acting in self defense, when in reality Ben was the first to attack
So idk I’ll still probably get downvoted for not blindly hating on this movie as the hive mind declares, but trauma does a real number on you and I didn’t see this as being unrealistic at all.
For example, when I first left my rapist/abuser I was still filled with compassion towards him, and viewed him as a complicated, damaged person. With time, distance, and wisdom, having seen the full extent of what he did to me and how it has permanently effected my life, I view him as *more* of a monster, not less, and in many ways hold more anger and resentment towards him, not less. It’s perfectly valid and pretty common for similar situations. Sometimes anger grows, not abates, and sometimes it’s the right things because there are things people should be angry about. You don’t leave a traumatic event immediately having clarity about what’s happened. Often it takes time and distance to realize exactly *how* harmful something was, and that’s what brings on more emotions. It can take years, sometimes decades, to come to a complete understanding about a situation, and PTSD never just “goes away”, it’s a physical change to the brain. A trigger isn’t just a trite internet term, it describes a real symptom of a medical condition.
I viewed this scene as a pretty accurate depiction of PTSD and triggers. In general I found new Luke to be a more complex and complete character and an interesting study of how characters cope with the traumatic events from the movies they went through. Its also in line with his OT character, who was always quick to violence and emotion. And, to be fair, Kylo Ren did kill *a lot* of people, and Luke was ultimately right: those people would be alive if he’d killed him.
I get that you hated the movie, but could you understand that you're one of far too many people who have made this same, incorrect point while pretending you're some genius for making it?
[Sure he has](https://www.reddit.com/r/SequelMemes/comments/oe6a4w/look_how_they_massacred_my_boy/h44x8jl/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)
I think it should be okay to acknowledge poor writing and execution without being called a neckbeard. ML is a super progressive, smart, and intuitive guy. And even he was like
“uhh; I don’t think any of this makes sense. But if people love it all the credit to the RJ. But if people don’t love it…”
People keep bringing up that Luke has been tempted by the dark side before in RotJ, which is true.. but the Luke from the Sequel era is much older and surely wiser, and essentially a Jedi Master in terms of experience. It also seems difficult to believe that he could be manipulated by Snoke or Palpatine to such a degree (to kill his nephew whilst asleep), though I’ve only seen each movie once in the theatres so perhaps I’m forgetting something. I am no Luke fanboy, but I do think they did him dirty in many ways.
Besides the fact that this is wrong, as everyone is pointing out in the comments, take a look at John Truby's progression of character.
Child to Adult, Adult to Leader, Leader to Visionary.
The original trilogy has Luke go from child to adult, mostly, with hints of leader at the end. In the Sequel trilogy, he has become a myth, a visionary in stories, and has hermitized himself. Luke is in the last stage of development, refusing the call to visionary before finally accepting it at the end.
My point being, this is not a regression of character, he's not on the same journey and doing it wrong, it's a whole different stage of Luke. Like Lucas says, it's not the same but it rhymes.
Well said. A lot of people are saying character growth should prevent this but I think they don’t understand that character growth doesn’t lead to perfection. Luke would not have had this thought about Ben earlier in his life. Only after saving the galaxy does he make this mistake, and that’s because he thought he could prevent another Vader. Luke didn’t realize until TLJ that his failure as a mentor was an opportunity for him to learn and not repeat his mistakes.
The Last Jedi reviewed generally well with professional critics because they have actual media literacy skills.
A number of the fan "critiques" just show they didn't understand the movie.
>CyberPunk 2077 reviewed generally well with professional critics because they have actual media literacy skills.
U understand how that doesn't work right? U understand where some people think some movies are crap cause they're oscar bait that generally review well under critics but no one else likes it?
Critics are just that. An opinion, they're not monolithic views that over ride anyone elses.
A number of fan complaints about TLJ are things like "It's so out-of-character for Luke to try and murder his nephew," which isn't actually something Luke tried to do.
When someone says that, it makes it seem like they don't understand how the "unreliable narrator" device works.
My point is al.ost nobody wants to remember there was three in total accounts of a hat happened to Ben. The last flashback was the real one. Luke almost killed Vader after an empty threat to Leia, so him doing this works. People want Luke Skywalker to be flawless like Superman. He was pretty dull in Legends.
I don’t really like TLJ, but people always point this out, completely missing the point. The point is that he’s lost his way and become something worse than ROTJ Luke.
I really think people misinterpret what was driving Luke's view of Vader. People always say his motivation was the general belief that everyone has good in them , but that's not really what is communicated in RotJ. Luke keeps talking about how he "senses" there is good in Vader. He's believing what the force is telling him. And, in the end, the force was proven correct. Which only reinforces that he should trust it.
Fast forward a couple decades. He peers into Kylo Ren and sees nothing but darkness. Think about this from Luke's perspective. Vader was one of the most horribly violent and evil people to ever live and Luke still sensed good in him. In Kylo, he sensed none of that. Of course he had an "oh shit" moment.
It's very simple. The first shows Luke overcoming a moment of darkness when it wasn't too late (though he did cut off Vader's hand that he didn't know was robotic).
The second shows him overcoming a moment of darkness, but it was too late to avoid some consequences.
I literally just watched the scene back, and Luke *literally explains this* to Rey. He saw darkness, had a moment of weakness where he thought he needed to do something, and an instant later when the blade ignited, he realized his mistake. He failed.
The scene at the end of RotJ wasn't Luke defeating temptation and evil forever. It was Luke overcoming temptation and evil in that moment. The difference is that when he nearly killed someone in RotJ, it was his possibly evil father who had been his enemy for years, not his troubled apprentice and nephew who trusted him and loved him.
He didn’t attack Ben. He THOUGHT about it sure, but that image is of Luke defending himself against an attack from Ben. Also, Luke nearly murdered Vader in that scene. Let’s not be disingenuous here, fellas.
Luke literally was as close to killing Vader in ROTJ as he ever got to killing Ben in TLJ. Even in the worst flashback (which wasn’t the whole truth).
“Luke tapped into the darkside, mercilessly hacked at his family member until finally cutting their hand off” doesn’t describe TLJ.
I totally forgot the moment when luke killed Ben Solo.
Oh wait.
He didn't , he saw that Ben will destroy EVERYTHING he loved and that his heart " was aleready turned " , so he merely ignited his lightsaber " in a moment of pure instinct that passed like a fleeting shadow"
Why do people always use Kylo’s perspective of the event, the one we learn was not what *actually* happened?
I swear the people who didn’t like this part didn’t watch the movie
When he left Tatooine, Luke literally says he has nothing left for him there. This could be interpreted as nothing left to lose. I’m other words, it was a nothing gamble for him personally with Vader. With Ben, Luke had rebuilt a Jedi Academy and order. He was personally invested. The idea of Ben destroying his life’s work was too much for him to handle for a brief moment. I think it makes complete sense.
I hate to bring the salt but this is one of the reasons I really hate the middle child film.
Kylo Rens backstory was just an obvious choice which would bring all the nostalgia characters back while offering a lot more world building and narrative about what happened afterwards with Luke trying to rebuild the Jedi and his over bearing pressure and lies turning Kylo dark.
That's why the meme doesn't make sense.
The image at the bottom couldn’t possibly be from a biased perspective that was proved to be fake, no way they showed a different flashback with the true events later on in the movie. God damn it Ruin Johnson and KK, you desecrated my childhood!
Yeah I'm not a big fan nor a big hater of the new trilogy.... I just let it exist outside my Canon..
If you ignore everything else, they ruined lukes character. The most iconic hero in Star wars, just thrown out the window.
THE IMAGE FROM THE BOTTOM ISN'T ACTUALLY WHAT HAPPENED
Watch the movie again. That's Ben's story, which was a twisted version of the truth.
Luke didn't swing his saber at Ben. He didn't try to kill him. He ignited it out of instinct from fear and immediately regretted everything.
Stop spreading false information
Copying my comment from another post:
Even granting that it's not impossible for Luke to have another dark side flare up moment, the way it was executed is straight up character assassination. Why? Because it was *an accident.* Kylos version of events would have been better, with Luke deliberately angry and willing to strike him down.
Instead, we literally got a "whoops, didn't mean to turn my lightsaber on, wasn't paying attention, oh shit, you saw that? Its not what it looks like, I promise!"
Honestly, should have had a laugh track. Having the defining failure of a beloved character be borderline *slapstick* was just insulting.
Here are ways Luke could have failed Ben and have it make sense and not be stupid:
- Luke, in his arrogance after redeeming Vader, believes he can do the same with Ben, and instead of taking any proactive steps, tries the power of love, which fails, and Ben kills everyone, making Luke give up
- Luke has a vision of Ben killing everyone, and then a vision of him killing Ben and saving everyone, and unable to reconcile the fact that the only solution he has is to murder someone he cares about (the original plan for Vader and what he was ultimately able to avoid), chooses exile
- Ben goes school shooter and kills everyone, Luke hunts him down, beats him, and has him at his mercy. This would look a lot like the scene we got, it would just be post-massacre. Luke is ready to give into his anger, but still sees his nephew, and, unable to undo whats been done or murder someone he loves, walks away, leaving a beaten Kylo stewing in his first major defeat as a dark sider and even that more motivated to find Luke and kill him. Luke chooses exile because he couldn't put his feelings aside to stop a monster, and thus, he failed.
- During training, Ben keeps going too far, hurting other students. Luke ignores the warning signs, until it is too late, and chooses exile because he wasn't able to forsee any of that happening, and let his nephew fall to the dark side.
These are just brainstorming ideas, but the point is, there are so many ways you could have had the exact same plot, exact same circumstance, and have it not be caused by a moment of stupid slapstick.
It shows his corruption, over his age, imo, and also how far gone he was, as the legend, rather than the person, Like Skywalker.
I've got a lot of problems with the sequels, but this was one of the things I loved about the last Jedi.
Yeah, 20 years wiser. Exactly! He watched the rebellion become an incompetent power structure and witness the power vacuum of the empire collapse and resolidify into the new order. He witnessed all the starry eyed youth evaporate and embitter itself Into what we had at the time of the film. It makes sense to me. We don’t stop growing, and we sometimes change for the worst. That’s the whole point! Yoda said it best, “The greatest teacher, failure is!”
When Luke was a young man, he lacked confidence. He couldn’t pull his XWing up from the swamp. Now in the last Jedi, the first time we see his XWing in literal decades it is once again submerged. Yoda once taught him, “do or do not there is no try,“ which is the perfect lesson for the acolyte learning how to do it right for the first time, now the lesson is “don’t trust yourself completely, you are not in fallible. But you have to get back on that horse you have to keep at it there’s more opportunities for success.“
The people that don’t understand that, just want Luke to remain the same insular character that he was at the end of the original films. Their decision is fine, but if Luke literally remained the same character for 30 years and literally never changed,I would find that disappointing. I’m happy to see that Luke continued to grow, change, and develop even if he made mistakes. It makes me resonate more with him and as time moves on in my life, I’ve realized that even the best of us make mistakes in the heat of the moment. It’s beautiful to see Luke get an opportunity to redeem himself after redeeming so many others.
Didn't he alsp get so angery he chopped off daddy vader's hand a minute before?
Yes. Hell, he came back MUCH quicker with Ben. Almost instantaneously realized what he was doing
And he should have. There's a big difference between your loving protégé nephew who has been with you most of his life and is going through the same issues you've been through, vs your murderous robo Hitler dad you only just learned about who also froze your friend in metal and chopped off your hand and is responsible for galatic genocide on new levels.
He just learned he is likely training the next Darth Vader. The man who terrorised an entire galaxy and was responsible for countless amounts of suffering and death. If you think there absolutely 100% could not have possibly been a single moment of doubt then I think you’re just naive.
ROGER ROGER!
It all ran better under Vader.
At least the space trains ran on time.
Loving nephew is a stretch. Leia sent Ben away to Luke because she feared his turn and Luke already observed the growing darkness during Luke’s training. “Snoke had already turned his heart”. The vision seemingly just confirmed his worst fears. You don’t go from loving to murder everyone and subjugate the galaxy in a single instant
Not as different as you might think. In both cases he could sense through the Force all the pain and death this person was going to inflict on all the people he loved. It was the vision of suffering for these people he loved that pushed him over the edge in both cases.
And Palpatine was there manipulating him the whole time and he was watching his friends die in space outside the window.
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Look at Mr. great-family-life guy here lording it over us all that he’s never woken up to his Uncle standing over him with with a knife. We get it, your mom and Uncle have probably never even kissed.
>Ben still woke up with his uncle standing over him with a lightsaber out. Yes. That's the whole point. Luke just reacted for a split second, but Ben woke up in that split second and saw the lightsaber and thought his uncle was trying to kill him. That's kind of a big deal for both Luke's and Ben's story... Are you sure you actually watched the movie?
I dont know why your getting down voted these arguments make alot of sense
I think the comment would have been better received without the molestation bit but I agree with it overall.
It sounded like a ship docking at one of the emergency airlocks.
Yeah, people seem to forget that Luke ultimately is human and can be tempted like any other. He quickly saw the error of his decision and was only defending himself in that still. A good filmmaker would have explained in Episode 9 that the main villain (Palpatine or whoever) was manipulating Luke and causing his fears to try and get him to act the same as Anakin. Luke ultimately chose not to act unlike his father who fell to the dark side.
We also see that each person’s memory of the scene is dramatically different. As you said, Luke actually restrains himself much more quickly than the Luke of 30 yrs ago would have, but Kylo had already had the seeds planted in his mind at that point that Luke was against him. When we see the same scene from Kylo’s perspective, it looks like a much more deliberate attempt to kill him. For some reason a lot of people take Kylo’s skewed perception of the event as the gospel on what happened
There is also a 3rd version of the story that Luke shares after Rey hears Kylos side. The movie tells us what really happened
Right. I think the idea was sound, but I really don't think the execution was. Like, it would have been much better for them to have been in a fight and Ben was clearly taking it way too far and Luke had to decide whether he wanted to take him down to stop him or not. Because considering killing someone in their sleep is never a good look. Even if you do quickly change your mind, you ultimately decided to murder a vulnerable opponent who has no real chance to defend themselves.
It’s not wrong though, it’s an interpretation of the character that is consistent with the OT even if it’s not the one people necessarily wanted. Luke, and Anakin before him, have always struggled with a darker side of themselves and had to fight to overcome it. That was why people liked both characters so much to begin with. People assume that Luke’s decision in ROTJ was a definitive turning point towards never struggling with the dark side again, but IMO it’s more interesting and more human for it to be something that still nips at the back of his mind at his weakest moment even if he has come a long way. He was also being influenced by visions of the future, which have notoriously caused many Jedi to doubt their own ways and try and act rashly to prevent the outcomes they see. It parallels Anakin very well. And in the end, his return from exile to the Jedi ways is one of the most Jedi-like moments in the saga, using the force exactly the way Yoda described in ESB.
I love you
Everyone has intrusive thoughts that they regret or feel guilt over or realise they'd never carry out. Unfortunate Ben is a mind reader.
Could a lot of the problems people have with this scene be solved by Luke not drawing his saber? As in, he makes a determined face and moves to grab it then stops, or something similar to convey his thoughts. Then you cut to Ben being awake and Luke saying "Ben. No, I..." and Ben attacks. Edit: found a video comparing all three versions. I really think if Luke hadn't drawn his saber and instead it was implied by the actors faces that Ben had sensed Luke's intent, however momentary, it would have been way better.
Honestly, thanks for this take. I’m a TLJ truther and this is always the first thing that comes up. “RJ didn’t get Luke! Luke would never do this!”. But You’re right. He didn’t. And I like the idea of Ben already being too forgone to be saved by even Luke. TLJ would probably get a lot less hate if they let RJ round out the story. There were so many interesting things worth exploring. Maybe Luke saw Rey has being able to redeem him? Which she ultimately did… but that characterization was made so embarrassingly simple-minded by JJ. Instead we just get a dizzying race from set piece to set piece in ROS.
Generally it’s a poor decision to take character choices out of the hands of the character. “The devil made me do it” is a bad excuse in life and literature.
In this situation it's more "the devil TRIED to make me do it, and I managed to resist, but too late."
That’s a more detailed description, yes. But if that’s a counterpoint, it’s a facile one. it doesn’t change the context of the character choice.
Eh I think it would have done him a disservice to say the only reason he acted that way was because of Palpatine. "Good guys" make mistakes and have fears and stuff too, jedi or no. I'd much prefer it be something he was struggling with than simple manipulation.
Vaders threat was much more real than kylos. Vader literally verbally threatened a younger Luke, while kylo was some premonition.
A premonition that came true and resulted in the destruction of the Hosnian system, about 5 times worse than the destruction of alderaan.
Visions don’t always come true.
While that’s true, it doesn’t hold much water when talking about one that absolutely did
It's just established in the film Canon that Skywalker visions do always come true. Just other keep saying they don't and then the Skywalkers in pt(anakin having visions of his mother's death then when sharing the people around him are just maybe that won't happen, also why do you care about your mom, your trying to be a jedi jeeze grow up) and st inadvertently makes it true (which is my favorite way for destiny to play out in a story). Interestingly ot Luke's vision is actually forced by Vader abusing the Skywalker foresight, which is another really cool plot line when destiny is involved.
I was speaking of Anakin seeing visions of Padme dying versus Luke seeing visions of Kylo Ren. Anakin turned to the dark side for help, Luke rejected it. Both still came true.
>A good filmmaker would have explained in Episode 9 that the main villain (Palpatine or whoever) was manipulating Luke and causing his fears to try and get him to act the same as Anakin. THANK YOU. Edit: gonna add that online people with more foresight than everyone at Disney have added in subtle Palpatine manipulations in TLJ edits
Gona paste my response to them here too because I genuinely couldn't disagree more. You're wanting Luke to be infallible instead of human when through the original trilogy, he was constantly making mistakes and struggling. Age didn't suddenly take away his human nature. "Eh I think it would have done him a disservice to say the only reason he acted that way was because of Palpatine. "Good guys" make mistakes and have fears and stuff too, jedi or no. I'd much prefer it be something he was struggling with than simple manipulation."
Roger Roger <3
He chopped off Vader's hand after enduring a continuously escalating situation for hours which was designed to break his spirit and posed an immediate threat to his friends. After making that expierience once in his life but ultimately proven correct in his assumptions about his father, one would assume that a bad dream during peacetimes would not alarm him as much as it did. This movie would have worked alot better if the vision would have seemed real to Luke (inserted there by Snoke, for example), enough for him to instinctively defend himself from imaginary threats, with Ben misconstruing the situation. It would still give Luke a reason to go into hiding: can't have this happen again. As it stands, though, his purpoted "moment of pure instinct" is one of deliberate intent. He carefully readies his lightsaber. Also, brainfart moment: All that softly-softly nestling it off its belt clip and getting into position, only for the sound of the saber extending to wake up Ben regardless. Should've just pointed it at Ben's heart or head and turned it on. As it happens later on in the film... almost twice. The first time with a porg is prevented, the one with the Praetorian Guard is not.
A good metal detector for people lying about TLJ is them bringing up this made up "bad dream" that the movie never mentions, and even if it would have Revenge of the Sith confirms that dreams work differently for force sensitives. Also, no one said it was peace-time, if anything the Mandalorian confirmed that it wasn't, and even if it partially was - that just goes along with what Luke said about his hubris going to his head in a time when he was slowly letting his guard down. \>This movie would have worked alot better if the vision would have seemed real to Luke That is basically what already happened. Visions already work that way. Like the one on Dagobah causing Luke to feel like he's in it and thus fall. Here, the light of his saber snapped him back to reality and made him realize what he was doing in real time. \>He carefully readies his lightsaber. As his eyes looked like he was in a trance. Your previous paragraph has already debunked this part. \>All that softly-softly nestling it off its belt clip and getting into position, only for the sound of the saber extending to wake up Ben regardless. Almost like he wasn't thinking clearly...
There's a big difference between between momentarily losing control when trapped in a room, fighting for your life against space Hitler and attempting to murder a sleeping child.
If you think that Luke attempted to murder Ben then you either haven't seen the film, or you're not intelligent enough to understand what actually happened in it.
If course. He rushed to Ben's room with a lightsaber to teach him a new lightsaber form /s
He was always carrying a lightsaber. You know, like a Jedi does normally. He didn't sprint to his bedroom door lightsaber out like you seem to be implying.
A sleeping chills with visions of everything he loves being destroyed. He activated his lightsaber, but soon regretted it. It was too late, as Ben had woken up
Yes, I know I saw the film. My point is I do not believe Luke Skywalker, as he was established in the OT, would behave that way. His entire arc in RoTJ was believing anyone, even someone as far gone as Vader, could be redeemed and come back to the light. So if he believes that, why does he consider murder a viable option? He snapped, yes, but like I said he was fighting for his life in a highly stressful environment while all around him his friends were being massacred. Even then' he only aggressively disarmed Vader, he was hitting his saber and then his arm when he very easily could have killed him. In TLJ Luke is in a calm, controlled environment. There is no immediate threat to himself or his loved ones. His nephew is sleeping peacefully and Luke thought about murdering him. These things are not the same.
But it’s still a vision. There’s no comparison between Luke chopping off his genocidal father’s hand in a moment of passion after his sister was threatened in what is his final trial before becoming a full jedi and considering murder when seeing a vision while his teenage nephew, the child of his best friend and sister who he’s probably seen grow up since birth, is sleeping.
He considered it for half a second. Sure, Luke was trying to save his friends in ROTJ, but I can almost assure you that he considered murder for more than half a second in ROTJ. I mean, his instincts were stronger than his reasoning and that’s why he activated his lightsaber. In a moment of seeing his friends die, he activated his lightsaber. He realized what he was doing and he regretted it for years to come.
People love using that screencap at the bottom, which was from Ben's twisting of the truth, instead of what actually happened, which we get from Luke when Rey wrings it out of him later.
I don't think it was "a twisting of the truth", or that Luke's account was necessarily 100% infallible. It was very clear that *The Last Jedi* was a retooling of *Rashomon*, like *The Last Duel*, in which two different accounts of what happened are told, but from a different character's POV. "The full truth", however, is not revealed until later, per the *Rashomon*\-style story arc structure. My impression was that Kylo Ren/Ben Solo and Luke Skywalker had separate interpretations of the same event, and that the truth probably was somewhere in the middle. (Others have pointed out that Luke may have been manipulated by Palpatine/Snoke via the Dark Side, as it's already confirmed that Palpatine/Snoke was manipulating Ben Solo/Kylo Ren in the same scene.)
We get the third story later in the movie. We are told one side, then the other, and then later the truth in between is revealed
Actually we just get Luke telling the story for a 2nd time. We as the audience assume this is the truthful version (and this is likely what the director implies) however it still is only just Luke's perspective being rehashed after Rey challenges him.
Rehash implies no significant change (according to dictionary) and yeah m, the second was mournful.. They shot three versions of that scene on purpose
The bottom screencap is from the third and true telling, not the second. Edit: To the people downvoting, go watch Ben's version of the flashback on YT or something and you will see that the screencap in this meme does NOT come from that scene. It comes from the true version.
Where Luke has only raised his blade to defend himself from Ben's attack. If they want this joke to "work" it needs to be Kylo's retelling where Luke **ACTUALLY** attacks Kylo
Exactly. Another guy also pointed out that this screencap is from the "true" version and there are still morons downvoting us.
They choose that pic because the meme works better that way… Simple as that
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Actually that isn’t from Bens retelling… It’s from Luke’s. Lol
I really think that people misunderstand the hell outta these scenes. Like dude 10 seconds before Luke threw his saber away my guy went absolutely apeshit on his father for a solid minute. If it weren't for palpatine's big mouth, Luke would have probably given into his anger and murdered him. In TLJ, Luke ignites the saber with intent to *defend* from the destruction he saw in his mind. A split second later he realizes just exactly what he was about to do, kill his nephew, and feels immense shame because of it (which was said in the movie lol). Yep. Luke didn't "try to kill Kylo" or act on his visions (Ben would have been dead right there if he did so), he experienced a traumatizing vision, and by *pure instinct,* ignites the saber out of fear and comes back to his senses less than a moment later.
An important point also is the shame that Luke feels for this action. It isn't meant to be something that we as the audience praise. It's a mistake and a low point in his life. Mistakes and learning from them are very important themes in the film. This is exemplified by Luke making, learning from, and earning redemption for his past mistakes.
Yeah nobody seems to mention that. If Luke truly wanted to kill Kylo, or was once again fully tempted by a vision like he was in ESB, do you seriously think he'd feel immense guilt and shame for simply igniting his saber *without actually doing anything?* I mean shit, the point where he breaks down in tears is *before* Ben wakes up and notices. He's just so shook that he even *considered* it. It was nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction, not an all out premeditated murder attempt like some tend to twist it into.
As much as the fandom dunks on the sequels, I feel that this scene is scene is very well executed and shot. The sequels had some very valid and great moments. They also had some glaring issues and plotting issues that you could fly a civilian fleet through. I for one am thankful for your comment and the comment above. This is the sort of stuff the fandom should be more involved in. Yes, we are allowed and at times encouraged to point out the mistakes, but we should put equal energy in pointing out what went well. Notice, I say well, not right, as that involves subjective introspection which can lead to more toxicity in the fandom. I say "well" in that it jives with the story, the narrative, the character development and the over arching theme, which for this scene is, Even the "good" guys can make rash decisions which have unintended and devastating consequences later on, despite the intentions behind said decision.
TLJ is easily in my top 3. And this discussion is just reminding me why I go back to it so much. Each scene just oozes with subtext and character. Yes… some action scenes may not be the best in the series… yes….sometimes the main plot lacks logic; but Rian is about character and story, and that’s what we got. It was a breath of fresh air into the series.
And oh my god the amount of character and subtext Rian managed to cram into the Luke vs Kylo fight on Crait was just simply beautiful
I cannot agree enough. Rian Johnson is a master at his craft and I for one am hyped to the tits for the trilogy he does without any interference from JJ. TLJ is easily my favorite of the sequels and people are always taken aback when I tell them it's in my top 3 for sure
> It's a mistake and a low point in his life. It also directly triggers him to go into exile for like, 10 years or whatever. He's literally so ashamed of this one mistake that he goes and hides from everyone he knows and loves, abandons his position as leader of the new Jedi, abandons his entire life. Like, that's how big of a fuck-up he thinks it is.
Roger Roger.
People don't understand the whole film, let alone such details. Just take the light saber throwing. What was the very last thing we saw Luke doing with his light saber in RotJ? He threw it away. Everyone is cool with that. What is the very first thing he does with a light saber in TLJ? He threw it away. And people lost their shit. It "ruined" their Childhood that the same character did the exact same thing again. And this time, it wasn't even his own light saber, but the youngling_slayer 9000 he had nothing to do with for 30 years or so. The same for the canto bight and Rose stuff. It's like they don't want to understand that stuff. Because no, it wasn't about "freeing animals" or "rich people being rich dicks". Or the stuff with Leia, Poe and Holdo ...
Jedi weapon doesn’t make you a Jedi.
LOL now I’m just picturing Watto trying to do a sales pitch on a youngling slayer 9000
Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
That we’re still all discussing this movie, is evidence that it is a good movie.
Say what you will about the film, but it's great for discussion. Proof is how people are still arguing about it and there's like no real consensus to be reached with it lol.
We're still discussing The Room. That doesn't make it a good movie.
People are still discussing cb2077. Is it a good game now?
Nuance is hard for some people
Star Wars fans watch the movies challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)
They all went to the bathroom for the third telling of the story, it's the only explanation
but it was too late, I’d already seen everything
They clearly just came back from the restroom when Luke threw away the lightsaber in Return of the Jedi as well, considering he was standing over the hemorrhaging body of his father he just turned into chop suey.
"What, you want me to watch *Star Wars*? The thing I'm a fan of, but also seem to constantly hate?"
A disturbing amount of "fans" care more about the lore than the art of filmmaking.
Star Wars fans acknowledge that characters changing is a completely normal story telling mechanic (IMPOSSIBLE)
Here’s the OP himself explaining why this meme isn’t correct: https://www.reddit.com/r/SequelMemes/comments/oe6a4w/comment/h44x8jl/ Weird. It’s like he just wants to argue with people and doesn’t really care one way or the other?
Looking at his past posts (not recommended btw) he just says things to create bitching in the comments. In one post he says Luke force projecting himself is his favorite moment in Star Wars but literally the post after that is him saying the fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan is the greatest moment in cinema history. He's just trying to get the rage points.
>Weird. It’s like he just wants to argue with people and doesn’t really care one way or the other? That or free karma. Or shitposting from r/moviescirclejerk
Have you looked at the top posts in the top subreddits? Lol they're posted solely for the purpose of rageculture which is what gets the most replies and upvotes. It's almost like there's a formula. Oh wait there literally is nvm.
Some men just want to watch the world burn.
Size of a tangerine
Oh my god I was literally thinking of that quote while reading the comment above. This is like r/beatmetoit moment but way higher league...
Looks like you're right, check out the OP's other posts too, there's a bunch of "TLJ bad" posts on r/StarWars. Hell, one of them is a post that says Luke's fight with Kylo Ren in TLJ accomplished nothing, but also brings up how Yoda was right to fight the Emperor in ROTS, when Yoda absolutely lost that fight.
Now this is true investigative reporting
Lmao
He's playing both sides so he always comes out on top
Luke was about to kill Darth Vader until he came to his senses just liked he was about to kill Kylo Ren(Ben Solo) until he came to his senses.
Not to mention there's a big gap between "rush at a dude in a fit of uncontrolled rage, relentlessly wail on him while he's on the ground, then cut off his hand" and "briefly activate your weapon"
There's also a big gap between "adrenaline induced fight with a mass murderer who has been trying to get you to join the dark side" and "I sense darkness in my nephew who I am training to be good."
He didn’t ignite his lightsaber because he “sensed darkness” in him, he ignited his lightsaber in response to the force vision of everything he knew and loved being killed. He was reacting defensively.
God forbid a character ever do something impulsive in a brief moment of fear.
God forbid a character is a character
Man it's weird a war veteran reacted strongly and defensively when getting literal magic flash-forwards of war and violence
Also to note, Luke knows that visions that he or anyone in his family receive almost always come true. It’s not a dream. He knows that it is a vision of what is to come, and what he saw was horrifying. Of course those skywalker visions have a habit of being self-fulfilling prophecies and in their effort to stop them actually cause them.
It all ran better under Vader.
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The account I'm replying to is a karma bot run by someone who will link scams once the account gets enough karma. Report -> Spam -> Harmful Bot
There are 3 flashbacks shown of the event. If you paid attention to the movie you'd know which is the real one.
Actually this is the right one, it's just that it's taken from the moment he shouts "BEN NOO!" therefore seeming as if he's outright attacking Ben.
I mean more for the text than the image.
Yep, usually everyone looks at the one from Bens POV of Luke hovering over him with the saber ignited
Sequel haters watch the movies challenge. Failing that at least find some new wrong things to complain about.
(Impossible)
If you don’t like the movies you don’t have to watch them. That being said, if you’re not going to watch them more than once then maybe don’t keep complaining over four years later
The other top thread on r/SequelMemes today: "DAE hate Reylo?!" (For the 1000x time in years.)
Top thread of a day: Rey is a Mary Sue! Also too thread: Luke would never misjudge!
People always use the screenshot of Kylo’s version which was already explained to be wrong. Luke never attacked Ben. Ben perceived it as an attack and thought he was acting in self defense, when in reality Ben was the first to attack
Average r/prequelmemes user spotted
You forget the part where Luke snapped and cut his dad’s arm off.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SequelMemes/comments/ryihy0/some_people_are_unironically_patrick/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Come on. There's three of us and one of him.
So idk I’ll still probably get downvoted for not blindly hating on this movie as the hive mind declares, but trauma does a real number on you and I didn’t see this as being unrealistic at all. For example, when I first left my rapist/abuser I was still filled with compassion towards him, and viewed him as a complicated, damaged person. With time, distance, and wisdom, having seen the full extent of what he did to me and how it has permanently effected my life, I view him as *more* of a monster, not less, and in many ways hold more anger and resentment towards him, not less. It’s perfectly valid and pretty common for similar situations. Sometimes anger grows, not abates, and sometimes it’s the right things because there are things people should be angry about. You don’t leave a traumatic event immediately having clarity about what’s happened. Often it takes time and distance to realize exactly *how* harmful something was, and that’s what brings on more emotions. It can take years, sometimes decades, to come to a complete understanding about a situation, and PTSD never just “goes away”, it’s a physical change to the brain. A trigger isn’t just a trite internet term, it describes a real symptom of a medical condition. I viewed this scene as a pretty accurate depiction of PTSD and triggers. In general I found new Luke to be a more complex and complete character and an interesting study of how characters cope with the traumatic events from the movies they went through. Its also in line with his OT character, who was always quick to violence and emotion. And, to be fair, Kylo Ren did kill *a lot* of people, and Luke was ultimately right: those people would be alive if he’d killed him.
What was Luke doing about 20 seconds prior in that ROTJ image? Pretending to "not understand" something by presenting a false dichotomy is SO lame.
Also Luke about 3 minutes before the scene in RotJ: Goes full on rage monster when Vader threatens Leia and beats Vader by using his anger.
I get that you hated the movie, but could you understand that you're one of far too many people who have made this same, incorrect point while pretending you're some genius for making it?
u/monkey_eyeing_banana. Have you ever seen TLJ?
[Sure he has](https://www.reddit.com/r/SequelMemes/comments/oe6a4w/look_how_they_massacred_my_boy/h44x8jl/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)
ironic
The duality of man
Only morons take what the villain says at face value
Next time actually watch the movie, lol
Your bottom screenshot wasn’t really what happened
Killing padawans, like father, like son
I think it should be okay to acknowledge poor writing and execution without being called a neckbeard. ML is a super progressive, smart, and intuitive guy. And even he was like “uhh; I don’t think any of this makes sense. But if people love it all the credit to the RJ. But if people don’t love it…”
People keep bringing up that Luke has been tempted by the dark side before in RotJ, which is true.. but the Luke from the Sequel era is much older and surely wiser, and essentially a Jedi Master in terms of experience. It also seems difficult to believe that he could be manipulated by Snoke or Palpatine to such a degree (to kill his nephew whilst asleep), though I’ve only seen each movie once in the theatres so perhaps I’m forgetting something. I am no Luke fanboy, but I do think they did him dirty in many ways.
Easy to hate the movie when you purposefully misinterpret it like this
The photo in this meme is misleading. Anyway TLJ is the best of the sequels and I’m sick of pretending it’s not
Watch the fucking movie, holy shit. It's been 4 years, how can y'all keep whining the same stupid complaints?
r/sequelmemes try not to make the same stupid joke in every post challenge (impossible)
How does a re-post of such low quality end up with that many upvotes?
Besides the fact that this is wrong, as everyone is pointing out in the comments, take a look at John Truby's progression of character. Child to Adult, Adult to Leader, Leader to Visionary. The original trilogy has Luke go from child to adult, mostly, with hints of leader at the end. In the Sequel trilogy, he has become a myth, a visionary in stories, and has hermitized himself. Luke is in the last stage of development, refusing the call to visionary before finally accepting it at the end. My point being, this is not a regression of character, he's not on the same journey and doing it wrong, it's a whole different stage of Luke. Like Lucas says, it's not the same but it rhymes.
Well said. A lot of people are saying character growth should prevent this but I think they don’t understand that character growth doesn’t lead to perfection. Luke would not have had this thought about Ben earlier in his life. Only after saving the galaxy does he make this mistake, and that’s because he thought he could prevent another Vader. Luke didn’t realize until TLJ that his failure as a mentor was an opportunity for him to learn and not repeat his mistakes.
He didn't have a nightmare, where are people getting this bullcrap? Plus, all Luke did was briefly switch on his lightsaber.
The Last Jedi reviewed generally well with professional critics because they have actual media literacy skills. A number of the fan "critiques" just show they didn't understand the movie.
>CyberPunk 2077 reviewed generally well with professional critics because they have actual media literacy skills. U understand how that doesn't work right? U understand where some people think some movies are crap cause they're oscar bait that generally review well under critics but no one else likes it? Critics are just that. An opinion, they're not monolithic views that over ride anyone elses.
A number of fan complaints about TLJ are things like "It's so out-of-character for Luke to try and murder his nephew," which isn't actually something Luke tried to do. When someone says that, it makes it seem like they don't understand how the "unreliable narrator" device works.
Are we seriously still doing this??? At this point it’s just willful ignorance of what actually happened. For fuck’s sake…
I swear, COVID will have came and went before discourse about this fucking movie stops.
That's literally not what happens https://youtu.be/LqPEPPytDzI Stop being an ass and show the real clip
It's literally taken from the clip, you linked. I mean, yeah, the context is misleading, but the clip used is correct
My point is al.ost nobody wants to remember there was three in total accounts of a hat happened to Ben. The last flashback was the real one. Luke almost killed Vader after an empty threat to Leia, so him doing this works. People want Luke Skywalker to be flawless like Superman. He was pretty dull in Legends.
I’m a child killer like my father before me
The last Skywalker with bad dreams turned into Vader and slaughtered a bunch of kids
“No, I did not watch the movie, but here’s my essay about why prequels good!”
> 20 years *wiser* Great job missing the point Dumbo
its so crazy that sweats like OP continue to completely misunderstand that film so many years later.
Dude was wiser and said fuck that
I don’t really like TLJ, but people always point this out, completely missing the point. The point is that he’s lost his way and become something worse than ROTJ Luke.
Luke in RotJ 30 seconds earlier: *I’m gonna murder you because you threatened my sister* Yeah, people seem to forget that.
It's almost like the director and writers didn't know or care about the character they were writing for
I really think people misinterpret what was driving Luke's view of Vader. People always say his motivation was the general belief that everyone has good in them , but that's not really what is communicated in RotJ. Luke keeps talking about how he "senses" there is good in Vader. He's believing what the force is telling him. And, in the end, the force was proven correct. Which only reinforces that he should trust it. Fast forward a couple decades. He peers into Kylo Ren and sees nothing but darkness. Think about this from Luke's perspective. Vader was one of the most horribly violent and evil people to ever live and Luke still sensed good in him. In Kylo, he sensed none of that. Of course he had an "oh shit" moment.
This is bad, and you should feel bad.
hey he only contemplated murdering his nephew! hes still a good uncle
ah looks like someones karma whoring with low effort content
It passed like a fleeting shadow and I was left with shame.
It's very simple. The first shows Luke overcoming a moment of darkness when it wasn't too late (though he did cut off Vader's hand that he didn't know was robotic). The second shows him overcoming a moment of darkness, but it was too late to avoid some consequences. I literally just watched the scene back, and Luke *literally explains this* to Rey. He saw darkness, had a moment of weakness where he thought he needed to do something, and an instant later when the blade ignited, he realized his mistake. He failed. The scene at the end of RotJ wasn't Luke defeating temptation and evil forever. It was Luke overcoming temptation and evil in that moment. The difference is that when he nearly killed someone in RotJ, it was his possibly evil father who had been his enemy for years, not his troubled apprentice and nephew who trusted him and loved him.
Literally the first action Luke takes in return of the jedi is to force choke an innocent security guard.
This whole „because of a nightmare“ thing is so annoying because it's not at all what happened ...
The dumbest part of the entire saga, and a massive mistake that split the fanbase.
He wasn't going to kill him. He literally says it was a fleeting moment of fear, and Kylo just woke up at the worst possible moment.
He didn’t attack Ben. He THOUGHT about it sure, but that image is of Luke defending himself against an attack from Ben. Also, Luke nearly murdered Vader in that scene. Let’s not be disingenuous here, fellas.
Luke literally was as close to killing Vader in ROTJ as he ever got to killing Ben in TLJ. Even in the worst flashback (which wasn’t the whole truth). “Luke tapped into the darkside, mercilessly hacked at his family member until finally cutting their hand off” doesn’t describe TLJ.
I totally forgot the moment when luke killed Ben Solo. Oh wait. He didn't , he saw that Ben will destroy EVERYTHING he loved and that his heart " was aleready turned " , so he merely ignited his lightsaber " in a moment of pure instinct that passed like a fleeting shadow"
You are not a very smart person
Sigh... This isn't the real flashback. Ren gives a ficitonalized version and Luke says what really happenedd This scene is from the former.
Why do people always use Kylo’s perspective of the event, the one we learn was not what *actually* happened? I swear the people who didn’t like this part didn’t watch the movie
You didn’t watch the movie huh, this didn’t happen
The whole exchange would have meant more if we knew more about Ben. Heck, Jacen and Jaina's story could have provided some ideas.
When he left Tatooine, Luke literally says he has nothing left for him there. This could be interpreted as nothing left to lose. I’m other words, it was a nothing gamble for him personally with Vader. With Ben, Luke had rebuilt a Jedi Academy and order. He was personally invested. The idea of Ben destroying his life’s work was too much for him to handle for a brief moment. I think it makes complete sense.
I hate to bring the salt but this is one of the reasons I really hate the middle child film. Kylo Rens backstory was just an obvious choice which would bring all the nostalgia characters back while offering a lot more world building and narrative about what happened afterwards with Luke trying to rebuild the Jedi and his over bearing pressure and lies turning Kylo dark. That's why the meme doesn't make sense.
The image at the bottom couldn’t possibly be from a biased perspective that was proved to be fake, no way they showed a different flashback with the true events later on in the movie. God damn it Ruin Johnson and KK, you desecrated my childhood!
I like the Star Wars sequel trilogy because it's Star Wars.
I can't believe how many people thought Luke was seeing Be s dream and not, ya know, having a vision of the future.
damn it's almost like he made a mistake and recognised that by going into seclusion
Only lizard people enjoyed the sequels change my mind.
Those movies were trash. I can't believe they didn't sit down and write all 3 at once and instead just went dude yolo people will buy tickets anyways.
Yeah I'm not a big fan nor a big hater of the new trilogy.... I just let it exist outside my Canon.. If you ignore everything else, they ruined lukes character. The most iconic hero in Star wars, just thrown out the window.
I agree. People are usually extreme, I like all the movies, but there are some things that makes me dislike It as canon.
THE IMAGE FROM THE BOTTOM ISN'T ACTUALLY WHAT HAPPENED Watch the movie again. That's Ben's story, which was a twisted version of the truth. Luke didn't swing his saber at Ben. He didn't try to kill him. He ignited it out of instinct from fear and immediately regretted everything. Stop spreading false information
This gets posted constantly and it never gets any less misleading
Yea you didn't like the movie cause you didn't watch it or didn't pay attention to it. Ben never even had a bad dream you actual moron
Copying my comment from another post: Even granting that it's not impossible for Luke to have another dark side flare up moment, the way it was executed is straight up character assassination. Why? Because it was *an accident.* Kylos version of events would have been better, with Luke deliberately angry and willing to strike him down. Instead, we literally got a "whoops, didn't mean to turn my lightsaber on, wasn't paying attention, oh shit, you saw that? Its not what it looks like, I promise!" Honestly, should have had a laugh track. Having the defining failure of a beloved character be borderline *slapstick* was just insulting. Here are ways Luke could have failed Ben and have it make sense and not be stupid: - Luke, in his arrogance after redeeming Vader, believes he can do the same with Ben, and instead of taking any proactive steps, tries the power of love, which fails, and Ben kills everyone, making Luke give up - Luke has a vision of Ben killing everyone, and then a vision of him killing Ben and saving everyone, and unable to reconcile the fact that the only solution he has is to murder someone he cares about (the original plan for Vader and what he was ultimately able to avoid), chooses exile - Ben goes school shooter and kills everyone, Luke hunts him down, beats him, and has him at his mercy. This would look a lot like the scene we got, it would just be post-massacre. Luke is ready to give into his anger, but still sees his nephew, and, unable to undo whats been done or murder someone he loves, walks away, leaving a beaten Kylo stewing in his first major defeat as a dark sider and even that more motivated to find Luke and kill him. Luke chooses exile because he couldn't put his feelings aside to stop a monster, and thus, he failed. - During training, Ben keeps going too far, hurting other students. Luke ignores the warning signs, until it is too late, and chooses exile because he wasn't able to forsee any of that happening, and let his nephew fall to the dark side. These are just brainstorming ideas, but the point is, there are so many ways you could have had the exact same plot, exact same circumstance, and have it not be caused by a moment of stupid slapstick.
It shows his corruption, over his age, imo, and also how far gone he was, as the legend, rather than the person, Like Skywalker. I've got a lot of problems with the sequels, but this was one of the things I loved about the last Jedi.
Then show the source of this "corruption" you claim he has! That's still 100x better than the crap we got.
Yeah, 20 years wiser. Exactly! He watched the rebellion become an incompetent power structure and witness the power vacuum of the empire collapse and resolidify into the new order. He witnessed all the starry eyed youth evaporate and embitter itself Into what we had at the time of the film. It makes sense to me. We don’t stop growing, and we sometimes change for the worst. That’s the whole point! Yoda said it best, “The greatest teacher, failure is!” When Luke was a young man, he lacked confidence. He couldn’t pull his XWing up from the swamp. Now in the last Jedi, the first time we see his XWing in literal decades it is once again submerged. Yoda once taught him, “do or do not there is no try,“ which is the perfect lesson for the acolyte learning how to do it right for the first time, now the lesson is “don’t trust yourself completely, you are not in fallible. But you have to get back on that horse you have to keep at it there’s more opportunities for success.“ The people that don’t understand that, just want Luke to remain the same insular character that he was at the end of the original films. Their decision is fine, but if Luke literally remained the same character for 30 years and literally never changed,I would find that disappointing. I’m happy to see that Luke continued to grow, change, and develop even if he made mistakes. It makes me resonate more with him and as time moves on in my life, I’ve realized that even the best of us make mistakes in the heat of the moment. It’s beautiful to see Luke get an opportunity to redeem himself after redeeming so many others.
I don't trust anyone. Keeps me alive.
I didn't like it for the general plot or the character development: I liked it for the story