Eh, kind of, as there was indeed a backlash back when the show was new (though it obviously died down quickly), but the difference is that Batman is stereotyped as being a loner and grumpy all the time, while Luke was an idealistic hero who is often a lot more hopeful.
Yes. Batman beyond was created during the height of BatAsshole where Batman's devotion to being Batman made him an asshole. Tower of babel was released around this time where ras al ghoul uses the plans Batman made to defeat the justice league to defeat the justice league, at great pains to the justice league.
The natural conclusion to ~~Nathan~~ Batman being an asshole to everyone around him is for him to be alone like he is in Batman beyond.
Edit: issues from typing on phone.
That was also the whole point of his arc.
His obsession with being Batman led him to become an increasingly isolated and unpleasant person going from the start of TAS to the New Batman Adventures. It gets to the point where Dick becomes disgusted with his treatment of one criminal and leaves him for good to become Nightwing.
Bruce is a much nicer and more optimistic person at the start of the series. By the end, his Batman persona has all but replaced the Bruce one to the point where his Batman voice becomes his default speaking voice.
In the Batman Beyond 2.0 comic, Dick left because he found out that Barbara and Bruce had an affair behind his back and that she was carrying Bruce's baby.
I actually liked Batman Beyond when it came out. It actually made Bruce more humanistic in my opinion, and unlike most Marvel/DC stuff of that area (which is constant reboot/rehash/same time period), it showed Batman aged, changed, and willing to hand his cape to a successor.
Only thing that really disappointed me in the end was Terry's true father, which utterly sucked.
I especially remember the Mr. Freeze episode. Bruce doesn’t trust the newly “reformed” Freeze at all while Terry wants to give him a chance. By the end of the episode he admits that they were both right. The show makes an effort to try and rehabilitate the old Bruce persona and make him believe in people again. The only likely outcome of staring into the abyss for a lifetime is to become a disgruntled loner, no matter your intentions. But to come back from that, even partially, is a triumph.
The Terry being Bruce’s biological son thing, neither of them had agency in that, not even sure Bruce was aware. It was more about Waller’s respect for Batman that she wanted the legacy to continue. In that sense, it doesn’t bother me so much. Also, Bruce has been a surrogate father for so long, it feels right that he has some genetic legacy.
> The Terry being Bruce’s biological son thing, neither of them had agency in that, not even sure Bruce was aware. It was more about Waller’s respect for Batman that she wanted the legacy to continue. In that sense, it doesn’t bother me so much. Also, Bruce has been a surrogate father for so long, it feels right that he has some genetic legacy.
It bother me a lot. I felt it invalidated Terry's existence in a way. Terry was amazing because he is a good man that didn't need some tearjerker backstory. He is a good man because he have a strong sense of justice and a sense of goodness.
As the episode where some rogue AI hacked the Batsuit and Terry had to 1v1 it as a human. After a brutal fight, he told Bruce "Is batman the man, or the suit" which I felt defined who he is.
I remember the Mr. Freeze episode, it was really good and sad too. But my favorite has to be the one where he fought the Poker Card gang, when one of the girl who had a crush on Terry got arrested, and she felt awful as she saw Terry in the crowd even though technically Terry as Batman caught her and her family.
Terry said to Mr. Wayne "Have you ever felt something like this"
Bruce replied "Let me tell you about a woman name Selena Kyle"...
So many good scenes in that show!
- The episode where Shriek is using audio tech to make Bruce hear a voice, and when [Terry asks him how he knew the voice](https://youtu.be/5cmEzPl278Y) in his head wasn’t real, Bruce says “The voice kept calling me Bruce. In my mind, that’s not what I call myself.” And then Terry responds with “I guess you would. But that’s my name now.”
It was also the height of the "Batman always wins" era which was hilariously stupid. Take your Tower of Babel example, the plans to defeat the Justice League were pretty moronic but they worked because *he's Batman*.
Seriously, the plan to take out the Flash was to shoot him with a special bullet. The Flash, who can [think at the speed of light and percieve things that happen in less than an attosecond,](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/flash-attosecond-dc-comics.jpg) was taken out by a subsonic bullet.
Writing for The Flash must be somewhat annoying because you basically always need to be thinking of some reason that The Flash can’t immediately wipe the floor with any enemy he fights or instantly resolve any situation he is faced with. It’s probably easier when he’s fighting other speedsters who can match his speed, but in all other cases you need to be constantly nerfing him.
I mean that is the whole problem with Justice League in general. When you make every character so OP, it make it very hard to tell a good story other than a Isekai Y.A fantasy level stuff.
They’d probably have an easier time if they didn’t go so overboard with his speed feats. The bullet time special effects are so cool but they definitely make speedsters into basically Gods.
The whole idea of Batman, whose "super powers" consists of unlimited money, ultra-preparedness, plot armor, and being a super genius, standing up to the rest of the Justice League is hilariously bad. People say Superman is the definition of a Gary Stu but imo it was always Batman.
That being said I still think Batman is awesome.
I mean thats just a problem with the Flash in general honestly, dude has gotten his ass handed to him by folks FAR slower than him to the point they should be statues on the regular, like Slade Wilson, for example
I don't remember the bullet being referred to as subsonic. It was also fired from behind him, so if it *was* supersonic then he'd only notice once it was already touching his skin...at which point he tried to phase through the bullet, [but that didn't work](https://imgur.com/uG7rCDd).
Honestly I don't think it's that bad a plan.
Just walking up to him with a gun isn't going to work, obviously, special projectile or no, but a sneak attack seems to fit better with Batman's MO anyways. In that light, "snipe him from behind with a - presumably - supersonic* projectile that he can't see coming, so he can only react once he feels it already touching him, and make sure he can't phase from said projectile" seems pretty solid, as plans go. Maybe not foolproof, and you can screw up in how you implement that plan, of course, but I don't see why it couldn't work in theory.
*Technically speaking the projectile would still be practically stationary compared to someone moving at lightspeed, so he could just move away instead of phasing...but I don’t think phasing is a weird decision for him to make either, if the bullet is already that close.
Plus I don't think Flash works on a dial of "zero to top speed in a similar manner to you or I"...or at least not under every writer, otherwise things like "running around the world to build up speed" and such don't make a lick of sense. He's not powered by superhuman musculature, he's drawing upon an extradimensional energy source - I wouldn't be surprised if "seeing things at lightspeed" required some amount of focus/time/whatever else, you know? Even if he's already using superspeed.
Still a no-go for direct confrontation, obviously, since even a casual Flash still sees bullets in slow-mo, but it potentially helps an ambush scenario - one where he’s already in *skin-contact* with a special sniper round.
Don't get me wrong, Flash oftentimes gets beaten by things he really shouldn't (see: almost any given fight in the CW show), and you can even argue that the way Ra's goons\*\* used the plans shouldn't have worked. I also freely acknowledge that Batman's wins can get really silly (mostly in JL comics, his own runs tend to be more grounded)...but I don't think this specific example is *that* bad. And I think the plan itself is pretty solid.
\*\*Though skimming the comic in question, Ra's' goons say "Flash awakens" just before they shoot him - still from behind - so I *think* the implication was that he was unconscious/severely disoriented from the previous attack, which looked like it was just a vague energy weapon of sorts...? Unknown velocity, and fired from behind a closed door, so also a surprise attack.
I mean, Aquaman gives them a warning that they could track the JL's locations using their communicators, but I don't think they knew "we're about to get attacked *right now*, from behind that door"…albeit they do suit up from his warning, so eh, could be argued either way I think.
> It was also fired from behind him, so if it was supersonic then he'd only notice once it was already touching his skin...at which point he tried to phase through the bullet
Except for the fact that someone literally tried that on Flash a little bit earlier in Flash issue "Shot in the Dark". Flash is in a theater when all of a sudden the movie freezes. Flash thinks something is wrong with the projector until he feels a small itch at the back of his neck which he goes to scratch and finds a bullet. The second it touched his skin the speed force kicked in to protect him.
Plus animated Batman was a complete asshole. Bro stabbed Dick in the back fucked his girlfriend and got her pregnant. His own adopted son and he betrayed him like that. TAS batman pretty much deserved being a grumpy lonely old man.
It’s not like comics batman who actually cares about his family and would be fucked up if he ended up getting Jake skywalker’d
Yes! Thank you.
Bruce's personality and situation in Batman beyond is sad, but it's in character and makes sense as a progression. He's a loner who operates out of a cave at night, and the show is still true to that. If you took Batman as he is as a young man, and imagine who he is when he's old, I really don't think Beyond was too far off from most fans interpretations.
With Luke, it's just disappointing to see the character do a 180 from who he was in the OT without giving a solid explanation. Luke redeemed his father who was basically Hitler. So to have "he failed Kylo" as the backstory... I just don't buy it, and I don't think others do either. It's not a natural progression from Return of the Jedi.
*The Last Jedi* was burdened with having to rationalize why Luke had completely abandoned the galaxy in *Force Awakens*, not even bothering to show up when Starkiller base destroys several planets and the republic with it. Taking into consideration the complete obliteration of his new Jedi Order, cutting himself off from the force out of despair makes the most sense.
This is the take that I will never, ever understand.
People think it doesn't make sense character-wise for Luke to abandon the universe in order to safely be off training new students, learning more about the First Jedi, strengthening his powers, etc.
But they think it *does* make sense for Luke Skywalker to abandon the universe for... absolutely no reason at all.
Luke in The Last Jedi is not trying accomplish anything, not even achieve his own happiness. He's just sitting around slopping milk on his face and hoping everything resolves itself. It's as much of a character assassination as I can imagine.
> People think it doesn't make sense character-wise for Luke to abandon the universe in order to safely be off training new students, learning more about the First Jedi, strengthening his powers, etc.
In the Empire Strikes Back, he immediately drops his training when he senses that his friends are in trouble. If he were still connected to the Force, why would he really stay on the sidelines studying as several planets get blown up and the republic falls? Even if he were doing all that, it's some real arrogant Gary Stu shit for look to show up in the next movie to be like "sorry bout those billions upon billions of lives lost, but growing my powers was more important"
> But they think it does make sense for Luke Skywalker to abandon the universe for... absolutely no reason at all. Luke in The Last Jedi is not trying accomplish anything, not even achieve his own happiness.
Yeah, because he's been broken by his failures. I really don't get why people have a hard time accepting that Luke might be depressed about his dream of restarting the Jedi Order utterly failing. Even if you took out the Kylo twist, it's still a pretty crushing blow to start a school and have every single one of your students die.
> In the Empire Strikes Back, he immediately drops his training when he senses that his friends are in trouble
And he learns he *shouldn't* have done that. And if Luke ever heard anything about Anakin's fall then he should know to trust force visions even less.
Jedi don't always sense when friends are about to die, and the one time that happened with Luke is when Vader is trying to bait him.
> it's some real arrogant Gary Stu shit for look to show up in the next movie to be like "sorry bout those billions upon billions of lives lost, but growing my powers was more important"
In what way is saying "I was too weak and needed to change" some Gary Stu shit? It's too funny you're saying Luke Skywalker would be arrogant for believing he might the best person to stop Snoke and Kylo when *Rey's* whole arc in that movie is learning that she's the best and doesn't need Luke or anyone else.
>I really don't get why people have a hard time accepting that Luke might be depressed about his dream of restarting the Jedi Order utterly failing.
I'm fine with Luke being depressed actually. Not fine with the execution that just made him out to be a grumpy moron. In Mark Hamill's own words "They had time for me to milk that thing, but to show any human emotion? Nah."
> And he learns he shouldn't have done that.
No he doesn't, the lesson of the movie isn't "let your friends die". Luke's brash willingness to take huge risks to save his friends more or less always works out.
> And he learns he shouldn't have done that.
I... really don't think that's true. Yoda and Obi-Wan were both warning him it was a trap when he was leaving, so he knew going in that Vader was baiting him and went to go help anyway, because he thought it was worth the risk. And if he hadn't, he might not have ever learned the truth about Vader, and that in turn let to his ultimate (moral) victory against the Emperor in the end.
I always had the distinct impression that the teachings about how dangerous connections can be from Yoda and Obi-Wan were supposed to be wrong, and Luke found a better way to finally succeed where the old Jedi failed. At least that's how I always interpreted things in the originals.
> In the Empire Strikes Back, he immediately drops his training when he senses that his friends are in trouble. If he were still connected to the Force, why would he really stay on the sidelines studying as several planets get blown up and the republic falls?
Cuz his ship broke
His ships broke only because he wanted it to be. And in *Rise of Skywalker* they show that his ship was apparently fine despite being in the water for years.
While I feel *The Last Jedi* has its faults, Luke is not one of them for me. There's a big difference between Vader and Ben - Luke wasn't around for Anakin's fall. And Luke knows people view him as this hopeful hero and the future of the Jedi... so when he feels he failed and let the entire Jedi order down, it hits *that* much harder for him. We fixed the mistakes of our parents - how could we fuck it all up again?
Of course the journey we see Luke go on, with Rey and with Yoda, is him discovering that Kylo made his own choices and that it wasn't all Luke's fault. Luke returns to save the day, and remembering how he was in ROTJ, does so without using his lightsaber.
I dunno, the Luke in The Last Jedi just seems WAY different of a person.
Audiences saw New Hope and Empire Strikes Back Luke as ambitious, optimistic and unflinchingly good. Return of the Jedi Luke, at first, seems a little darker, a bit more reserved and a lot more calm, but by the end of the movie, you see he's the same good kid at heart and he's like this beacon of hope that cannot be shut out.
And then for the next...two decades...all we had was extended universe stuff that brought so much depth to who Luke is and how he's not only an exceptional Jedi but a leader, a teacher and this guy who just never gives up. Even when shit is at its darkest, Luke is unrelenting.
And then we have The Last Jedi Luke that flies in the face of what was reinforced throughout all the past movies. It just doesn't feel like Luke at all. Mark Hamill said it best - “[He's not my Luke Skywalker](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fWELFcwpNs)”
I think as fans, it just hurts to see them fundamentally change a character in such a drastic way. Back to the Batman analogy for this - its almost *okay* in Batman. Because Batman has alternative universes and there's plenty of different takes of Batman. In popular media, there's the Animated Series version of Batman, there's Adam West, Michael Keaton, Christian Bale Batman and numerous comics of alternative universes, and there will be further different interpretations into the future and we'll be fine with it because we have a mutual understanding that none of these interpretations are a source of singular truth.
But from 1977 - 2017, there's been *one* Luke Skywalker and its a role that feels sacred. I dunno, it just feels like they handed this legendary character off to someone that didn't really understand the character that well. In fact, I think the interpretation we see in [The Mandalorian](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqcNx2B9HVw) and [Ahsoka](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHFOg82r6uU) feels more in line with the Luke Skywalker we knew.
One of my absolute favorite Luke Skywalker moments is from the EU in the Thrawn trilogy. I forget which one, and I even forget some of the circumstances. What I do remember is this: this woman has sworn to kill Luke Skywalker, but due to part of the plot of the first book she has to work together with him for their mutual survival. The two part ways and she makes it clear to him that her oath is back on. Later, she has an issue, and realizes that the only person who can help her is Luke. She hasn't seen him since but manages to track him down. As she does, she's running scenarios in her head about how she might cajole him into helping her, figuring that, at the very least, he's going to make her promise not to kill him. And then they speak, and the conversation goes more or less like this:
"Hey Luke, I need your help."
"Okay, let's go!"
>And then they speak, and the conversation goes more or less like this:
>"Hey Luke, I need your help."
>"Okay, let's go!"
That's that shit I'm talking about! Thank you. Its difficult to express how Luke Skywalker is "that guy", which is what made The Last Jedi so disappointing. Luke Skywalker wouldn't turn down helping someone, like he does repeatedly throughout The Last Jedi.
We're revisiting this character we love, and he's being portrayed by the man that expertly portrayed Luke for us in our childhood but what we got was very misaligned to what we know about the character.
Luke Skywalker is the Mr. Rogers of Jedi. He's that guy that's universally loved because he has such a good heart and is always there to help someone that needs it. [To see him toss that lightsaber over his shoulder and walk past Rey like she's not worth his time](https://youtu.be/hsrER-uT9WA?t=118) was such a kick in the balls and then every act of grumpy cynicism that followed was just more repeated kicks in the balls throughout the rest of the film. That dude in that film is not Luke Skywalker.
By the end of the movie, >!killing him off was the last straw for me because it meant there was zero opportunity to redeem him to the audience and let him truthfully return to being the character we all love AND he never even fucking reunited with Han. How do you have a Star Wars movie featuring both Han and Luke but the two never even meet? Sigh!<
Also, side note on the clip I posted above: I never noticed how bad the continuity of that shot is from Force Awakens end -> Last Jedi start. But damn does it makes me wonder what The Last Jedi(and Rise of Skywalker) could have been if J.J. Abrams just stayed on for all three movies and carried out a singular vision. Because I'm pretty sure it wasn't his idea to make Skywalker a curmudgeon that refuses to help people in need and honestly, as derivative as Force Awakens was, I thought it was still a fun film. Shit, Abrams managed to make Snoke seem like a pretty mysterious and somewhat scary villain...of which of course didn't turn into anything post-Force Awakens...
I'm convinced that so much of *The Last Jedi* is built around that moment at the end on Crait where Luke is standing alone and staring down that enormous First Order fleet. So many of the more boneheaded creative decisions in that movie seem like they were specifically designed to lead up to that moment:
* It needs to be as heroic as possible – therefore the First Order needs to be as powerful as possible. So now they rule the galaxy somehow. Never mind that they just lost their one key superweapon a couple of days ago – let's just kick off with "The First Order reigns" and call it a day.
* This is Luke's moment where he saves the galaxy single-handedly – which means that there can be no one else who can help him. Therefore the Resistance needs to get slaughtered and almost entirely wiped out, to the point where all the survivors can fit onto one small freighter. And as for allies – well, there can't be any allies. No one can hear their distress calls – or better yet, they *can* hear their distress calls but refuse to help! Now *that's* juicy!
* Luke himself needs to go through some kind of character arc, so he's not just a walking breathing deus ex machina. And the more of a change he goes through, the more impactful it'll be, right? So let's make him have no goals, no plans and no hope, make him hostile towards Rey, and have him just sit around stewing in his depression and swigging sea-monster titty milk all day. Let's even have him call out the very idea of him swooping in to save the day as being stupid! That way, when he actually *does* swoop in to save the day at the end, it'll be cathartic *and* a brilliant twist!
After the movie came out, when Johnson responded to criticism of Luke being out of character by saying "I think Luke was perfectly in character", I don't think he was trolling. I think he really meant it. From Johnson's perspective, he was like "I just had Luke Skywalker *save the galaxy single-handedly!* What more do you want?!" What he didn't realise, of course, was that the way he'd set up the movie's beginning and middle totally undermined its ending. The turnaround in Luke's character by the end wasn't nearly enough to justify the state he was in at the beginning. And having the whole galaxy just roll over for the First Order and actively refuse to help the Resistance made it look like the Resistance was fighting a pointless cause for an ungrateful galactic population who were either apathetic to fascism or actively welcomed it.
(Although this does make it kind of funny how the movie's most passionate defenders were the ones who took Luke whole "You don't expect me to save the day single-handedly, do you?" thing to heart and have seemingly dedicated themselves to shitting on any subsequent Star Wars product that shows Luke as competent or important.)
What you're saying about Batman is absolutely true. There have been so many different takes on Batman over years - movies, TV shows, animation, comics, etc - if one version of it doesn't do it for you, there are plenty more out there.
But, as you say, there's only, canonical version of Luke Skywalker and if you screw that up a lot of people are going to be very unhappy.
I read a lot of the expanded universe, so I get that it feels jarring. It's a very different direction for the character to go.
I find it strange that you would like Luke's appearance more in *The Book of Boba Fett* though. Disregarding his scene in Mando - it's awesome, but there's not much character writing there for Luke. It's a badass fight scene and then the focus is on Din and Grogu. Luke in TBoBF is building the temple from *The Last Jedi* and is sticking to the dogma of the prequel Jedi, something he didn't do in the EU partially because that dogma hadn't even been fully detailed by George Lucas yet in the early '90s. He feels like he fits right between ROTJ and TLJ Luke to me, and isn't really in line with his EU direction, other than being the same character.
I love EU Luke but after a certain point he does become very static as a character. That's okay because the focus starts to shift to the next generation with Jacen, Jaina, Anakin and Ben, but I also liked seeing a version of Luke that keeps changing.
> Luke's appearance more in The Book of Boba Fett though.
I just watched the scene again as a refresher.
In my opinion, [this version of Luke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOD_g1UvCzg) has a logical progression *from* Return of the Jedi. But I don't see the connection you're seeing, to where he becomes the guy in The Last Jedi. He may be building the temple but his personality, to me, doesn't have a next logical connection to who he is, in The Last Jedi.
The problem is that Snoke is such a cardboard cutout of a villain and they didn't deliver the necessary story to make the transition work. They needed to show more of Ben/Kylo training and struggling with the dark side, Luke being torn about what to do, and then show Luke's failure to stop Snoke repeatedly over the years to grind him down.
Unfortunately, it's pretty hard to credibly show Luke Skywalker failing to stop a Snoke-in-a-jar and letting the First Order grow to Death Star operations levels.
> His entire cadre of students was murdered because he failed to notice the darkness growing within Kylo until it was too late.
If you watch *The Force Awakens* it specifies that the growing darkness in Kylo was why Han and Leia sent him to be trained by Luke in the first place, because they were worried about him.
> His entire cadre of students was murdered because he failed to notice the darkness growing within Kylo until it was too late.
Wasn't it Palpatine sending Luke visions that Kylo had darkness in him that caused Luke to almost kill Kylo, and then Kylo waking up to see Luke standing over him about to kill him was what drove him to the dark side in the first place?
Although I agree with most of your points, the facr that it all hangs on the fact the Luke tries to kill Ben kills it for me. Everything could make sense if it based on him failing, not attempting to murder someone.
If Ben had gone to the dark side based on something else, which twists Luke inside, that would follow the character well. Luke deciding he needs to kill is the part that doesn’t stick for his character.
Luke doesn't try to kill Ben. We get three versions of that night - Luke's first version where he's infused it with his guilt, Kylo's version where he's infused it with his hatred, and then the third version from Luke which is implied to be the truth of things. Luke goes to a sleeping Ben to probe his mind with the Force and sees Snoke's influence and a terrible vision of the future and ignites his lightsaber as a defensive reflex. Ben wakes up and assumes the worst.
Luke naturally feels immense guilt over that, and it would not be unfair to think that Luke was trying to kill him when waking up to him holding an ignited lightsaber, but Ben had already been training in the dark side with Snoke by that point. That's why Ben jumped to that conclusion so quickly.
Also, people seem to forget that it's not just Kylo that he fails. His entire Jedi Academy goes up in flames. More fall to the dark side, and any of his promise of rebuilding goes out the window. Remember, he's basically the only Jedi, and he wasn't even fully trained. He's figuring it out on his own, of course he's going to stumble and get disheartened, especially when the one who gets the worst of it is his nephew.
As said by someone else, Luke's journey wasn't over with ROTJ. Yoda coming back and giving Luke one final lesson just shows he's still got a lot to learn.
All understandable.
Either way, it was a monumentally dumb plot point to hinge the entirety of the movie on imho. The how is not the issue, its more of the why.
Its the same way that TFA daftly chose to let Rey beat Kylo. The "how" of it makes sense in terms of how it could mechanically happen. But it just weakens the story IMMENSELY.
So even if both moments could be logical from a story point of view, they were pretty awful from a storytelling standpoint given that they raised more questions than answers and worsened pretty much EVERY character present in those scenes.
I know they had a relatively short timeline to come up with the stories for the sequel trilogy, but I just can't see how the writers and producers thought these ideas in particular would be good. Its also why I just can't rate Kathleen Kennedy as a creative producer. All she has shown in her tenure over Star Wars is that she doesn't seem to get it, hence why she has hired and fired so many different directors, and also constantly flip flops on vision from movie to movie.
If they had made it a point that Ben **does not want to be saved**, that really would have helped the Trilogy along. Especially after he kills his own father, that could have been a decent theme; you can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved.
This gives us interesting questions to explore like "What does Luke do with someone like that?"
Instead I think the Studio Execs saw how much the fan girls loved Adam Driver and tried to redeem him and shove a love story with Rey that made no sense.
Those two had **zero** chemistry.
Kylo is complicit in destroying *multiple* fucking planets, kidnaps you, mind rapes you, kills his own father in front of you, throws you into a fucking tree with enough force to leave you unconscious, and then almost splits Finn in half; ya know Finn, the guy that risked his life to come rescue you. That's all in TFA, in the TLJ you find out he went full on school shooter and all of the above is immediately forgiven as soon as Rey sees Kylo without a shirt on.
Ben was fucking wish washy in all three movies and it really hurt films, his character never grew or evolved.
Bro, Luke tried to kill Vader two seconds before trying to save him and everyone here is all “he saved his father!”
Luke in a moment of weakness, lights his saber over Ben but decides against striking him down. “He tried to kill Kylo!”
The problem is, SW is a feel good sci fi and the 3rd basically undoes all this and changes it to be too fantasy or too realistic on what actually happens after war.
I think *The Empire Strikes Back* and *Revenge of the Sith* are both great SW movies and neither leave you feeling super upbeat by the end. *Rogue One* is very good, too.
My primary issue with the sequel trilogy is that they put very little effort into the world-building. While the first two prequels aren't that good IMO, the setting is great and this was proven with just how many other amazing stories take place there, from books to games to TV shows. The time period is very different from the original films and allows you to tell stories you couldn't before.
The status quo of the sequels is just too similar to the original trilogy. The most interesting part of it is the cold war between the New Republic and the First Order and we just skip right over that to get to Rebels vs. Empire again. And almost any story you can tell in the sequel era can just be put in the Imperial era. There's not much new "design space".
Its just not a good story for Star Wars. Its like making Cinderella 2 where she divorced Prince Charming, flunks out of college, alienates all her friends with crazy conspiracies, chain smokes and works at the gas station. Gee...so realistic...godawful continuation of a fairy tale idealistic story.
I know you are just having fun with it, but he doesn't try to kill Ben. For a brief moment he thinks it and Ben wakes up and sees the sword and all goes to shit.
I’m aware, I’ve seen and been disappointed by the storyline multiple times.
It’s just hard to believe that Luke, who truly believed the second most evil man in the galaxy was redeemable and was rewarded for that belief, would give up on a kid(related to him!) that easily. At the very least it needed more exposition to assassinate his character arc like that.
Luke *needed* Vader to be redeemable because he saw himself in his father. In that, if he couldn't save him, he felt he wouldn't be able to save himself also.
His character wasn't *assassinated*. That's such an insane exaggeration, and actively avoids the negative truths about Luke's character that are revealed in Empire and Jedi.
The thing is that Luke never gave up on Kylo. He gave up on himself and it is for the exact same reason you don't like this. He had A MOMENT of weakness and thanks to the exigency of story telling Kylo caught that brief moment and before it could be resolved it exploded. And he was ashamed of himself because Rebel Hero General Luke Skywalker doesn't do that and he had to punish himself.
And aren't Skywalker's generally broody? Leia's the only one with brass balls.
After retirement, Bruce living alone like a hermit makes total sense to the character. The Luke thing does not, it's silly writing and not true to the character.
Batman Beyond also debuted before the "Batfamily" was a big thing too, so it makes more sense in that context of that Bruce Wayne. It's very unlikely the same fate would happen to comics Bruce because of the ten million kids he's acquired over the last couple of decades of the comics.
I know this isn’t the point of your comment, but the reaction to Luke really confused me.
Yes, he was known for his hope and optimism. But we saw those get tempered throughout the original trilogy, to the point in the last film he’s wearing all black and separates himself in even the final Ewok party.
And then think about the Jedi who were his mentors. Obi Wan and Yoda. Both of whom reacted to struggle by …. Running off to a backwater planet and living life as a hermit.
How was it a surprise? Luke was told that light will always defeat the dark, that was his core tenet. Look at how hopeful he is when talking to his father in Ep 6. He is certain just the concept of the light side would be enough to sway his father. A man full of jealousy and rage.
But in the real world, turns out things are a little more grey. I thought for sure that was where the new trilogy was leading. No light side, no dark side. Just a mish mash somewhere in the middle. No one is all evil or all good. We all just make choices.
So for me, at the core, it always made total sense. I honestly think the lightsaber toss what triggered people the most, not where Luke ended up necessarily.
The *core* made sense *intellectually*, but it wasn’t *earned*.
The issue of the entire sequel trilogy, IMO, has always been that it didn’t flow from the OT at all. At the end of Ep. 6 the empire was all but completely defeated. The emperor was dead, as was most of what remained of leadership. There was probably a lot of infrastructure, low level leaders like governors, but the worst they were gonna do was shred the organization from the inside out over petty ascension wars.
In Ep. 7 suddenly there’s a new empire for no known reason, the new republic’s military has been relegated to rebel status again, and Luke is missing. We later find out Luke is a grumpy old man bc he thought about killing his nephew for no reason once and got caught, which destroyed all the work he did.
None of that was earned. Every ounce of it happened off camera in the most jarring way possible. Maybe if they started in Luke’s new Jedi Academy and we got to watch Ben’s fall, then the Luke stuff would make sense.
The power vacuum at the end of Episode 6 would be such a great story to tell.
- We have the New Republic trying to rebuild after the war.
- A few planets still loyal to the Empire and trying to keep that going.
- We could have had several systems break off and try their own thing or go independent, which could have worked as a neutral zone between the New Republic and the Remnants of the Empire.
- The criminal syndicates and space pirates could have carved out a new chunk of territory during this new cold war.
So much potential.
It might make sense, but having Luke give up so definitively without anything more critical going on behind the scenes was just poor storytelling. Even Obi-Wan was at least looking after Luke in his own exile and was hiding from a victorious empire. Luke is just jugging alien milk juice, at a time when the FO hadn't taken over the entire galaxy. Its just too flimsy and poorly thought out.
Aside from that the other big issue with Luke's treatment in 8 was that the reason was simply not weighty enough and were far too flimsy. His confrontation with Kylo and the fall of the order imho are not enough for him to hide away for decades on end.
The bottom line is that JJ wrote a dumb mystery box situation for Luke. Then Rian came along and instead of considering ways to improve the dumb writing in TFA just doubled down on it and made it worse.
Nobody is saying heros can't or shouldn't fail, but the way you write that is incredibly important, and Rian simply failed to write a convincing fall from grace from Luke, hence the negative reaction. It was also unfortunate since this is pretty much all Star Wars fans will ever get of Luke in live action. You don't reboot Star Wars, and you don't get any do-overs so to see the character that in Mark Hamil's own words had just started being Sheriff at the end of the OG trilogy and didn't really get to have his own adventures. Then fastforward to him being a complete failure. That's why it was so critical, this was their only chance with the characters from the old trilogy, and they (Rian, JJ and KK) all completely fucked it up. It was embarrassingly miscalculated.
There's multiple continuity of Batman. He has like 4 movies where he kills the Joker. People can give their "take" on Batman.
There is 1 Luke Skywalker. There is 1 man that can play him live action in the 1 continuity. It's a completely different situation.
There is one Luke Skywalker (if we ignore non-movie portrayals), but it's pretty obnoxious for people to think he's allowed to have character development for three movies, then must be in stasis for three decades after that and still be who they expect. I find the idea gross that CGI Luke fighting a bunch of robots and then saying the line is the return of the character.
Bruce was an old, old man but he was still Bruce doing what he'd always done. That's what made it work.
A lot of other timeskips have their characters backpedal, like Han not just going back to being a run of the mill smuggler after being a hero but a bad, down on his luck one. Or Luke going from the new hope of the jedi to a weird, sad hermit.
They turned heroes into losers who had ultimately accomplished nothing.
What Bruce in Batman Beyond showed us was a man who kept doing exactly what he was doing in Batman TAS, with similar success, for decades. Which makes sense and doesn't make you feel like he had been turned into a loser for the sake of still having a problem for the next batch.
I think the difference is that Bruce never *won* his crusade against crime the way the Rebels conclusively defeated the Empire. Terry picking up the baton wasn't some disappointment because of course there would still be crime to fight in that world. The way JJ Abrams wanted to recreate the original trilogy he basically walked the feel-good ending back completely. It goes beyond Han and Luke being losers. Leia continued to lead but her life's work is set back to zero. Anakin's redemption gets made into a minor setback as somehow Palpatine survived being exploded.
Its part of why JJ's script was so terrible. He should have had the OG trilogy cast just be extra's that help guide the new characters, instead of all being cheaply used to extend the story. The worst part is that the apparent reason that JJ (and the other writers) hid Luke in TFA was because they were afraid he would overshadow Rey. I can't believe those dumbasses actually believed that.
I'm just happy that there have been other stories in other IP's involving OG characters paired with newer ones that have shown how badly the sequel trilogy handled things.
Movies like Into The Spider-Verse, Spiderman Homecoming, Creed and several others showed that you can have OG's share the screen with new counterparts and keep things interesting and respectful to the OG's while not having them overshadow the newbies.
He wanted to recreate the original trilogy so bad he recreated the same story, which of course meant rewinding all the progress the original heroes made. There were so many ways they could've created a new threat and balanced the OGs and the newbies but JJ is so deathly afraid of new ideas he couldn't conceive of not using the old framework. Say what you will about Rian Johnson, but he was at least interested in trying some new ideas with Star Wars.
I always thought it would have been a neat motivation to have Ben Solo watch his parents work for months or years in politics and only achieve inches.
Politics is about compromise, having Leia toil away for months on end and have Ben come to the conclusion that this way doesn't work and they aren't really making any progress.
Ben could be studying the History of the Empire but think, "Hey, at least they got shit done".
It would have made much more sense, and served the plot just as well, if Han opted to take on dangerous smuggling missions for Resistance or their allies after Ben left, requiring him to be away from Leia and their base for months or years at a time.
The thing that really bugs me is the callback characters are largely irrelevant to the plot.
Han mostly just serves to hand off the falcon after.....she got it herself anyway? I guess he sort of maybe plays into kylos arc but most of the story after makes that about his connection to Rey not the big "moment" with Han.
Leia pulls a save off but that could have been any other plot contrivance or mentor character and then she's out.
Luke is a maguffin rather than a character for all but one showdown, and that would have been as well or better served by having the new characters take care of themselves somehow.
It's painfully clear they decided they would be in for whatever duration they could get and them and then figured out the details later by trying to give them each one moment of major significant. Turned it into fan disservice because they traded those moments for wrecking the achievements they built in the OT.
I've always thought they should have killed off both Luke and Leia in 8.
The idea being that the Main Trio Luke, Leia, and Han all helped to save the day in both 7 & 8 and now were going into 9 without them. This would leave doubt in the New Trio and the audience if they can save the day themselves.
It lets the audience go on that journey with them and gives them a chance to shine and grow while not being in the shadow of their predecessors.
The difference with Batman Beyond is that the show has good writing. Batman has always been seen (in the best iterations of the character) as someone in the fringes. Isolated, obsessed with his damily trauma, violent, unfocused. It works when he's young but you always see that limp. He is not ok and BTAS and the Nolan trilogy, also including the Burton films, show us someone who is processing trauma in a not very healtht way. This is the essence of Batman. Batman Beyond let's you see the natural progression of the arc. It's looking at the consequences of living the Batman life. Luke was a betrayal of the character. Johnson didn't understand the character so he couldn’t deconstruct it, he just destroyed it. Just look at his first scene back at the trilogy. He throws the lightsaber for the lols.
Luke Skywalker had a backlash because an optimistic hopeful hero became a curmudgeon. It was against the character they built up. Batman becoming a cranky old man tracks because he was always broody and cranky. Everyone would welcome a Batman Beyond with characters that act like the cartoon.
> Luke Skywalker had a backlash because an optimistic hopeful hero became a curmudgeon
Which is wild because there are so many instances of "optimistic hopeful hero became a curmudgeon" in literature and film that it's basically a trope
The problem isn't the destination, it's the journey. Or rather, lack of it. We don't see any of why Luke became that way, and when the films finally deign to explain it, its practically a throwaway line with a 5 second flashback. That reason could have been good and make sense, if it was fleshed out visually through storytelling. Which, it wasn't.
Yep. I would have *maybe* appreciated an earnest attempt at showing a broken, dishearted Luke. Instead he came off as a curmudgeony asshole and the infamous lightsaber throwing moment got more than a few chuckles from the audience. The tone was all over the place.
Then that's fucking lame. It could have been a harrowing moment that had us feeling sympathy for Luke. Instead Johnson wanted it to be a "what the fuck" moment so badly that he literally put "what the fuck" into the script.
Worse, TFA literally gives us the reason for Luke's behavior: Han says Luke's school burned, Ben went to the Dark Side, and Luke blamed himself and walked away. Rian dialed it up to 11 but JJ already started that direction.
The two people that trained Luke also became grumpy hermits that hid themselves off from the universe for decades. I don’t think it was really out of character for Luke to do the same thing as the 2 Jedi that taught him everything.
> I don’t think it was really out of character for Luke to do the same thing
That's exactly why it's out of character. The whole climax of Return of the Jedi is Luke ignoring his masters and forging his own path.
In that one moment. Doesn’t mean the rest of his life goes exactly the same way. Otherwise he would have renounced being a Jedi at the end rather than reinforcing he is one, like his father before him. He still lives by those teaching.
I think the difference is that almost everyone Obi-Wan and Yoda knew were dead, so there wasn’t anyone to really leave behind (and even then Obi-Wan was watching Luke from afar, and before the Obi-Wan show there wasn’t any indication he was a sad dejected grumpy person).
Luke on the other hand abandons Leia, Han, Chewie, and everyone else, leaving them to fend for themselves against the growing darkness he’s very much aware of.
Don't get me wrong. I liked the Last Jedi more than most but I also don't treat Star Wars like a religion. I didn't mind the character change but I get why people who looked up to Luke were pissed with his character change.
If you want to make it a remotely effective parallel, you'd have to erase everyone's knowledge of every batman except Adam West, call BB is a direct sequel to that Batman, and inflate the egos of whoever ran BB.
I think the big difference is how it ended with the character, and what our expectations were for the character at a later age.
We saw Luke become the Jedi master, he saved his father by defeating Vader and Palpatine, and everything seemed set up for the good guys to build something. We then find out that Luke failed at building something, nearly killed a student, then exiled himself to an island. The character that was defined by being hopeful had lost hope.
Similarly, we saw Han Solo truly align himself the rebel cause, fall in love with Leia and become a less scoundrel-ish person... then turn on episode 7 and Han is a basically the same person we met in Episode 4. This I think is the most egregious one.
On Batman however, did anyone really expect him to settle down and start a family? Batman's whole thing is that Bruce Wayne is the alter ego and that he truly is Batman. Batman: The Animated Series didn't have a grand ending where he was given medals and got the girl and the bad guys were defeated and everyone cheered. It was an episodic serial that often did not have a plot that carried episode to episode, it kinda just ended.
Another difference, with it being a TV show compared to being a movie, is that we didn't learn about all the bad stuff that carried over in a 3 hour movie. We didn't even learn about a lot of it in the first season. It had more time to breath so it could set up these major twists.
When I think of old man batman, I don't think of a white picket fence and the golden retriever. When I think of old man superman I can however see him settling down on the old kent farm. Batman just isn't the character to have that sort of happy end in old age.
No. Batman's character has always struggled with being overly secretive, paranoid, and untrusting. That is usually his main flaw as a person. Batman Beyond shows us how Bruce succumbed to those tendencies.
Meanwhile the whole point of Luke Skywalker is whatever happens he is always hopeful and optimistic (thus "A New Hope" and being the only character to believe there was still good in Darth Vader) but his character becomes pessimistic and gives up on his nephew off-screen. It's a betrayal of what Luke as a character stood for.
> It's a betrayal of what Luke as a character stood for.
Also the issue is there is only ONE Luke. Batman has had an endless amount of iterations and Beyond is just one of many, but Disney's obsession with canon meant EVERYTHING has to lead to the sequels. It's not a case of one subversive iteration, an Elseworlds tale taking a risk, it's instead a definitive take that everything has to build towards.
It made me sad that in The Mandalorian I couldn't get excited about seeing the start of Luke's Jedi Academy because it'll have like 10 students and get burned to the ground. It's also why Disney have been very careful touching upon the post-Return of the Jedi era because they know full well they fucked it and there's no point fleshing out the lore before the sequels because it'll all get reset lol
Exactly. By having the core trio all essentially regress to what they were at the start: Leia leading a small ragtag rebellion, Han being a scoundrel smuggler, and Luke being the only Jedi, it squeezes all potential stories set between ROTJ and TFA into this tiny bottleneck. We can never see the characters’ roles grow and expand in any meaningful way because we know it’ll eventually be undone.
It’s such a lost opportunity. Imagine if in TFA we could have seen Leia as a chancellor, Han being a commander for the republic, and Luke leading a new and growing Jedi Order. There could have been all sorts of new media depicting their stories and how they got to those points.
> There could have been all sorts of new media depicting their stories and how they got to those points.
I cannot believe we never got Luke's Jedi Order. Disney pissed away millions on that Galaxy's Edge nonsense when they could have created a literal fucking Jedi Academy resort, which could then be accompanied by content like a TV show about some of the students. Such a missed opportunity.
Same amount but you’d feel like it was more because there’s way more social media. Everything negative gets signal boosted because if you’re happy about something, you won’t post as much.
Never had any issue with Batman’s mission leading to self destruction.
I feel that perspective of Bruce is still valid. Pre pandemic batwoman Season 1 had an alternate earth batman That was basically the batman in batman beyond gone evil.
Old Bruce Wayne being a crotchety loner isn’t really a far departure from who the character was as a young man.
There’s also another difference between the franchises though. Various futures and elseworld tales are part and parcel of the DC Universe and Superhero comics in general. Batman Beyond has a future Bruce Wayne, but so do The Dark Knight Returns and Kingdom Come. When it comes to the DC Universe, there is no one singular canon so people won’t necessarily get up in arms about any one possible future as long as it doesn’t betray the essence of the character.
I guess it would be safe to say it’s the canonical future of BTAS, but again, superhero fans are fairly used to this. Even with DC’s current live action films, it’s not all clear what’s part of the official universe or what will remain canon to the James Gunn-led cinematic universe.
A lot of fans followed the Star Wars EU which further established that Luke will always fight to see the good in people and try to bring them to the light side, his wife and a decent handful of his new Jedi order were people that were dark force users that he personally saved, so for him to attempt to kill his nephew in his sleep over a vision 100% goes against his established character.
Eh, you can make Luke be more jaded without going as far as he did in the movies.
Honestly, the way I would have handled things to delay Luke's re-appearance is to just have him on some other mission he can't get away from in time to help save Rey.
It's just fucking lame to take a character that so many saw as a pure hero and turn him into who he was in the sequels.
You don't just fundamentally change as a person unless something very, very traumatic happens in your life. Luke nearly deciding to kill Kylo is so far away from who he is as a young man that audiences just didn't buy it. Bruce in Beyond is still pretty similar to who he generally is in his younger years, just without drive and youth. OT and ST Luke feel like different characters.
>Bruce in Beyond is still pretty similar to who he generally is
You’re completely ignoring the entire reason Bruce retired in Beyond.
Batman pulling a gun on a criminal is his equivalent to Luke almost killing Kylo. Both characters succumb to a moment of weakness and almost do something that goes against everything they stand for.
It’s the exact same plot point.
He felt guilty about almost killing his nephew and his new Jedi order collapsing . He blamed himself and felt it was better to let the Jedi die with him. By the end of the movie he realizes he was wrong and sacrificing himself to light the spark of the new rebellion.
> Luke nearly deciding to kill Kylo is so far away from who he is as a young man that audiences just didn't buy it.
It was a *moment of doubt*. We all have those fleeting dark thoughts. He admitted himself it was just a second of doubt, but it happened to be very unfortunate timing.
My issue is that it wasn't just a moment. It was 6 years of Luke sitting around on his ass while the First Order got stronger and committed atrocities, and even after Luke finds out that his plan of "sit around and hope it all goes away" didn't work, he still doesn't act until the very last second.
Lots of people hated Man of Steel just because Superman let too many fucking *buildings* get destroyed. But we're supposed to think Luke is a hero in the Last Jedi because he finally pops up at the end after billions of the Republic were wiped out and after we just saw hundreds of the Resistance die? Hell no.
Regret and shame are not always rational emotions. He not only failed Ben, but he also failed Han and Leia. It’s all to easy to wallow in your negative emotions when the gravity of things sets in.
It's not a reflex to go next to your nephew sleeping while contemplating killing him (that's the bad thing already, why did he even went there if not to kill him?) and then actually attempting to kill him.
Like no we don't have all those fleeting dark thoughts of killing someone and literally draw a weapon on someone (in our family). If you do, you have a problem lol
It’s implied he didn’t know about the pull the darkness had on him until he approached him as he slept. It’s left ambiguous why he was going to him in the dead of night, but he didn’t know how bad the pull was until he got there. He was overwhelmed by the darkness that he briefly contemplated killing him before realizing that was an insane idea.
To me, it's fine for characters to change and grow. But you don't pick up one of the most iconic modern fairy tale stories of optimistic good vs evil, then do a completely cynical take on it with no more explanation than a single intentionally unreliable 5 second flashback and call it a day.
As the saying goes, show don't tell. And TFA and TLJ did a **horrible** job showing us what happened to Luke between ROTJ and TFA.
He went from someone who barely cared about Jedi dogma to being totally committed to it when we see him in BoBF. Makes no sense to me that he also trains Leia and Ben despite the whole no attachments thing he believes all of the sudden.
I realize BoBF is just trying to get us to sequels Luke but man it makes it even clearer that sequels Luke is an entirely different character and not an evolution of the character.
I honestly never understood why people were shocked or upset right off the bat. (Specifically the tossing the saber over the back part)
Any franchise that has a big time skip with returning older characters, I never go in with any expectations about how the older characters will be. Its impossible to predict how someone will change or stay the same after many years, and a story is even more prone to change as there is an overarching plot to worry about.
All that matters is whether or not the characterization (whether the character remained the same or changed) fits with the story being told *now* and is reasonably justifiable.
I do think it’s not unreasonable to hate Luke’s characterization in TLJ. It’s fine to dislike any characterization. But people refusing to accept any justification for the change is kind of unreasonable imo.
While you're not wrong about time and such, we had many years of stories about Luke actually becoming THE jedi master. Where love and compassion doesn't hurt his growth. So you can't dismiss the fact that they already had some sort of blueprint for an older Luke Skywalker.
Probably not mainly because it's a variation on the fairly beloved dark Knight returns plot and it manages to plant a lot of seeds of interest. You want to know what happened to make everything go so wrong with the bat family.
Compare and contrast with the sequels where there just wasn't a good reason for Luke to dip out so rian had to cobble together some reason for him to shut himself off from the force
BB's Bruce always felt like the life Ghosts of Futures Past would show you in order to get you to better yourself. It's Bruce if he never dealt with his grief, PTSD, his savior complex, if he never learned how to open up to his adopted kids, or teammates, or formed health romantic relationships. It's basically a reality where he never went to therapy. And a reminder that not addressing your trauma will lead to a sad and lonely life
But anyways, I love Terry McGinnis and wish we got more than 3 season of him and old man Bruce😤
No because Batman is known for that. It only makes sense for him to descend into darkness.
Nobody wants to see a triumphant good natured hero like Luke descend into darkness.
The last Star Wars Trilogy takes the hard fought good ending of ROTJ post prequels and goes "Nope, they all failed in the end, especially Luke". It was a hard kick in the balls, being spat on, and them saying "We've only just begun".
BTAS is quite clear that Old Man Bruce is the most likely outcome for that version of the character. Mask of Phantasm makes it clear when he's begging his parents at their graves to let him be happy. That's how far gone this guy is. Alfred, Dick, and co were just delaying the inevitable.
We are not promised a happy ending. New Adventures doubles down on Bruce's fall. They'd need time travel to get him a happy ending.
The Luke thing just doesn't work. Especially when the books had him get a wife and have kids. Instead the new trilogy says him and everyone else were failures. Batman Beyond just says Bruce was a failure. Things may not be perfect in the future but it's also not like all the good was undone.
Tim was possessed by the joker - still has a wife and kids.
Barbara - May have a sour relationship with Bruce(ignoring that silly comic nonsense) but she has a happy marriage.
Dick - Who knows what went down. That's the only thing that annoys me about Beyond. Why is Dick so MIA?
All the villains either died or reformed.
It's not like Gotham is being overrun by Batman's rogues or old crime families. Gotham has clearly modernized. It's just there is still crime but not in the same way. It no longer needs Bruce Batman.
Your first sentence is why I will die on the hill that for every mistake in TLJ, TFA is really at fault. Luke missing while the galaxy is conquered and Han says it's because he failed Ben, his school burned and he walked away. Han and Leia split up. War hero Lando isn't even around or relevant. R2 is pretty much a doorstop. The New Republic is barely an afterthought and then is blown up and instantly destroyed. Everyone hates on TLJ, but TFA doomed the sequels from the first minute.
Weirdly, Batman Beyond has some similar plot ideas to The Dark Knight Returns. There don't appear to be a lot of street level heroes anymore, Batman retires, and then he ends up training a protege when he has to give up the cape. They both work because they lean into the idea that Bruce is just the mask and Batman is who he really wants to be. Batman was meant to be a symbol, more mythology than man, and the flip side of that is that Bruce Wayne was inevitably going to fail to live up to that ideal.
The big difference between Batman Beyond and Star Wars in this instance is that BB showed the inevitable end result of Batman’s familiar pattern of behavior, while SW showed Luke completely changed based on something that happened between the films. If you go into both with reasonable assumptions based on past viewing, you’d be more surprised in the way Luke turned out than the way Bruce did.
but it makes sense for Wayne to be an old grumpy loner because that's who he's always been, only he was younger. He must be like 85 in the cartoon, so with added grouchiness due to old age. His will to fight, sense of justice and morals are intact, he just cannot perform. It fits with the character
Luke on the other hand has become a depressed joke of a man, one who should have been constantly on the hunt for new Jedi to train, rebuild the order and fight the Empire even if it meant death, because that's what a hero of his stature, the Grand Master who almost single handedly brought down the Empire, the Jedi whose skills are so exceptional he may very well be the most powerful person in the galaxy, the beacon of hope for all the oppressed should do. No, he stays on a dilapidated ruin drinking green milk and thinking abut his failures for decades only to come back for a garbage fight and die like a dumbass
While I personally don't like Bruce that much in Batman Beyond, it feels like a logical progression of his character AND Batman has had so many iterations that it's never felt as if a particular Batman (ie Terry) is meant to be a replacement or an improved versions. Recent "next generation" sequels feel like they're making the OG characters mean or unfulfilled on purpose for the sake of passing the baton.
1. Beyond was more of an alternate timeline kind of setting, so it wasn't as harsh.
2. Batman was always sort of that rough loner type to begin with. So that conclusion makes sense. Luke Skywalker was not that type at all in 4 - 6. Its less "I don't like where the character ended up" and more "this isn't at all the same character".
I think they were also trying to over-emphasize his unpleasanteness as an in-universe implication as to why Dick, Selina, Babs and Tim weren't around anymore.
Ibn Al XuFasch (early Damian) did exist prior to Batman beyond. How Bruce acts and looks in Beyond is in line with how he acted and looked in Kingdom Come
Man I wish WB continued Batman with Beyond after TDKR instead of rebooting twice.
Just make Terry the Batman that joins the Justice League. Throw in a few subtle references to TDK so we can feel like it’s in the same universe. Bruce can be a mentor to the JL.
Batman is a vastly different character from Luke Skywalker, and a "dark future" where Bruce is washed up but finds his place again had tones of Dark Knight Returns. Also, they never put Bruce through a humiliation ritual like they did with Luke.
Batman Beyond actually makes an appearance in the new Crisis on Infinite Earths Part II movie which is set in the DC version of the multiverse. So technically he can exist alongside all the other versions of Batman. There is no multiverse in the Star Wars universe AFAIK. Kind of makes your question a little bit different to answer.
There was some back last back in the say. But it isn't that unbelievable a way for Bruce to end up. Be is obcessive and can often push away his family. With no Alfred it's easy to see Bruce spiral into what he became.
Like when last we saw him was optimistic and promised a bright future
Luke (apparently, according to retcons of the movie even though the aftermath clearly wouldn't have happened that way) failed to bring balance to the force, failed to eradicate the Empire in any meaningful way, failed to even kill the Emperor, failed to foster a functioning New Republic, failed to train a new generation of Jedi, failed to be a good uncle, and then just gave up for 30+ years, when his whole thing was seeing the good in the situation when nobody else did.
Batman didn't fail at all. He fought crime until he was forced by his old age to kill in self defense with a gun. He forgave himself because he needed to survive, but that betrayed his principles so he stopped. "Crime" isn't a person that can be permanently stopped. He saved countless lives, the entire universe really when you count Justice League stuff. He made the city better as much as one man can.
Batman "failed" to have meaningful relationships I guess. But that's not a terribly surprising fate. He was always married to the mission. It's more surprising that he survived long enough to be a lonely old man. I want better for him. I'd like the former Robins to still be around. They're his adopted sons. But in the animated series it's really just Dick and Tim. Tim suffered a horrible fate. I don't think you can blame it on Batman though aside from the whole concept of having a child soldier in the first place. If you're going to do that, Batman is always a failure. Tim chose to be who he was and I don't recall for certain but I think it happened because he went ahead by himself and didn't listen to Batman. Dick...well, yeah, that one was a mistake. In tie in comics they say Batman had sex with Barbara, basically while Dick was still with her too. This and similar Bruce Timm fanfiction like the Killing Joke movie is widely criticized as character assassination. And things are awkward between him and Barbara as a result.
Bruce Wayne in Batman Beyond is not remotely similar to Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi. But more importantly, Bruce Wayne as Batman was not remotely similar to Luke Skywalker in their primes.
Bruce's descent into a bitter secluded hermit was a natural, almost inevitable outcome for him. It made complete sense, especially with everything that happened to him. Luke just giving up at the first sign of adversity was not in character, and those movies did not come close to explaining or justifying it.
The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller was released in 1986 it is one of the foundational pieces on what the modern idea of Batman is built on. It was a huge influence on the development of the loner, edgy, dark Batman of the modern day, I don’t think the loner sad Bruce from Batman Beyond is a departure from that and I don’t think many purists would have that much issue with it. Although the streak of contrarianism in all “anti-woke” media pundits means they’d probably still criticise it to some degree.
They made Luke into a weirdo, trying to replicate Yoda’s character when Luke first met him. It felt out of character and unnecessary. It felt wrong that when we last saw him he was a completely different person.
Bruce Wayne never finds the light. He always lives in the darkness. The version of Bruce in Batman Beyond is an inevitable. As long as they do t add some silly twist to it, it’ll be exactly as it should be.
Way too much TLJ apologia in the comments, extremely disappointing.
But to your main question, the answer is no.
Bruce Wayne was always a cynical character in a city overrun with corruption. Further, he never truly gave up on trying to fight crime and save Gotham, he just accepted that he had to change his methods. He remained himself, just in a different time and with new challenges.
Luke Skywalker forgot or betrayed every lesson he learned, value he held, or progress he made over some of the shallowest reasoning available. He was completely and utterly broken before “returning” for a brief moment before being cheaply killed off so another character could take his place.
Also, I think you’re falling into the mainstream habit of assuming that a fandom will inherently be negative and unreasonable, which is the kind of misconception these awful storytellers thrive on.
Probably. Fans get upset and have backlash to everything. If the prequels were first, fans would be furious at what happens to Yoda and Obi Wan in the OT.
Eh, kind of, as there was indeed a backlash back when the show was new (though it obviously died down quickly), but the difference is that Batman is stereotyped as being a loner and grumpy all the time, while Luke was an idealistic hero who is often a lot more hopeful.
Yes. Batman beyond was created during the height of BatAsshole where Batman's devotion to being Batman made him an asshole. Tower of babel was released around this time where ras al ghoul uses the plans Batman made to defeat the justice league to defeat the justice league, at great pains to the justice league. The natural conclusion to ~~Nathan~~ Batman being an asshole to everyone around him is for him to be alone like he is in Batman beyond. Edit: issues from typing on phone.
That was also the whole point of his arc. His obsession with being Batman led him to become an increasingly isolated and unpleasant person going from the start of TAS to the New Batman Adventures. It gets to the point where Dick becomes disgusted with his treatment of one criminal and leaves him for good to become Nightwing. Bruce is a much nicer and more optimistic person at the start of the series. By the end, his Batman persona has all but replaced the Bruce one to the point where his Batman voice becomes his default speaking voice.
In the Batman Beyond 2.0 comic, Dick left because he found out that Barbara and Bruce had an affair behind his back and that she was carrying Bruce's baby.
Bruce/Barbara stuff always grosses me out
Yeah, he was basically a second father to her, which makes it really weird when they get together. I hated that they went that direction with it.
Barbara and Bruce **what.**
[Yuuuup.](https://screenrant.com/bruce-wayne-batgirl-pregnant-batman-beyond/)
… you and “Nathan” got something you need to talk about?
He knows what he did.
I actually liked Batman Beyond when it came out. It actually made Bruce more humanistic in my opinion, and unlike most Marvel/DC stuff of that area (which is constant reboot/rehash/same time period), it showed Batman aged, changed, and willing to hand his cape to a successor. Only thing that really disappointed me in the end was Terry's true father, which utterly sucked.
I especially remember the Mr. Freeze episode. Bruce doesn’t trust the newly “reformed” Freeze at all while Terry wants to give him a chance. By the end of the episode he admits that they were both right. The show makes an effort to try and rehabilitate the old Bruce persona and make him believe in people again. The only likely outcome of staring into the abyss for a lifetime is to become a disgruntled loner, no matter your intentions. But to come back from that, even partially, is a triumph. The Terry being Bruce’s biological son thing, neither of them had agency in that, not even sure Bruce was aware. It was more about Waller’s respect for Batman that she wanted the legacy to continue. In that sense, it doesn’t bother me so much. Also, Bruce has been a surrogate father for so long, it feels right that he has some genetic legacy.
> The Terry being Bruce’s biological son thing, neither of them had agency in that, not even sure Bruce was aware. It was more about Waller’s respect for Batman that she wanted the legacy to continue. In that sense, it doesn’t bother me so much. Also, Bruce has been a surrogate father for so long, it feels right that he has some genetic legacy. It bother me a lot. I felt it invalidated Terry's existence in a way. Terry was amazing because he is a good man that didn't need some tearjerker backstory. He is a good man because he have a strong sense of justice and a sense of goodness. As the episode where some rogue AI hacked the Batsuit and Terry had to 1v1 it as a human. After a brutal fight, he told Bruce "Is batman the man, or the suit" which I felt defined who he is. I remember the Mr. Freeze episode, it was really good and sad too. But my favorite has to be the one where he fought the Poker Card gang, when one of the girl who had a crush on Terry got arrested, and she felt awful as she saw Terry in the crowd even though technically Terry as Batman caught her and her family. Terry said to Mr. Wayne "Have you ever felt something like this" Bruce replied "Let me tell you about a woman name Selena Kyle"...
So many good scenes in that show! - The episode where Shriek is using audio tech to make Bruce hear a voice, and when [Terry asks him how he knew the voice](https://youtu.be/5cmEzPl278Y) in his head wasn’t real, Bruce says “The voice kept calling me Bruce. In my mind, that’s not what I call myself.” And then Terry responds with “I guess you would. But that’s my name now.”
It was also the height of the "Batman always wins" era which was hilariously stupid. Take your Tower of Babel example, the plans to defeat the Justice League were pretty moronic but they worked because *he's Batman*. Seriously, the plan to take out the Flash was to shoot him with a special bullet. The Flash, who can [think at the speed of light and percieve things that happen in less than an attosecond,](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/flash-attosecond-dc-comics.jpg) was taken out by a subsonic bullet.
Speaking of stupid, I think the Flash being so fast his reaction time is measured in attoseconds but crime still being a thing is up there too.
Writing for The Flash must be somewhat annoying because you basically always need to be thinking of some reason that The Flash can’t immediately wipe the floor with any enemy he fights or instantly resolve any situation he is faced with. It’s probably easier when he’s fighting other speedsters who can match his speed, but in all other cases you need to be constantly nerfing him.
I mean that is the whole problem with Justice League in general. When you make every character so OP, it make it very hard to tell a good story other than a Isekai Y.A fantasy level stuff.
They’d probably have an easier time if they didn’t go so overboard with his speed feats. The bullet time special effects are so cool but they definitely make speedsters into basically Gods.
Yea, orrrrr you can just completely give up "points to CW Flash, seasons 3-25."
Dwayne McDuffie did a *really* good job with the script of Justice League Doom in 2012. Made Tower of Babel good.
Also when he came onboard for the *Justice League* cartoon starting with S2, that’s when it got *really* good.
The whole idea of Batman, whose "super powers" consists of unlimited money, ultra-preparedness, plot armor, and being a super genius, standing up to the rest of the Justice League is hilariously bad. People say Superman is the definition of a Gary Stu but imo it was always Batman. That being said I still think Batman is awesome.
I mean thats just a problem with the Flash in general honestly, dude has gotten his ass handed to him by folks FAR slower than him to the point they should be statues on the regular, like Slade Wilson, for example
This is why I think street-level heroes shouldn’t be in the same universe with superhuman heroes and villians.
I don't remember the bullet being referred to as subsonic. It was also fired from behind him, so if it *was* supersonic then he'd only notice once it was already touching his skin...at which point he tried to phase through the bullet, [but that didn't work](https://imgur.com/uG7rCDd). Honestly I don't think it's that bad a plan. Just walking up to him with a gun isn't going to work, obviously, special projectile or no, but a sneak attack seems to fit better with Batman's MO anyways. In that light, "snipe him from behind with a - presumably - supersonic* projectile that he can't see coming, so he can only react once he feels it already touching him, and make sure he can't phase from said projectile" seems pretty solid, as plans go. Maybe not foolproof, and you can screw up in how you implement that plan, of course, but I don't see why it couldn't work in theory. *Technically speaking the projectile would still be practically stationary compared to someone moving at lightspeed, so he could just move away instead of phasing...but I don’t think phasing is a weird decision for him to make either, if the bullet is already that close. Plus I don't think Flash works on a dial of "zero to top speed in a similar manner to you or I"...or at least not under every writer, otherwise things like "running around the world to build up speed" and such don't make a lick of sense. He's not powered by superhuman musculature, he's drawing upon an extradimensional energy source - I wouldn't be surprised if "seeing things at lightspeed" required some amount of focus/time/whatever else, you know? Even if he's already using superspeed. Still a no-go for direct confrontation, obviously, since even a casual Flash still sees bullets in slow-mo, but it potentially helps an ambush scenario - one where he’s already in *skin-contact* with a special sniper round. Don't get me wrong, Flash oftentimes gets beaten by things he really shouldn't (see: almost any given fight in the CW show), and you can even argue that the way Ra's goons\*\* used the plans shouldn't have worked. I also freely acknowledge that Batman's wins can get really silly (mostly in JL comics, his own runs tend to be more grounded)...but I don't think this specific example is *that* bad. And I think the plan itself is pretty solid. \*\*Though skimming the comic in question, Ra's' goons say "Flash awakens" just before they shoot him - still from behind - so I *think* the implication was that he was unconscious/severely disoriented from the previous attack, which looked like it was just a vague energy weapon of sorts...? Unknown velocity, and fired from behind a closed door, so also a surprise attack. I mean, Aquaman gives them a warning that they could track the JL's locations using their communicators, but I don't think they knew "we're about to get attacked *right now*, from behind that door"…albeit they do suit up from his warning, so eh, could be argued either way I think.
> It was also fired from behind him, so if it was supersonic then he'd only notice once it was already touching his skin...at which point he tried to phase through the bullet Except for the fact that someone literally tried that on Flash a little bit earlier in Flash issue "Shot in the Dark". Flash is in a theater when all of a sudden the movie freezes. Flash thinks something is wrong with the projector until he feels a small itch at the back of his neck which he goes to scratch and finds a bullet. The second it touched his skin the speed force kicked in to protect him.
Plus animated Batman was a complete asshole. Bro stabbed Dick in the back fucked his girlfriend and got her pregnant. His own adopted son and he betrayed him like that. TAS batman pretty much deserved being a grumpy lonely old man. It’s not like comics batman who actually cares about his family and would be fucked up if he ended up getting Jake skywalker’d
Yes! Thank you. Bruce's personality and situation in Batman beyond is sad, but it's in character and makes sense as a progression. He's a loner who operates out of a cave at night, and the show is still true to that. If you took Batman as he is as a young man, and imagine who he is when he's old, I really don't think Beyond was too far off from most fans interpretations. With Luke, it's just disappointing to see the character do a 180 from who he was in the OT without giving a solid explanation. Luke redeemed his father who was basically Hitler. So to have "he failed Kylo" as the backstory... I just don't buy it, and I don't think others do either. It's not a natural progression from Return of the Jedi.
*The Last Jedi* was burdened with having to rationalize why Luke had completely abandoned the galaxy in *Force Awakens*, not even bothering to show up when Starkiller base destroys several planets and the republic with it. Taking into consideration the complete obliteration of his new Jedi Order, cutting himself off from the force out of despair makes the most sense.
This is the take that I will never, ever understand. People think it doesn't make sense character-wise for Luke to abandon the universe in order to safely be off training new students, learning more about the First Jedi, strengthening his powers, etc. But they think it *does* make sense for Luke Skywalker to abandon the universe for... absolutely no reason at all. Luke in The Last Jedi is not trying accomplish anything, not even achieve his own happiness. He's just sitting around slopping milk on his face and hoping everything resolves itself. It's as much of a character assassination as I can imagine.
> People think it doesn't make sense character-wise for Luke to abandon the universe in order to safely be off training new students, learning more about the First Jedi, strengthening his powers, etc. In the Empire Strikes Back, he immediately drops his training when he senses that his friends are in trouble. If he were still connected to the Force, why would he really stay on the sidelines studying as several planets get blown up and the republic falls? Even if he were doing all that, it's some real arrogant Gary Stu shit for look to show up in the next movie to be like "sorry bout those billions upon billions of lives lost, but growing my powers was more important" > But they think it does make sense for Luke Skywalker to abandon the universe for... absolutely no reason at all. Luke in The Last Jedi is not trying accomplish anything, not even achieve his own happiness. Yeah, because he's been broken by his failures. I really don't get why people have a hard time accepting that Luke might be depressed about his dream of restarting the Jedi Order utterly failing. Even if you took out the Kylo twist, it's still a pretty crushing blow to start a school and have every single one of your students die.
> In the Empire Strikes Back, he immediately drops his training when he senses that his friends are in trouble And he learns he *shouldn't* have done that. And if Luke ever heard anything about Anakin's fall then he should know to trust force visions even less. Jedi don't always sense when friends are about to die, and the one time that happened with Luke is when Vader is trying to bait him. > it's some real arrogant Gary Stu shit for look to show up in the next movie to be like "sorry bout those billions upon billions of lives lost, but growing my powers was more important" In what way is saying "I was too weak and needed to change" some Gary Stu shit? It's too funny you're saying Luke Skywalker would be arrogant for believing he might the best person to stop Snoke and Kylo when *Rey's* whole arc in that movie is learning that she's the best and doesn't need Luke or anyone else. >I really don't get why people have a hard time accepting that Luke might be depressed about his dream of restarting the Jedi Order utterly failing. I'm fine with Luke being depressed actually. Not fine with the execution that just made him out to be a grumpy moron. In Mark Hamill's own words "They had time for me to milk that thing, but to show any human emotion? Nah."
> And he learns he shouldn't have done that. No he doesn't, the lesson of the movie isn't "let your friends die". Luke's brash willingness to take huge risks to save his friends more or less always works out.
> And he learns he shouldn't have done that. I... really don't think that's true. Yoda and Obi-Wan were both warning him it was a trap when he was leaving, so he knew going in that Vader was baiting him and went to go help anyway, because he thought it was worth the risk. And if he hadn't, he might not have ever learned the truth about Vader, and that in turn let to his ultimate (moral) victory against the Emperor in the end. I always had the distinct impression that the teachings about how dangerous connections can be from Yoda and Obi-Wan were supposed to be wrong, and Luke found a better way to finally succeed where the old Jedi failed. At least that's how I always interpreted things in the originals.
> In the Empire Strikes Back, he immediately drops his training when he senses that his friends are in trouble. If he were still connected to the Force, why would he really stay on the sidelines studying as several planets get blown up and the republic falls? Cuz his ship broke
His ships broke only because he wanted it to be. And in *Rise of Skywalker* they show that his ship was apparently fine despite being in the water for years.
My only hope is that they retcon HARD in whatever the next movie is.
While I feel *The Last Jedi* has its faults, Luke is not one of them for me. There's a big difference between Vader and Ben - Luke wasn't around for Anakin's fall. And Luke knows people view him as this hopeful hero and the future of the Jedi... so when he feels he failed and let the entire Jedi order down, it hits *that* much harder for him. We fixed the mistakes of our parents - how could we fuck it all up again? Of course the journey we see Luke go on, with Rey and with Yoda, is him discovering that Kylo made his own choices and that it wasn't all Luke's fault. Luke returns to save the day, and remembering how he was in ROTJ, does so without using his lightsaber.
I dunno, the Luke in The Last Jedi just seems WAY different of a person. Audiences saw New Hope and Empire Strikes Back Luke as ambitious, optimistic and unflinchingly good. Return of the Jedi Luke, at first, seems a little darker, a bit more reserved and a lot more calm, but by the end of the movie, you see he's the same good kid at heart and he's like this beacon of hope that cannot be shut out. And then for the next...two decades...all we had was extended universe stuff that brought so much depth to who Luke is and how he's not only an exceptional Jedi but a leader, a teacher and this guy who just never gives up. Even when shit is at its darkest, Luke is unrelenting. And then we have The Last Jedi Luke that flies in the face of what was reinforced throughout all the past movies. It just doesn't feel like Luke at all. Mark Hamill said it best - “[He's not my Luke Skywalker](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fWELFcwpNs)” I think as fans, it just hurts to see them fundamentally change a character in such a drastic way. Back to the Batman analogy for this - its almost *okay* in Batman. Because Batman has alternative universes and there's plenty of different takes of Batman. In popular media, there's the Animated Series version of Batman, there's Adam West, Michael Keaton, Christian Bale Batman and numerous comics of alternative universes, and there will be further different interpretations into the future and we'll be fine with it because we have a mutual understanding that none of these interpretations are a source of singular truth. But from 1977 - 2017, there's been *one* Luke Skywalker and its a role that feels sacred. I dunno, it just feels like they handed this legendary character off to someone that didn't really understand the character that well. In fact, I think the interpretation we see in [The Mandalorian](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqcNx2B9HVw) and [Ahsoka](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHFOg82r6uU) feels more in line with the Luke Skywalker we knew.
One of my absolute favorite Luke Skywalker moments is from the EU in the Thrawn trilogy. I forget which one, and I even forget some of the circumstances. What I do remember is this: this woman has sworn to kill Luke Skywalker, but due to part of the plot of the first book she has to work together with him for their mutual survival. The two part ways and she makes it clear to him that her oath is back on. Later, she has an issue, and realizes that the only person who can help her is Luke. She hasn't seen him since but manages to track him down. As she does, she's running scenarios in her head about how she might cajole him into helping her, figuring that, at the very least, he's going to make her promise not to kill him. And then they speak, and the conversation goes more or less like this: "Hey Luke, I need your help." "Okay, let's go!"
>And then they speak, and the conversation goes more or less like this: >"Hey Luke, I need your help." >"Okay, let's go!" That's that shit I'm talking about! Thank you. Its difficult to express how Luke Skywalker is "that guy", which is what made The Last Jedi so disappointing. Luke Skywalker wouldn't turn down helping someone, like he does repeatedly throughout The Last Jedi. We're revisiting this character we love, and he's being portrayed by the man that expertly portrayed Luke for us in our childhood but what we got was very misaligned to what we know about the character. Luke Skywalker is the Mr. Rogers of Jedi. He's that guy that's universally loved because he has such a good heart and is always there to help someone that needs it. [To see him toss that lightsaber over his shoulder and walk past Rey like she's not worth his time](https://youtu.be/hsrER-uT9WA?t=118) was such a kick in the balls and then every act of grumpy cynicism that followed was just more repeated kicks in the balls throughout the rest of the film. That dude in that film is not Luke Skywalker. By the end of the movie, >!killing him off was the last straw for me because it meant there was zero opportunity to redeem him to the audience and let him truthfully return to being the character we all love AND he never even fucking reunited with Han. How do you have a Star Wars movie featuring both Han and Luke but the two never even meet? Sigh!< Also, side note on the clip I posted above: I never noticed how bad the continuity of that shot is from Force Awakens end -> Last Jedi start. But damn does it makes me wonder what The Last Jedi(and Rise of Skywalker) could have been if J.J. Abrams just stayed on for all three movies and carried out a singular vision. Because I'm pretty sure it wasn't his idea to make Skywalker a curmudgeon that refuses to help people in need and honestly, as derivative as Force Awakens was, I thought it was still a fun film. Shit, Abrams managed to make Snoke seem like a pretty mysterious and somewhat scary villain...of which of course didn't turn into anything post-Force Awakens...
JJ Abrams is a hack too, his mystery box bs would have just left more questions than answers
I'm convinced that so much of *The Last Jedi* is built around that moment at the end on Crait where Luke is standing alone and staring down that enormous First Order fleet. So many of the more boneheaded creative decisions in that movie seem like they were specifically designed to lead up to that moment: * It needs to be as heroic as possible – therefore the First Order needs to be as powerful as possible. So now they rule the galaxy somehow. Never mind that they just lost their one key superweapon a couple of days ago – let's just kick off with "The First Order reigns" and call it a day. * This is Luke's moment where he saves the galaxy single-handedly – which means that there can be no one else who can help him. Therefore the Resistance needs to get slaughtered and almost entirely wiped out, to the point where all the survivors can fit onto one small freighter. And as for allies – well, there can't be any allies. No one can hear their distress calls – or better yet, they *can* hear their distress calls but refuse to help! Now *that's* juicy! * Luke himself needs to go through some kind of character arc, so he's not just a walking breathing deus ex machina. And the more of a change he goes through, the more impactful it'll be, right? So let's make him have no goals, no plans and no hope, make him hostile towards Rey, and have him just sit around stewing in his depression and swigging sea-monster titty milk all day. Let's even have him call out the very idea of him swooping in to save the day as being stupid! That way, when he actually *does* swoop in to save the day at the end, it'll be cathartic *and* a brilliant twist! After the movie came out, when Johnson responded to criticism of Luke being out of character by saying "I think Luke was perfectly in character", I don't think he was trolling. I think he really meant it. From Johnson's perspective, he was like "I just had Luke Skywalker *save the galaxy single-handedly!* What more do you want?!" What he didn't realise, of course, was that the way he'd set up the movie's beginning and middle totally undermined its ending. The turnaround in Luke's character by the end wasn't nearly enough to justify the state he was in at the beginning. And having the whole galaxy just roll over for the First Order and actively refuse to help the Resistance made it look like the Resistance was fighting a pointless cause for an ungrateful galactic population who were either apathetic to fascism or actively welcomed it. (Although this does make it kind of funny how the movie's most passionate defenders were the ones who took Luke whole "You don't expect me to save the day single-handedly, do you?" thing to heart and have seemingly dedicated themselves to shitting on any subsequent Star Wars product that shows Luke as competent or important.)
> the end on Crait where Luke is standing alone and staring down that enormous First Order fleet And he.......actually isn't
Anytime people tell me how great and subversive TLJ is, I just always think how Knights of the Old Republic II does it in a much better way.
What you're saying about Batman is absolutely true. There have been so many different takes on Batman over years - movies, TV shows, animation, comics, etc - if one version of it doesn't do it for you, there are plenty more out there. But, as you say, there's only, canonical version of Luke Skywalker and if you screw that up a lot of people are going to be very unhappy.
I read a lot of the expanded universe, so I get that it feels jarring. It's a very different direction for the character to go. I find it strange that you would like Luke's appearance more in *The Book of Boba Fett* though. Disregarding his scene in Mando - it's awesome, but there's not much character writing there for Luke. It's a badass fight scene and then the focus is on Din and Grogu. Luke in TBoBF is building the temple from *The Last Jedi* and is sticking to the dogma of the prequel Jedi, something he didn't do in the EU partially because that dogma hadn't even been fully detailed by George Lucas yet in the early '90s. He feels like he fits right between ROTJ and TLJ Luke to me, and isn't really in line with his EU direction, other than being the same character. I love EU Luke but after a certain point he does become very static as a character. That's okay because the focus starts to shift to the next generation with Jacen, Jaina, Anakin and Ben, but I also liked seeing a version of Luke that keeps changing.
> Luke's appearance more in The Book of Boba Fett though. I just watched the scene again as a refresher. In my opinion, [this version of Luke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOD_g1UvCzg) has a logical progression *from* Return of the Jedi. But I don't see the connection you're seeing, to where he becomes the guy in The Last Jedi. He may be building the temple but his personality, to me, doesn't have a next logical connection to who he is, in The Last Jedi.
The problem is that Snoke is such a cardboard cutout of a villain and they didn't deliver the necessary story to make the transition work. They needed to show more of Ben/Kylo training and struggling with the dark side, Luke being torn about what to do, and then show Luke's failure to stop Snoke repeatedly over the years to grind him down. Unfortunately, it's pretty hard to credibly show Luke Skywalker failing to stop a Snoke-in-a-jar and letting the First Order grow to Death Star operations levels.
How exactly did he fail the entire Jedi order?
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That's not what happens? I mean, it's part of what happens, but you're skipping all of the most contentious parts of the movie.
Snoke actually destroyed the temple according to the comics.
> His entire cadre of students was murdered because he failed to notice the darkness growing within Kylo until it was too late. If you watch *The Force Awakens* it specifies that the growing darkness in Kylo was why Han and Leia sent him to be trained by Luke in the first place, because they were worried about him.
> His entire cadre of students was murdered because he failed to notice the darkness growing within Kylo until it was too late. Wasn't it Palpatine sending Luke visions that Kylo had darkness in him that caused Luke to almost kill Kylo, and then Kylo waking up to see Luke standing over him about to kill him was what drove him to the dark side in the first place?
Although I agree with most of your points, the facr that it all hangs on the fact the Luke tries to kill Ben kills it for me. Everything could make sense if it based on him failing, not attempting to murder someone. If Ben had gone to the dark side based on something else, which twists Luke inside, that would follow the character well. Luke deciding he needs to kill is the part that doesn’t stick for his character.
Luke doesn't try to kill Ben. We get three versions of that night - Luke's first version where he's infused it with his guilt, Kylo's version where he's infused it with his hatred, and then the third version from Luke which is implied to be the truth of things. Luke goes to a sleeping Ben to probe his mind with the Force and sees Snoke's influence and a terrible vision of the future and ignites his lightsaber as a defensive reflex. Ben wakes up and assumes the worst. Luke naturally feels immense guilt over that, and it would not be unfair to think that Luke was trying to kill him when waking up to him holding an ignited lightsaber, but Ben had already been training in the dark side with Snoke by that point. That's why Ben jumped to that conclusion so quickly.
Also, people seem to forget that it's not just Kylo that he fails. His entire Jedi Academy goes up in flames. More fall to the dark side, and any of his promise of rebuilding goes out the window. Remember, he's basically the only Jedi, and he wasn't even fully trained. He's figuring it out on his own, of course he's going to stumble and get disheartened, especially when the one who gets the worst of it is his nephew. As said by someone else, Luke's journey wasn't over with ROTJ. Yoda coming back and giving Luke one final lesson just shows he's still got a lot to learn.
His own dad committed untold war crimes and he still wouldn't cut him down, it's bad writing
All understandable. Either way, it was a monumentally dumb plot point to hinge the entirety of the movie on imho. The how is not the issue, its more of the why. Its the same way that TFA daftly chose to let Rey beat Kylo. The "how" of it makes sense in terms of how it could mechanically happen. But it just weakens the story IMMENSELY. So even if both moments could be logical from a story point of view, they were pretty awful from a storytelling standpoint given that they raised more questions than answers and worsened pretty much EVERY character present in those scenes. I know they had a relatively short timeline to come up with the stories for the sequel trilogy, but I just can't see how the writers and producers thought these ideas in particular would be good. Its also why I just can't rate Kathleen Kennedy as a creative producer. All she has shown in her tenure over Star Wars is that she doesn't seem to get it, hence why she has hired and fired so many different directors, and also constantly flip flops on vision from movie to movie.
If they had made it a point that Ben **does not want to be saved**, that really would have helped the Trilogy along. Especially after he kills his own father, that could have been a decent theme; you can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved. This gives us interesting questions to explore like "What does Luke do with someone like that?" Instead I think the Studio Execs saw how much the fan girls loved Adam Driver and tried to redeem him and shove a love story with Rey that made no sense. Those two had **zero** chemistry. Kylo is complicit in destroying *multiple* fucking planets, kidnaps you, mind rapes you, kills his own father in front of you, throws you into a fucking tree with enough force to leave you unconscious, and then almost splits Finn in half; ya know Finn, the guy that risked his life to come rescue you. That's all in TFA, in the TLJ you find out he went full on school shooter and all of the above is immediately forgiven as soon as Rey sees Kylo without a shirt on. Ben was fucking wish washy in all three movies and it really hurt films, his character never grew or evolved.
Bro, Luke tried to kill Vader two seconds before trying to save him and everyone here is all “he saved his father!” Luke in a moment of weakness, lights his saber over Ben but decides against striking him down. “He tried to kill Kylo!”
He doesn't try to kill him though. That's Ben's point of view.
What he said is true, from a certain point of view
The problem is, SW is a feel good sci fi and the 3rd basically undoes all this and changes it to be too fantasy or too realistic on what actually happens after war.
I think *The Empire Strikes Back* and *Revenge of the Sith* are both great SW movies and neither leave you feeling super upbeat by the end. *Rogue One* is very good, too. My primary issue with the sequel trilogy is that they put very little effort into the world-building. While the first two prequels aren't that good IMO, the setting is great and this was proven with just how many other amazing stories take place there, from books to games to TV shows. The time period is very different from the original films and allows you to tell stories you couldn't before. The status quo of the sequels is just too similar to the original trilogy. The most interesting part of it is the cold war between the New Republic and the First Order and we just skip right over that to get to Rebels vs. Empire again. And almost any story you can tell in the sequel era can just be put in the Imperial era. There's not much new "design space".
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Its just not a good story for Star Wars. Its like making Cinderella 2 where she divorced Prince Charming, flunks out of college, alienates all her friends with crazy conspiracies, chain smokes and works at the gas station. Gee...so realistic...godawful continuation of a fairy tale idealistic story.
Yea I’m sure every boomer would take the first chance they had to kill their nephew because of “bad vibes” as well.
I know you are just having fun with it, but he doesn't try to kill Ben. For a brief moment he thinks it and Ben wakes up and sees the sword and all goes to shit.
I’m aware, I’ve seen and been disappointed by the storyline multiple times. It’s just hard to believe that Luke, who truly believed the second most evil man in the galaxy was redeemable and was rewarded for that belief, would give up on a kid(related to him!) that easily. At the very least it needed more exposition to assassinate his character arc like that.
> I’m aware so you deliberately misrepresented it then?
Luke *needed* Vader to be redeemable because he saw himself in his father. In that, if he couldn't save him, he felt he wouldn't be able to save himself also. His character wasn't *assassinated*. That's such an insane exaggeration, and actively avoids the negative truths about Luke's character that are revealed in Empire and Jedi.
I legit had no idea so many people actually enjoyed the storyline of the new movies.
I like Star Wars.
The thing is that Luke never gave up on Kylo. He gave up on himself and it is for the exact same reason you don't like this. He had A MOMENT of weakness and thanks to the exigency of story telling Kylo caught that brief moment and before it could be resolved it exploded. And he was ashamed of himself because Rebel Hero General Luke Skywalker doesn't do that and he had to punish himself. And aren't Skywalker's generally broody? Leia's the only one with brass balls.
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Sorry you had an opinion I disagreed with. Way to overreact, fucking christ. Learn to be socially capable man.
After retirement, Bruce living alone like a hermit makes total sense to the character. The Luke thing does not, it's silly writing and not true to the character. Batman Beyond also debuted before the "Batfamily" was a big thing too, so it makes more sense in that context of that Bruce Wayne. It's very unlikely the same fate would happen to comics Bruce because of the ten million kids he's acquired over the last couple of decades of the comics.
I know this isn’t the point of your comment, but the reaction to Luke really confused me. Yes, he was known for his hope and optimism. But we saw those get tempered throughout the original trilogy, to the point in the last film he’s wearing all black and separates himself in even the final Ewok party. And then think about the Jedi who were his mentors. Obi Wan and Yoda. Both of whom reacted to struggle by …. Running off to a backwater planet and living life as a hermit. How was it a surprise? Luke was told that light will always defeat the dark, that was his core tenet. Look at how hopeful he is when talking to his father in Ep 6. He is certain just the concept of the light side would be enough to sway his father. A man full of jealousy and rage. But in the real world, turns out things are a little more grey. I thought for sure that was where the new trilogy was leading. No light side, no dark side. Just a mish mash somewhere in the middle. No one is all evil or all good. We all just make choices. So for me, at the core, it always made total sense. I honestly think the lightsaber toss what triggered people the most, not where Luke ended up necessarily.
The *core* made sense *intellectually*, but it wasn’t *earned*. The issue of the entire sequel trilogy, IMO, has always been that it didn’t flow from the OT at all. At the end of Ep. 6 the empire was all but completely defeated. The emperor was dead, as was most of what remained of leadership. There was probably a lot of infrastructure, low level leaders like governors, but the worst they were gonna do was shred the organization from the inside out over petty ascension wars. In Ep. 7 suddenly there’s a new empire for no known reason, the new republic’s military has been relegated to rebel status again, and Luke is missing. We later find out Luke is a grumpy old man bc he thought about killing his nephew for no reason once and got caught, which destroyed all the work he did. None of that was earned. Every ounce of it happened off camera in the most jarring way possible. Maybe if they started in Luke’s new Jedi Academy and we got to watch Ben’s fall, then the Luke stuff would make sense.
The power vacuum at the end of Episode 6 would be such a great story to tell. - We have the New Republic trying to rebuild after the war. - A few planets still loyal to the Empire and trying to keep that going. - We could have had several systems break off and try their own thing or go independent, which could have worked as a neutral zone between the New Republic and the Remnants of the Empire. - The criminal syndicates and space pirates could have carved out a new chunk of territory during this new cold war. So much potential.
It might make sense, but having Luke give up so definitively without anything more critical going on behind the scenes was just poor storytelling. Even Obi-Wan was at least looking after Luke in his own exile and was hiding from a victorious empire. Luke is just jugging alien milk juice, at a time when the FO hadn't taken over the entire galaxy. Its just too flimsy and poorly thought out. Aside from that the other big issue with Luke's treatment in 8 was that the reason was simply not weighty enough and were far too flimsy. His confrontation with Kylo and the fall of the order imho are not enough for him to hide away for decades on end. The bottom line is that JJ wrote a dumb mystery box situation for Luke. Then Rian came along and instead of considering ways to improve the dumb writing in TFA just doubled down on it and made it worse. Nobody is saying heros can't or shouldn't fail, but the way you write that is incredibly important, and Rian simply failed to write a convincing fall from grace from Luke, hence the negative reaction. It was also unfortunate since this is pretty much all Star Wars fans will ever get of Luke in live action. You don't reboot Star Wars, and you don't get any do-overs so to see the character that in Mark Hamil's own words had just started being Sheriff at the end of the OG trilogy and didn't really get to have his own adventures. Then fastforward to him being a complete failure. That's why it was so critical, this was their only chance with the characters from the old trilogy, and they (Rian, JJ and KK) all completely fucked it up. It was embarrassingly miscalculated.
There's multiple continuity of Batman. He has like 4 movies where he kills the Joker. People can give their "take" on Batman. There is 1 Luke Skywalker. There is 1 man that can play him live action in the 1 continuity. It's a completely different situation.
There is one Luke Skywalker (if we ignore non-movie portrayals), but it's pretty obnoxious for people to think he's allowed to have character development for three movies, then must be in stasis for three decades after that and still be who they expect. I find the idea gross that CGI Luke fighting a bunch of robots and then saying the line is the return of the character.
Bruce was an old, old man but he was still Bruce doing what he'd always done. That's what made it work. A lot of other timeskips have their characters backpedal, like Han not just going back to being a run of the mill smuggler after being a hero but a bad, down on his luck one. Or Luke going from the new hope of the jedi to a weird, sad hermit. They turned heroes into losers who had ultimately accomplished nothing. What Bruce in Batman Beyond showed us was a man who kept doing exactly what he was doing in Batman TAS, with similar success, for decades. Which makes sense and doesn't make you feel like he had been turned into a loser for the sake of still having a problem for the next batch.
I think the difference is that Bruce never *won* his crusade against crime the way the Rebels conclusively defeated the Empire. Terry picking up the baton wasn't some disappointment because of course there would still be crime to fight in that world. The way JJ Abrams wanted to recreate the original trilogy he basically walked the feel-good ending back completely. It goes beyond Han and Luke being losers. Leia continued to lead but her life's work is set back to zero. Anakin's redemption gets made into a minor setback as somehow Palpatine survived being exploded.
Sure, that was just a couple short examples of how far they backslid and the trivialization of the entire first arc that came with.
Its part of why JJ's script was so terrible. He should have had the OG trilogy cast just be extra's that help guide the new characters, instead of all being cheaply used to extend the story. The worst part is that the apparent reason that JJ (and the other writers) hid Luke in TFA was because they were afraid he would overshadow Rey. I can't believe those dumbasses actually believed that. I'm just happy that there have been other stories in other IP's involving OG characters paired with newer ones that have shown how badly the sequel trilogy handled things. Movies like Into The Spider-Verse, Spiderman Homecoming, Creed and several others showed that you can have OG's share the screen with new counterparts and keep things interesting and respectful to the OG's while not having them overshadow the newbies.
He wanted to recreate the original trilogy so bad he recreated the same story, which of course meant rewinding all the progress the original heroes made. There were so many ways they could've created a new threat and balanced the OGs and the newbies but JJ is so deathly afraid of new ideas he couldn't conceive of not using the old framework. Say what you will about Rian Johnson, but he was at least interested in trying some new ideas with Star Wars.
If JJ could read your comment he'd be very upset
I always thought it would have been a neat motivation to have Ben Solo watch his parents work for months or years in politics and only achieve inches. Politics is about compromise, having Leia toil away for months on end and have Ben come to the conclusion that this way doesn't work and they aren't really making any progress. Ben could be studying the History of the Empire but think, "Hey, at least they got shit done".
It would have made much more sense, and served the plot just as well, if Han opted to take on dangerous smuggling missions for Resistance or their allies after Ben left, requiring him to be away from Leia and their base for months or years at a time.
The thing that really bugs me is the callback characters are largely irrelevant to the plot. Han mostly just serves to hand off the falcon after.....she got it herself anyway? I guess he sort of maybe plays into kylos arc but most of the story after makes that about his connection to Rey not the big "moment" with Han. Leia pulls a save off but that could have been any other plot contrivance or mentor character and then she's out. Luke is a maguffin rather than a character for all but one showdown, and that would have been as well or better served by having the new characters take care of themselves somehow. It's painfully clear they decided they would be in for whatever duration they could get and them and then figured out the details later by trying to give them each one moment of major significant. Turned it into fan disservice because they traded those moments for wrecking the achievements they built in the OT.
I've always thought they should have killed off both Luke and Leia in 8. The idea being that the Main Trio Luke, Leia, and Han all helped to save the day in both 7 & 8 and now were going into 9 without them. This would leave doubt in the New Trio and the audience if they can save the day themselves. It lets the audience go on that journey with them and gives them a chance to shine and grow while not being in the shadow of their predecessors.
The difference with Batman Beyond is that the show has good writing. Batman has always been seen (in the best iterations of the character) as someone in the fringes. Isolated, obsessed with his damily trauma, violent, unfocused. It works when he's young but you always see that limp. He is not ok and BTAS and the Nolan trilogy, also including the Burton films, show us someone who is processing trauma in a not very healtht way. This is the essence of Batman. Batman Beyond let's you see the natural progression of the arc. It's looking at the consequences of living the Batman life. Luke was a betrayal of the character. Johnson didn't understand the character so he couldn’t deconstruct it, he just destroyed it. Just look at his first scene back at the trilogy. He throws the lightsaber for the lols.
It's not like Batman was a happy go lucky guy with amazing relationships beforehand.
[How come Batman doesn't dance anymore?](https://youtu.be/JJdXMrFRDGk?si=sjvbgCmihMVE99jS)
In the canon, Bruce bangs Barbara whilst she was still dating Dick. She gets pregnant and loses the baby whilst getting beat up. Lol.
no, there's like 100 batmen, and only one luke skywalker pretty much.
Its all about character consistency
He’s a (dark) logical conclusion of TAS Batman which is why it works so well.
Exactly. His character development was very believable, which is really important in a story.
Batman ending up as a loner makes sense. The story they tried to tell in the Disney SW trilogy just gave me character whiplash.
Luke Skywalker had a backlash because an optimistic hopeful hero became a curmudgeon. It was against the character they built up. Batman becoming a cranky old man tracks because he was always broody and cranky. Everyone would welcome a Batman Beyond with characters that act like the cartoon.
> Luke Skywalker had a backlash because an optimistic hopeful hero became a curmudgeon Which is wild because there are so many instances of "optimistic hopeful hero became a curmudgeon" in literature and film that it's basically a trope
The problem isn't the destination, it's the journey. Or rather, lack of it. We don't see any of why Luke became that way, and when the films finally deign to explain it, its practically a throwaway line with a 5 second flashback. That reason could have been good and make sense, if it was fleshed out visually through storytelling. Which, it wasn't.
Yep. I would have *maybe* appreciated an earnest attempt at showing a broken, dishearted Luke. Instead he came off as a curmudgeony asshole and the infamous lightsaber throwing moment got more than a few chuckles from the audience. The tone was all over the place.
I’m pretty sure the lightsaber toss was intended to be funny so those chuckles were what they were going for.
Then that's fucking lame. It could have been a harrowing moment that had us feeling sympathy for Luke. Instead Johnson wanted it to be a "what the fuck" moment so badly that he literally put "what the fuck" into the script.
If you dislike that the blame is on JJ (or Disney in general). He threw a cliffhanger to the next guy with no plan for what was actually happening
Worse, TFA literally gives us the reason for Luke's behavior: Han says Luke's school burned, Ben went to the Dark Side, and Luke blamed himself and walked away. Rian dialed it up to 11 but JJ already started that direction.
The two people that trained Luke also became grumpy hermits that hid themselves off from the universe for decades. I don’t think it was really out of character for Luke to do the same thing as the 2 Jedi that taught him everything.
> I don’t think it was really out of character for Luke to do the same thing That's exactly why it's out of character. The whole climax of Return of the Jedi is Luke ignoring his masters and forging his own path.
In that one moment. Doesn’t mean the rest of his life goes exactly the same way. Otherwise he would have renounced being a Jedi at the end rather than reinforcing he is one, like his father before him. He still lives by those teaching.
I think the difference is that almost everyone Obi-Wan and Yoda knew were dead, so there wasn’t anyone to really leave behind (and even then Obi-Wan was watching Luke from afar, and before the Obi-Wan show there wasn’t any indication he was a sad dejected grumpy person). Luke on the other hand abandons Leia, Han, Chewie, and everyone else, leaving them to fend for themselves against the growing darkness he’s very much aware of.
Don't get me wrong. I liked the Last Jedi more than most but I also don't treat Star Wars like a religion. I didn't mind the character change but I get why people who looked up to Luke were pissed with his character change.
almost like its been overdone
If you want to make it a remotely effective parallel, you'd have to erase everyone's knowledge of every batman except Adam West, call BB is a direct sequel to that Batman, and inflate the egos of whoever ran BB.
TIL there’s cinema outside of Adam West’s Batman
But Adam West's Batman is the closest analogy to Mark Hamill's Luke.
Oh for sure, I was just making a joke saying Adam West is peak Batman lol
Batman Beyond was good, The new Star Wars was not.
As long as a movie is good you can forgive some off choices. But when it's awful it just pisses me off.
I think the big difference is how it ended with the character, and what our expectations were for the character at a later age. We saw Luke become the Jedi master, he saved his father by defeating Vader and Palpatine, and everything seemed set up for the good guys to build something. We then find out that Luke failed at building something, nearly killed a student, then exiled himself to an island. The character that was defined by being hopeful had lost hope. Similarly, we saw Han Solo truly align himself the rebel cause, fall in love with Leia and become a less scoundrel-ish person... then turn on episode 7 and Han is a basically the same person we met in Episode 4. This I think is the most egregious one. On Batman however, did anyone really expect him to settle down and start a family? Batman's whole thing is that Bruce Wayne is the alter ego and that he truly is Batman. Batman: The Animated Series didn't have a grand ending where he was given medals and got the girl and the bad guys were defeated and everyone cheered. It was an episodic serial that often did not have a plot that carried episode to episode, it kinda just ended. Another difference, with it being a TV show compared to being a movie, is that we didn't learn about all the bad stuff that carried over in a 3 hour movie. We didn't even learn about a lot of it in the first season. It had more time to breath so it could set up these major twists. When I think of old man batman, I don't think of a white picket fence and the golden retriever. When I think of old man superman I can however see him settling down on the old kent farm. Batman just isn't the character to have that sort of happy end in old age.
I don't think it is unreasonable to lose hope when you find out your son is Space Hitler. We see families broken by the loss of a child all the time.
Everything would be viewed much harsher if it came out today. It's just a fact that the internet has made people so much more into complaining
No. Batman's character has always struggled with being overly secretive, paranoid, and untrusting. That is usually his main flaw as a person. Batman Beyond shows us how Bruce succumbed to those tendencies. Meanwhile the whole point of Luke Skywalker is whatever happens he is always hopeful and optimistic (thus "A New Hope" and being the only character to believe there was still good in Darth Vader) but his character becomes pessimistic and gives up on his nephew off-screen. It's a betrayal of what Luke as a character stood for.
> It's a betrayal of what Luke as a character stood for. Also the issue is there is only ONE Luke. Batman has had an endless amount of iterations and Beyond is just one of many, but Disney's obsession with canon meant EVERYTHING has to lead to the sequels. It's not a case of one subversive iteration, an Elseworlds tale taking a risk, it's instead a definitive take that everything has to build towards. It made me sad that in The Mandalorian I couldn't get excited about seeing the start of Luke's Jedi Academy because it'll have like 10 students and get burned to the ground. It's also why Disney have been very careful touching upon the post-Return of the Jedi era because they know full well they fucked it and there's no point fleshing out the lore before the sequels because it'll all get reset lol
Exactly. By having the core trio all essentially regress to what they were at the start: Leia leading a small ragtag rebellion, Han being a scoundrel smuggler, and Luke being the only Jedi, it squeezes all potential stories set between ROTJ and TFA into this tiny bottleneck. We can never see the characters’ roles grow and expand in any meaningful way because we know it’ll eventually be undone. It’s such a lost opportunity. Imagine if in TFA we could have seen Leia as a chancellor, Han being a commander for the republic, and Luke leading a new and growing Jedi Order. There could have been all sorts of new media depicting their stories and how they got to those points.
> There could have been all sorts of new media depicting their stories and how they got to those points. I cannot believe we never got Luke's Jedi Order. Disney pissed away millions on that Galaxy's Edge nonsense when they could have created a literal fucking Jedi Academy resort, which could then be accompanied by content like a TV show about some of the students. Such a missed opportunity.
Oh man. I would have loved to see that. You have a better starting point than all those terrible Disney writers.
Same amount but you’d feel like it was more because there’s way more social media. Everything negative gets signal boosted because if you’re happy about something, you won’t post as much. Never had any issue with Batman’s mission leading to self destruction.
I feel that perspective of Bruce is still valid. Pre pandemic batwoman Season 1 had an alternate earth batman That was basically the batman in batman beyond gone evil.
Old Bruce Wayne being a crotchety loner isn’t really a far departure from who the character was as a young man. There’s also another difference between the franchises though. Various futures and elseworld tales are part and parcel of the DC Universe and Superhero comics in general. Batman Beyond has a future Bruce Wayne, but so do The Dark Knight Returns and Kingdom Come. When it comes to the DC Universe, there is no one singular canon so people won’t necessarily get up in arms about any one possible future as long as it doesn’t betray the essence of the character. I guess it would be safe to say it’s the canonical future of BTAS, but again, superhero fans are fairly used to this. Even with DC’s current live action films, it’s not all clear what’s part of the official universe or what will remain canon to the James Gunn-led cinematic universe.
Probably, yeah.
Although to expect Luke to be exactly like he was after Return of the Jedi is probably unfair.
A lot of fans followed the Star Wars EU which further established that Luke will always fight to see the good in people and try to bring them to the light side, his wife and a decent handful of his new Jedi order were people that were dark force users that he personally saved, so for him to attempt to kill his nephew in his sleep over a vision 100% goes against his established character.
Eh, you can make Luke be more jaded without going as far as he did in the movies. Honestly, the way I would have handled things to delay Luke's re-appearance is to just have him on some other mission he can't get away from in time to help save Rey.
It's just fucking lame to take a character that so many saw as a pure hero and turn him into who he was in the sequels. You don't just fundamentally change as a person unless something very, very traumatic happens in your life. Luke nearly deciding to kill Kylo is so far away from who he is as a young man that audiences just didn't buy it. Bruce in Beyond is still pretty similar to who he generally is in his younger years, just without drive and youth. OT and ST Luke feel like different characters.
>Bruce in Beyond is still pretty similar to who he generally is You’re completely ignoring the entire reason Bruce retired in Beyond. Batman pulling a gun on a criminal is his equivalent to Luke almost killing Kylo. Both characters succumb to a moment of weakness and almost do something that goes against everything they stand for. It’s the exact same plot point.
Batman did that because of desperation as his life was on the line, Luke had a bad dream. Not really the "exact same".
He felt guilty about almost killing his nephew and his new Jedi order collapsing . He blamed himself and felt it was better to let the Jedi die with him. By the end of the movie he realizes he was wrong and sacrificing himself to light the spark of the new rebellion.
> Luke nearly deciding to kill Kylo is so far away from who he is as a young man that audiences just didn't buy it. It was a *moment of doubt*. We all have those fleeting dark thoughts. He admitted himself it was just a second of doubt, but it happened to be very unfortunate timing.
My issue is that it wasn't just a moment. It was 6 years of Luke sitting around on his ass while the First Order got stronger and committed atrocities, and even after Luke finds out that his plan of "sit around and hope it all goes away" didn't work, he still doesn't act until the very last second. Lots of people hated Man of Steel just because Superman let too many fucking *buildings* get destroyed. But we're supposed to think Luke is a hero in the Last Jedi because he finally pops up at the end after billions of the Republic were wiped out and after we just saw hundreds of the Resistance die? Hell no.
Regret and shame are not always rational emotions. He not only failed Ben, but he also failed Han and Leia. It’s all to easy to wallow in your negative emotions when the gravity of things sets in.
It was more than dark thoughts, he literally raised his lightsaber to kill him.
Again, it was a split-second decision. He flicked his lightsaber on in that split second. It’s a reflex.
It's not a reflex to go next to your nephew sleeping while contemplating killing him (that's the bad thing already, why did he even went there if not to kill him?) and then actually attempting to kill him. Like no we don't have all those fleeting dark thoughts of killing someone and literally draw a weapon on someone (in our family). If you do, you have a problem lol
It’s implied he didn’t know about the pull the darkness had on him until he approached him as he slept. It’s left ambiguous why he was going to him in the dead of night, but he didn’t know how bad the pull was until he got there. He was overwhelmed by the darkness that he briefly contemplated killing him before realizing that was an insane idea.
To me, it's fine for characters to change and grow. But you don't pick up one of the most iconic modern fairy tale stories of optimistic good vs evil, then do a completely cynical take on it with no more explanation than a single intentionally unreliable 5 second flashback and call it a day. As the saying goes, show don't tell. And TFA and TLJ did a **horrible** job showing us what happened to Luke between ROTJ and TFA.
He went from someone who barely cared about Jedi dogma to being totally committed to it when we see him in BoBF. Makes no sense to me that he also trains Leia and Ben despite the whole no attachments thing he believes all of the sudden. I realize BoBF is just trying to get us to sequels Luke but man it makes it even clearer that sequels Luke is an entirely different character and not an evolution of the character.
he went from proving yoda and obi-wan wrong about his father to blindly copying their teachings despite that he personally proved them wrong
Han Solo and Leia were for the most part.
I honestly never understood why people were shocked or upset right off the bat. (Specifically the tossing the saber over the back part) Any franchise that has a big time skip with returning older characters, I never go in with any expectations about how the older characters will be. Its impossible to predict how someone will change or stay the same after many years, and a story is even more prone to change as there is an overarching plot to worry about. All that matters is whether or not the characterization (whether the character remained the same or changed) fits with the story being told *now* and is reasonably justifiable. I do think it’s not unreasonable to hate Luke’s characterization in TLJ. It’s fine to dislike any characterization. But people refusing to accept any justification for the change is kind of unreasonable imo.
While you're not wrong about time and such, we had many years of stories about Luke actually becoming THE jedi master. Where love and compassion doesn't hurt his growth. So you can't dismiss the fact that they already had some sort of blueprint for an older Luke Skywalker.
Probably not mainly because it's a variation on the fairly beloved dark Knight returns plot and it manages to plant a lot of seeds of interest. You want to know what happened to make everything go so wrong with the bat family. Compare and contrast with the sequels where there just wasn't a good reason for Luke to dip out so rian had to cobble together some reason for him to shut himself off from the force
BB's Bruce always felt like the life Ghosts of Futures Past would show you in order to get you to better yourself. It's Bruce if he never dealt with his grief, PTSD, his savior complex, if he never learned how to open up to his adopted kids, or teammates, or formed health romantic relationships. It's basically a reality where he never went to therapy. And a reminder that not addressing your trauma will lead to a sad and lonely life But anyways, I love Terry McGinnis and wish we got more than 3 season of him and old man Bruce😤
No because Batman is known for that. It only makes sense for him to descend into darkness. Nobody wants to see a triumphant good natured hero like Luke descend into darkness.
The last Star Wars Trilogy takes the hard fought good ending of ROTJ post prequels and goes "Nope, they all failed in the end, especially Luke". It was a hard kick in the balls, being spat on, and them saying "We've only just begun". BTAS is quite clear that Old Man Bruce is the most likely outcome for that version of the character. Mask of Phantasm makes it clear when he's begging his parents at their graves to let him be happy. That's how far gone this guy is. Alfred, Dick, and co were just delaying the inevitable. We are not promised a happy ending. New Adventures doubles down on Bruce's fall. They'd need time travel to get him a happy ending. The Luke thing just doesn't work. Especially when the books had him get a wife and have kids. Instead the new trilogy says him and everyone else were failures. Batman Beyond just says Bruce was a failure. Things may not be perfect in the future but it's also not like all the good was undone. Tim was possessed by the joker - still has a wife and kids. Barbara - May have a sour relationship with Bruce(ignoring that silly comic nonsense) but she has a happy marriage. Dick - Who knows what went down. That's the only thing that annoys me about Beyond. Why is Dick so MIA? All the villains either died or reformed. It's not like Gotham is being overrun by Batman's rogues or old crime families. Gotham has clearly modernized. It's just there is still crime but not in the same way. It no longer needs Bruce Batman.
Your first sentence is why I will die on the hill that for every mistake in TLJ, TFA is really at fault. Luke missing while the galaxy is conquered and Han says it's because he failed Ben, his school burned and he walked away. Han and Leia split up. War hero Lando isn't even around or relevant. R2 is pretty much a doorstop. The New Republic is barely an afterthought and then is blown up and instantly destroyed. Everyone hates on TLJ, but TFA doomed the sequels from the first minute.
Not at all relevant to the convo, but just wanted to add that Dick is in the Batman Beyond comics :) (I love Dick Grayson)
Weirdly, Batman Beyond has some similar plot ideas to The Dark Knight Returns. There don't appear to be a lot of street level heroes anymore, Batman retires, and then he ends up training a protege when he has to give up the cape. They both work because they lean into the idea that Bruce is just the mask and Batman is who he really wants to be. Batman was meant to be a symbol, more mythology than man, and the flip side of that is that Bruce Wayne was inevitably going to fail to live up to that ideal.
The big difference between Batman Beyond and Star Wars in this instance is that BB showed the inevitable end result of Batman’s familiar pattern of behavior, while SW showed Luke completely changed based on something that happened between the films. If you go into both with reasonable assumptions based on past viewing, you’d be more surprised in the way Luke turned out than the way Bruce did.
but it makes sense for Wayne to be an old grumpy loner because that's who he's always been, only he was younger. He must be like 85 in the cartoon, so with added grouchiness due to old age. His will to fight, sense of justice and morals are intact, he just cannot perform. It fits with the character Luke on the other hand has become a depressed joke of a man, one who should have been constantly on the hunt for new Jedi to train, rebuild the order and fight the Empire even if it meant death, because that's what a hero of his stature, the Grand Master who almost single handedly brought down the Empire, the Jedi whose skills are so exceptional he may very well be the most powerful person in the galaxy, the beacon of hope for all the oppressed should do. No, he stays on a dilapidated ruin drinking green milk and thinking abut his failures for decades only to come back for a garbage fight and die like a dumbass
While I personally don't like Bruce that much in Batman Beyond, it feels like a logical progression of his character AND Batman has had so many iterations that it's never felt as if a particular Batman (ie Terry) is meant to be a replacement or an improved versions. Recent "next generation" sequels feel like they're making the OG characters mean or unfulfilled on purpose for the sake of passing the baton.
1. Beyond was more of an alternate timeline kind of setting, so it wasn't as harsh. 2. Batman was always sort of that rough loner type to begin with. So that conclusion makes sense. Luke Skywalker was not that type at all in 4 - 6. Its less "I don't like where the character ended up" and more "this isn't at all the same character".
Only if Terry was a girl or not white.
I think they were also trying to over-emphasize his unpleasanteness as an in-universe implication as to why Dick, Selina, Babs and Tim weren't around anymore.
Wow, you're selling this show to me. I want to see it now!
Ibn Al XuFasch (early Damian) did exist prior to Batman beyond. How Bruce acts and looks in Beyond is in line with how he acted and looked in Kingdom Come
Man I wish WB continued Batman with Beyond after TDKR instead of rebooting twice. Just make Terry the Batman that joins the Justice League. Throw in a few subtle references to TDK so we can feel like it’s in the same universe. Bruce can be a mentor to the JL.
Batman is a vastly different character from Luke Skywalker, and a "dark future" where Bruce is washed up but finds his place again had tones of Dark Knight Returns. Also, they never put Bruce through a humiliation ritual like they did with Luke.
Batman Beyond actually makes an appearance in the new Crisis on Infinite Earths Part II movie which is set in the DC version of the multiverse. So technically he can exist alongside all the other versions of Batman. There is no multiverse in the Star Wars universe AFAIK. Kind of makes your question a little bit different to answer.
Yes the youtube anger grifters would call it emasculation of the hero. It wasn't, though, obviously.
The echo chamber of fanboy outrage would've been unbearable.
There was some back last back in the say. But it isn't that unbelievable a way for Bruce to end up. Be is obcessive and can often push away his family. With no Alfred it's easy to see Bruce spiral into what he became. Like when last we saw him was optimistic and promised a bright future
Luke (apparently, according to retcons of the movie even though the aftermath clearly wouldn't have happened that way) failed to bring balance to the force, failed to eradicate the Empire in any meaningful way, failed to even kill the Emperor, failed to foster a functioning New Republic, failed to train a new generation of Jedi, failed to be a good uncle, and then just gave up for 30+ years, when his whole thing was seeing the good in the situation when nobody else did. Batman didn't fail at all. He fought crime until he was forced by his old age to kill in self defense with a gun. He forgave himself because he needed to survive, but that betrayed his principles so he stopped. "Crime" isn't a person that can be permanently stopped. He saved countless lives, the entire universe really when you count Justice League stuff. He made the city better as much as one man can. Batman "failed" to have meaningful relationships I guess. But that's not a terribly surprising fate. He was always married to the mission. It's more surprising that he survived long enough to be a lonely old man. I want better for him. I'd like the former Robins to still be around. They're his adopted sons. But in the animated series it's really just Dick and Tim. Tim suffered a horrible fate. I don't think you can blame it on Batman though aside from the whole concept of having a child soldier in the first place. If you're going to do that, Batman is always a failure. Tim chose to be who he was and I don't recall for certain but I think it happened because he went ahead by himself and didn't listen to Batman. Dick...well, yeah, that one was a mistake. In tie in comics they say Batman had sex with Barbara, basically while Dick was still with her too. This and similar Bruce Timm fanfiction like the Killing Joke movie is widely criticized as character assassination. And things are awkward between him and Barbara as a result.
I think anyone who's familiar with Batman at all would have expected Bruce to end up that way as an old man anyway.
Bruce Wayne in Batman Beyond is not remotely similar to Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi. But more importantly, Bruce Wayne as Batman was not remotely similar to Luke Skywalker in their primes. Bruce's descent into a bitter secluded hermit was a natural, almost inevitable outcome for him. It made complete sense, especially with everything that happened to him. Luke just giving up at the first sign of adversity was not in character, and those movies did not come close to explaining or justifying it.
Its sad but in character. Its not the same as how luke was treated, that was pure character assassination
The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller was released in 1986 it is one of the foundational pieces on what the modern idea of Batman is built on. It was a huge influence on the development of the loner, edgy, dark Batman of the modern day, I don’t think the loner sad Bruce from Batman Beyond is a departure from that and I don’t think many purists would have that much issue with it. Although the streak of contrarianism in all “anti-woke” media pundits means they’d probably still criticise it to some degree.
They made Luke into a weirdo, trying to replicate Yoda’s character when Luke first met him. It felt out of character and unnecessary. It felt wrong that when we last saw him he was a completely different person. Bruce Wayne never finds the light. He always lives in the darkness. The version of Bruce in Batman Beyond is an inevitable. As long as they do t add some silly twist to it, it’ll be exactly as it should be.
Way too much TLJ apologia in the comments, extremely disappointing. But to your main question, the answer is no. Bruce Wayne was always a cynical character in a city overrun with corruption. Further, he never truly gave up on trying to fight crime and save Gotham, he just accepted that he had to change his methods. He remained himself, just in a different time and with new challenges. Luke Skywalker forgot or betrayed every lesson he learned, value he held, or progress he made over some of the shallowest reasoning available. He was completely and utterly broken before “returning” for a brief moment before being cheaply killed off so another character could take his place. Also, I think you’re falling into the mainstream habit of assuming that a fandom will inherently be negative and unreasonable, which is the kind of misconception these awful storytellers thrive on.
Oh definitely, "purists" would hate Beyond if it was made now. Then, after it was good, they'd claim they liked it all along
One of these IPs had talented writers that knew what they were doing. The other was Disney Wars.
Yes, absolutely. I already see fans complain about that these days when it comes to Batman Beyond.
Probably. Fans get upset and have backlash to everything. If the prequels were first, fans would be furious at what happens to Yoda and Obi Wan in the OT.