Luke is intended to be wrong about everything he says and the message is that the Jedi are and always were fundamentally good, but he still spends two hours shitting all over a culture that's been completely genocided for decades because he feels guilty about how he invaded his own nephew's mind while he was sleeping and then wanted to kill him for a moment because of how dark said nephew's mind was.
Luke is intended to be RIGHT about the Jedi and he failed specifically because he repeated their mistakes, but he's wrong to have lost hope entirely and realizes by the end that Rey can become a "new source" of light that will only succeed because she'll be different from the old Jedi.
So the options here are either that Luke was character assassinated in such a dramatic way that it's impossible to really pick up on the real message of the movie, or that Luke's storyline WAS intended to be Jedi critical the entire time. Both options suck. Both options completely sidelined Rey in her own story and made her character completely flat and pointless.
I'm sorry, but you cannot convince me that this movie was good or had anything kind to say about the Jedi since it spent the MAJORITY of its runtime talking about how awful the Jedi are and blaming them for everything that's gone wrong in the galaxy, turning one of the most beloved Jedi in the entire franchise into a mean spirited mouthpiece.
everyone made such a deal out of the last jedi rejecting a perceived "hereditary principle" of the force. even TLJ critics at the time largely bowed to this idea that it was a welcome subversion of the monarchical specialness of the skywalker family, and everyone applauded how egalitarian it was to show that anyone could be a hero strong in the force, as if that was ever in question to begin with.
like other supposedly postmodern critiques rian johnson felt appropriate to squeeze into his commentary on the mythos, this still irritates me, because even if you believe this to be true about the world of star wars it has simply never been important.
the skywalker family was never special because they were all-powerful or the chosen ones. they were important because they were our protagonists in a family drama, not because the force is "hereditary." even if force sensitivity is in some way inherited, strength and power (in whatever way you chose to measure those) have never been what was important about being a jedi, in the OT or the prequels. power, like the prophecy of the jedi brought up in the prequels, is completely immaterial to the core narrative of star wars.
anakin was nothing and no one. a slave from the furthest reaches of space, owning nothing, inheritor of nothing but his mother's name. he literally had no father to inherit from. he was strong in the force, but obi-wan knew the same prophecy and saw the same numbers qui-gon saw and did not care. because the midichlorians weren't important. qui-gon did not pluck anakin from the masses because he was uniquely powerful. he was interested in anakin because anakin was kind. because he was brave. because he was insightful. because he was generous. because he had strength of character - the one thing synonymous in lucas's canon with strength in the force.
likewise, luke was never important because he was the son of the galaxy's most powerful force user. he was important because he was darth vader's son. that's why he and leia were hid, that's why darth vader defeats him, and it's why he in turn defeats vader. luke was never that powerful, and defeating vader by exerting his power in the force or in combat is never his plan in ROTJ. it's to turn vader, because he is vader's weakness. luke is the only person in the galaxy who can emotionally affect him. that's why he's important. not because he has magic powers or because he's the lucky inheritor of the galaxy's sacred god-genes.
but if you're a perpetually comic book brained hack who thinks about things like who's stronger between batman and superman, you might try and mechanize the power hierarchy of the force and buy into a common fan talking point such as why is the skywalker bloodline the only ones who are cool and important and then think you'd be really clever and popular for bravely speaking up against this antiquated philosophy when they let you make a star wars, and then you can soak in virtue signaling clout by refuting a perception that was never important or true in the first place.
You either love it or hate it no in between what is this ranking though.
There's something beautiful about The Last Jedi being the least predictable movie one everyone's list. It could be at the very top, the very bottom or somewhere in the middle and I'd be like "Yeah, that makes sense."
Yeah, TLJ has a marmite effect on people. Personally, I'd rank it at the very bottom, either tied with or just above TFA. Aside from giving me new characters and planets to play with, and a few isolated scenes, there really isn't anything I like about it. Like at least TRoS is entertaining for how much it abandons any and all semblance of giving a fuck. TRoS also gave me Huxdemption, which I've wanted since TFA but never imagined would actually happen. There are very few things salvageable about TLJ. The plot is dumb (though I'd say TFA forcing a full reset is mostly to blame for that), I hate what it did to Leia and especially Luke, and I feel like people praise the themes for the mere fact that they exist, not how well they're actually executed. Parts of the movie also flat out make no sense to anyone who's paid the slightest bit of attention during TFA. Like that line where Kylo goes "They're dead in a pauper's grave in the Jakku desert." We literally saw them leaving the planet, you absolute twatwaffle??? Reylos love to swoon over that bit where Kylo says "You're nothing but not to me", but like. Rey should be telling Kylo to fuck off right about now. And don't even get me started on that whole thing about Rey being "nobody", because I'll be here all week. Rey's parents being either (related to) important people the audience recognizes or completely irrelevant to anyone are not the only two options, fandom.
What's this common misconception people apparently have that Finn is a “self-interested deserter”/“coward” in TLJ? Just because it's what Rose said, and what the movie seems to think, doesn't make it true.
Because recall why he was leaving in the first place: being on the Resistance ship at this point was a death trap. They had no plan (except to silently slip away in transports, but no one knew that yet, and that blew up in their faces later anyway), and they were constantly being chased by the First Order, because they kept tracking them through lightspeed. Finn's first thought was “if Rey comes back, she'll be walking into a death trap”, so naturally, he was going to fly to Ahch-To to warn her! How exactly is that cowardice? How is that selfishness? This is Finn being loyal to his friend, to one of the only two people he knows in the Resistance! This is selflessness, especially since there's a non-zero chance that his escape pod could've been shot out of the sky by the First Order if they spotted it (either because they sense him on it, or because they just want a Resistance hostage to use as leverage). In fact, if Rey had decided to come back to the Resistance even knowing about their situation, Finn likely would've come back with her!
And more to the point...desertion? Even if we assume Finn was running away...that's not desertion. Desertion implies Finn committed to joining the Resistance, which...he very much did not. He helped them because Rey convinced him to, and because it was the right thing to do, but that is not the same thing as agreeing to be part of it. And sure, they saved his life, but that's not equal to a willing agreement either! You know who would hold Finn to that kind of coercive “agreement”? The First Order. Certainly not the Resistance, who are meant to be the good guys and not engage in such coercive methods.
rereading HTTE, and in the first 5 pages of luke’s introduction, zahn already does a better job characterizing luke’s fear of being the last remaining jedi, the shouldered responsibility of his burden to help rebuild the galaxy post-war, and his depression about all of it , leagues better than TLJ could’ve ever dreamed of. also hot chocolate scene my beloved
The Last Jedi was released today, seven years ago. I still passionately hate it and what it did to the prequels. I'm glad I've moved on mostly so I'm not spending countless hours talking about how stupid and badly written it was, but every time I see the title or images of it (mostly the poster), I get that same sick, sad feeling in my stomach.
'A New Hope' is the story of a boy who grows up in a tranquil home and dreams of joining a war. What if we have the story of a girl who grows up in a war and dreams of returning to the tranquillity of home?
Gareth Edwards
This quote is evidence that Jyn Erso was written to be a foil to Luke Skywalker. Before Rogue One came out, I and a bunch of other fans were speculating Jyn to be Luke's wife and Rey's mom (due to the resemblance to Rey, the speculation about Rey being Luke's daughter, and the parallels between Jyn and Luke (and between Jyn and Mara Jade, Luke's Legends wife, to the point where it seemed like Jyn might become the Disney canon version of Mara)). Even after the film came out, I was still hoping for Jyn to pull a Phil Coulson for that, particularly with that kyber crystal necklace she had.
Years later, after Lucasfilm has mangled up Rey's origins along with the latter two sequels, I haven't completely given up on that idea, but it's been barely on my mind, and I've been torn between that and Jyn's relationship with Cassian Andor. But now, reading that quote has stirred up my feelings towards the former (and from what I've been recently reading about Cassian, he's kind of old for her anyway). It seems like a great opportunity that Lucasfilm has wasted.
