I've spent a year trying to figure out how to put my feelings about TLJ into words.
Here's the thing, for me, about The Last Jedi. I didn't hate it because it was different. I didn't hate it because they're making way for new characters. For me, to appropriately explain WHY I hated it, we have to go back to 1999.
I was twelve years old, and my parents had gone to see Episode I in theaters when it was released. Up to that point, I really knew nothing about Star Wars, and had no interest in science fiction or any sort of movies set in space. But my dad decided we should all watch the original trilogy as a family, over three consecutive nights.
After watching A New Hope, I was hooked, and it was because of Luke Skywalker. He was young and handsome and setting out on this great adventure, and that appealed to me in a way no movie had before. The Empire Strikes Back was even better! (One word: Dagobah.) Return of the Jedi?! Where he succeeds in rescuing his father from the dark side and proving himself as a Jedi?! Amaaaazzzzing!!! I loved that he came from nothing and changed EVERYTHING, not just in his own life but in the entire GALAXY.
I wanted to learn everything I could about Luke Skywalker! I was thrilled when a friend told me about some books her dad had that followed Luke and gang five years after the end of ROTJ.
I read the entire Thrawn Trilogy in just two weeks. And I loved those books just as much as the movies because of one person: Mara Jade.
I was introduced to Mara at a time in my life where I could identify with the reality of suddenly being uprooted, of thinking that life was going to turn out one way, but then all of it changing in the blink of an eye. I could relate to feeling out of control, when control had been a security blanket for so long. It was a lot for a pre-teen girl to deal with, but at least I had someone I could relate to (even if she wasn't real).
The only problem was that she HATED my hero!!!😭 And he was so kind and gracious towards her, which made me love him that much more. Of course you can imagine my delight when I read Vision of the Future just a few months later.😍
I followed Luke and Mara through both profic and fanfic, and they were everything to me. To say I was obsessed was an understatement. My friends got sick of me talking about them all the time, but I didn't care. To me they may as well have been real.
I remember the gut punch of reading Sacrifice for the first time. I threw the book across the room, tears streaming down my face, and I never finished it. I never read any of the books that followed it either. I couldn't bear to read Luke without Mara. It made my heart ache. To lose her in such a way that was SO out-of-character, and didn't make any sense to the plot, was even more devastating. Why would Jacen's "sacrifice" be his aunt? Why would Mara leave to confront him without telling Luke what she had found out, or at least where she was going? She wasn't killed to advance the plot; she was killed to make waves.
It was even more devastating when Disney snapped their fingers and she disappeared. I had mourned her death seven years before that, but I was not prepared for the grief I felt when she suddenly had never existed at all. Who would Luke be without her? Would they replace her with someone else? No one else is good enough for Luke Skywalker!
Nevertheless, I was cautiously excited to at least see Luke on the big screen again. I sat expectantly through TFA, waiting for my hero to show up and save the day. I waited. And waited. And waited. I watched Han Solo die, and even shed a tear because in some way, it was poetic justice for Mara. Jacen, Ben, Kylo...whatever you want to call him, he's the same person. And this "sacrifice" made a lot more sense. I was sad to see Han go, but I understood the purpose.
They made me sit through two hours to see him for two seconds?! Frustrating. But NOW I was pumped for TLJ. Waiting two hours for Luke was hard, now I had to wait two more YEARS.
I initially didn't love the idea that Luke had exiled himself, but I was open-minded. Maybe there was a good reason. Maybe it would all make sense. Oh Disney, I had so much hope in you.
When Luke threw away his father's lightsaber - MARA'S lightsaber - my jaw dropped. When he opened his mouth, my heart sank. This wasn't the Luke I knew and loved at all. This Luke was so far removed from the Luke of the OT and the EU that I didn't know WHO he was.
I held out hope for something amazing to happen for the next two hours...in spite of the growing knot in the pit of my stomach. When I thought he had actually showed up to help Leia, that little spark of hope began to ignite. When I thought we were actually going to see him face his nephew, I was ecstatic. THIS is what I'd been waiting for ever since they announced new movies! ALL I wanted to see in this movie was JEDI MASTER Luke Skywalker!
When he disappeared on Crait, the wind was literally knocked out of me. The cruelty of that trick, the promise that I'd get to see my beloved hero in his true element so quickly snatched away left me speechless.
When he disappeared on Ahch-To, I began to sob.
I've never cried so hard in a movie. The only time I've cried that hard over a fictional character was Mara's death, ten years before.
The credits rolled and I instantly wished I could un-see what I'd just seen. I tried to put on a normal face for my friends, who were already discussing how they'd enjoyed the movie. My legs felt like lead as we walked from the theater, and I felt nauseous. What did I just watch? What's going to happen now? Luke Skywalker IS Star Wars...how are you going to continue Star Wars WITHOUT LUKE SKYWALKER?
Watching Luke die was like watching Mara die all over again. And that felt like a piece of ME died as well. Maybe it sounds dramatic, but those characters got me through some of the hardest times of my life. And no one had the decency to at least give them an ending they deserved.
This movie twisted Luke Skywalker into someone I didn't know, and never wanted to know. It poked fun at me and all of the others who actually wanted to see hero Luke, with lines like: "You think what? I'm gonna walk out with a laser sword and face down the whole First Order?" YES, LUKE, OR WHOEVER YOU ARE, THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED FROM YOU.
(And, side tangent here, what's with the term "laser sword?" It just doesn't seem right for Luke to call his lightsaber a laser sword. Maybe I'm the only one annoyed by this, and in the grand scheme of the colossal disaster that is TLJ, it's barely even a footnote...but still. I digress.)
There are so many things that are uncertain in the world we live in. All I wanted from this new trilogy was to escape again to a galaxy far, far away and see what sorts of adventures Luke Skywalker has been up to for the last thirty years. Instead, I got a bitter, cynical old man who doesn't care about anyone but himself. I encounter plenty of those in real life...I didn't need to see Luke that way too.
I'm not ragging on those who liked it. You're perfectly entitled to like it. But I didn't, and THAT is why I will never watch TLJ again. And I'll spend the rest of my life trying to forget it.
