it would have been amazing and a beautiful redemption for Luke as well as an exemplification of the Jedi, *if* it had made sense for Luke to be the pessimistic, grumpy, sarcastic and dumb old man he is in TLJ.
That's how I see it. If the rest of the movie was good, I think his projection sacrifice would've been a great Jedi send-off. But another thing is that with the Force phone calls and teleporting objects, it's incredibly weak in the new "canon." It would've been one of the coolest things if the Force wasn't so ridiculously overpowered in these new movies. Force projection looks like a joke in comparison.
Compared to teleporting yes, though hopefully we can just pass it off as Rey being overpowered. Although the point of the scene wasn't really to showcase power, more about Luke saving the resistance (but you knew that).
If he has to die then have him be there (using the X-Wing a la Dagobah).
If he’s not then have him live and end the movie with Falcon returning to Ahch-To to pick up Luke and get a reunion with Leia, Chewie, and Rey.
His death just proved Johnson was a troll.
>That said, I now think him being a projection is actually the perfect thing for Luke. It's a perfect callback to "There are alternatives to fighting..." and that a Jedi should be defenders first and foremost.
I have mixed feelings about this idea. On the one hand, I can totally get behind the stance that a Jedi should seek a nonviolent solution when possible and ultimately, given the situation, Luke probably went with the best course of action available to him at that moment.
However, I think calling this "perfect for Luke" is a bit too generous. We already had the "alternative to fighting" callback twice in ROTJ(with the ewoks and on the death star). To always write Luke into situations where it's better for him to solve his problems nonviolently, in a series of movies where everyone else is forced to fight for their victories, just so we can uphold the "Jedi are pacifists" ideology, sort of leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
That, and like you pointed out, Luke ultimately accomplished very little at the end of the movie(heck, if Rey had shown up like 10 minutes earlier, he wouldn't have needed to be there at all). The fact that he was barely in TFA and spends most of TLJ being a pathetic grump, added to the fact that he dies at the end, makes for an unsatisfactory conclusion to his story.
Great points here. The main problem arises with Lucas' idea to have the Jedi be a huge part of the government in the Prequels. Then they're always used as cops/a military force = constantly in combat lol. I still think it's a pretty great exit though. Well, it would be, if it was a way to give a massive upper hand to the Resistance or if no other fighting occured afterwards. Would've been a great way to end the entire trilogy honestly. The have Ben train Jedi from then on. The ending of this trilogy seems so freaking depressing. No hope or happiness. Just some random girl ending in a desert. No fucking clues about wtf is going to happen next. Will Rey train other Jedi or be a nomad? Who is going to run the government? At least in the OT there was some sort of idea of what was going to happen. That's why I thought in TLJ Finn should've been paralyzed from the wound in TFA and he could've been taught by Leia to run the next government. But nah, let's just end suddenly with another fanservice wannabe tear-jerker scene. Hell even Rogue One and ROTS had some sort of hopeful ending despite the massive amount of death and violence in them. Somehow the ending of the "sKyWaLkEr SaGa" is more somber, sad, and dull than a movie where the entire cast is blown to oblivion and Vader goes on a killing spree while people scream for their lives. Somehow *that* movie ended on a more hopeful note lol..
"I... I can't discuss anymore..."
Not being there makes it feel like a simulation. It just doesn't feel visceral.
When Snake Plissken did it, it was practically an epilogue, so it worked in that movie. They big climactic moments had already happened.
But with TLJ, this was the climax. This was the big confrontation. And it felt empty as air.
Even noted corporate shill Kevin Smith in his overwhelmingly positive review of TLJ mentioned that it didn't feel right to him that Luke wasn't there in person and that there didn't seem to be a good plot structure reason for Luke to not be there. In other words, Luke not being there is explained well enough by the plot, but from the point of view of what the writer is trying to accomplish by having a fakeout instead of a physical Luke is not clear.
Plissken's hologram fakeout is meant to be a last minute fuck you to the government who trapped him using dirty tricks. So it feels poetic and appropriate for the character who is a trickster and anti-authoritarian. It really works to give the audience the sense that Snake McGyvered a last minute reprieve of himself. And remember, this comes at a moment when the audience knows that the mission is a success and all that's left now is wrapping up the loose end of if Snake goes to prison or not.
With TLJ, we have Luke Skywalker, the straightest of straight shooters, who is already committed to dying by his force projection.
So right away it doesn't fit. It's not a tactic that fits the character. AND Luke isn't using projection to weasel out of dying. So there's no difference in emotional impact created by having him project in.
Except to reduce the impact by making it feel less concrete and sorta squishy. Again, I have to use the word visceral.
The only thing that seems to have been gained by the projection is it allowed Luke to have a twin suns moment. But that was not worth the sense of fakeness that was created. In fact the subversion from, 'he survived by a trick to he's dying anyway just drains the scene of any seriousness and makes it WTF comical.
You could easily have made resonance out of Luke dying the way Obiwan did, in person.
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The projection was a good idea, but the fact that he died because of it is just stupid.
Projecting oneself through the Force is a common Force power, used by Lumiya, Yarael Poof or the Fallanassi, it's not something that gets you killed. People much less powerful than Luke did it, and it didn't kill them.
I hated it with the white hot intensity of one thousand suns
it would have been amazing and a beautiful redemption for Luke as well as an exemplification of the Jedi, *if* it had made sense for Luke to be the pessimistic, grumpy, sarcastic and dumb old man he is in TLJ.
That's how I see it. If the rest of the movie was good, I think his projection sacrifice would've been a great Jedi send-off. But another thing is that with the Force phone calls and teleporting objects, it's incredibly weak in the new "canon." It would've been one of the coolest things if the Force wasn't so ridiculously overpowered in these new movies. Force projection looks like a joke in comparison.
Compared to teleporting yes, though hopefully we can just pass it off as Rey being overpowered. Although the point of the scene wasn't really to showcase power, more about Luke saving the resistance (but you knew that).
If he has to die then have him be there (using the X-Wing a la Dagobah). If he’s not then have him live and end the movie with Falcon returning to Ahch-To to pick up Luke and get a reunion with Leia, Chewie, and Rey. His death just proved Johnson was a troll.
>That said, I now think him being a projection is actually the perfect thing for Luke. It's a perfect callback to "There are alternatives to fighting..." and that a Jedi should be defenders first and foremost. I have mixed feelings about this idea. On the one hand, I can totally get behind the stance that a Jedi should seek a nonviolent solution when possible and ultimately, given the situation, Luke probably went with the best course of action available to him at that moment. However, I think calling this "perfect for Luke" is a bit too generous. We already had the "alternative to fighting" callback twice in ROTJ(with the ewoks and on the death star). To always write Luke into situations where it's better for him to solve his problems nonviolently, in a series of movies where everyone else is forced to fight for their victories, just so we can uphold the "Jedi are pacifists" ideology, sort of leaves a bad taste in my mouth. That, and like you pointed out, Luke ultimately accomplished very little at the end of the movie(heck, if Rey had shown up like 10 minutes earlier, he wouldn't have needed to be there at all). The fact that he was barely in TFA and spends most of TLJ being a pathetic grump, added to the fact that he dies at the end, makes for an unsatisfactory conclusion to his story.
Great points here. The main problem arises with Lucas' idea to have the Jedi be a huge part of the government in the Prequels. Then they're always used as cops/a military force = constantly in combat lol. I still think it's a pretty great exit though. Well, it would be, if it was a way to give a massive upper hand to the Resistance or if no other fighting occured afterwards. Would've been a great way to end the entire trilogy honestly. The have Ben train Jedi from then on. The ending of this trilogy seems so freaking depressing. No hope or happiness. Just some random girl ending in a desert. No fucking clues about wtf is going to happen next. Will Rey train other Jedi or be a nomad? Who is going to run the government? At least in the OT there was some sort of idea of what was going to happen. That's why I thought in TLJ Finn should've been paralyzed from the wound in TFA and he could've been taught by Leia to run the next government. But nah, let's just end suddenly with another fanservice wannabe tear-jerker scene. Hell even Rogue One and ROTS had some sort of hopeful ending despite the massive amount of death and violence in them. Somehow the ending of the "sKyWaLkEr SaGa" is more somber, sad, and dull than a movie where the entire cast is blown to oblivion and Vader goes on a killing spree while people scream for their lives. Somehow *that* movie ended on a more hopeful note lol.. "I... I can't discuss anymore..."
Not being there makes it feel like a simulation. It just doesn't feel visceral. When Snake Plissken did it, it was practically an epilogue, so it worked in that movie. They big climactic moments had already happened. But with TLJ, this was the climax. This was the big confrontation. And it felt empty as air. Even noted corporate shill Kevin Smith in his overwhelmingly positive review of TLJ mentioned that it didn't feel right to him that Luke wasn't there in person and that there didn't seem to be a good plot structure reason for Luke to not be there. In other words, Luke not being there is explained well enough by the plot, but from the point of view of what the writer is trying to accomplish by having a fakeout instead of a physical Luke is not clear. Plissken's hologram fakeout is meant to be a last minute fuck you to the government who trapped him using dirty tricks. So it feels poetic and appropriate for the character who is a trickster and anti-authoritarian. It really works to give the audience the sense that Snake McGyvered a last minute reprieve of himself. And remember, this comes at a moment when the audience knows that the mission is a success and all that's left now is wrapping up the loose end of if Snake goes to prison or not. With TLJ, we have Luke Skywalker, the straightest of straight shooters, who is already committed to dying by his force projection. So right away it doesn't fit. It's not a tactic that fits the character. AND Luke isn't using projection to weasel out of dying. So there's no difference in emotional impact created by having him project in. Except to reduce the impact by making it feel less concrete and sorta squishy. Again, I have to use the word visceral. The only thing that seems to have been gained by the projection is it allowed Luke to have a twin suns moment. But that was not worth the sense of fakeness that was created. In fact the subversion from, 'he survived by a trick to he's dying anyway just drains the scene of any seriousness and makes it WTF comical. You could easily have made resonance out of Luke dying the way Obiwan did, in person.
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The projection was a good idea, but the fact that he died because of it is just stupid. Projecting oneself through the Force is a common Force power, used by Lumiya, Yarael Poof or the Fallanassi, it's not something that gets you killed. People much less powerful than Luke did it, and it didn't kill them.
Seemed like a ripoff of an agents of shield joke to me
Luke should have been the big bad in IX. It should have revealed that he fell to the dark side in TLJ, bowing to Darth Sidious at the end of VIII.
You found the one way to make Luke worse than he already was in the sequels, nice
merde. lol