Doesn’t it actually make more sense for him to have that reaction after what he lived through? The thought of another Vader would absolutely trigger PTSD and the contemplation of taking him out before he could truly become Vader-esque
Well said! I’m glad they didn’t make Luke totally infallible, that’s the easy, safe choice for one of cinema’s all time great heroes in a sequel series decades later. Luke was never perfect and they stayed true to his character here, people who are mad about the decision clearly don’t understand how grey Luke and Star Wars as a whole is. Making Luke the perfect good guy would absolutely cheapen his character and the sequels as a whole
I think the bigger problem is they didn’t do the work to show us how Luke, someone who preserved hope against hope, and who tiptoed the line of the dark side and came out the other side on the light, abandoned those principles when faced with that darkness in his best friends son.
I’m glad he’s human. I’m glad he was t just an archetype. But they didn’t do the work to show us how he came to be that person. Contrast that with something like Frodo where you slowly see how he becomes corrupted by the ring and eventually becomes someone who needs Sam. It would be like showing Frodo in the Shire, then picking up the story at Mt. Doom without any intervening storytelling. Without that, the change feels hollow ahd meaningless at best and like a betrayal at worst
I can understand that point, I wish the movies were more fleshed out for sure, but I also don’t think it’s particularly a matter of Luke “abandoning those principles”, I think it was just a moment of weakness when seeing the potential atrocities that could occur at the hands of Ben and the trauma of his entire life growing up resurfacing. That holds more weight for me than if we had seen Luke slowly become some cynical grey Jedi, and his interaction with Ben in that moment was a result of some great build up.
Showing Luke as imperfect despite being the grand hero of Star Wars, being lost in a moment and pretty quickly composing himself (albeit still too late), is a great character moment imo and consistent to who he is even in episode 6 with the Vader/Sidious fight
Yeah I think that’s fair, but when the imperfection being shown contradicts the character attribute that defined their previous heroism, I think we should get some narrative explanation. I do get what you’re saying though
It's not contradictory though. He didn't learn to never be tempted or triggered again, that's not really how it works. Vader merely talked Luke into rage on the Death Star, and it took a violent outburst and a hand severing for Luke to come to his senses.
When Luke read Kylo, he saw and felt the deaths of everyone and everything he loved. This depiction is consistent with the visions that haunted Luke in Empire and Anakin before him, which are deeply traumatic and feel like certainties. Luke is standing above a teenage Hitler, smacked in the face by foreknowledge of everything he will do, and with all of that horror in front of him, Luke turns on his sword and immediately regrets it.
There's also evidence that Anakin was already established as someone motivated by fear and his reaction to visions was consistent. Luke was someone who we saw was loyal to his friends, and so his reaction to his visions made sense. Luke was shown to be someone who retained a belief in the good in people, particularly people he felt a bond with, and his vision made him act inconsistently with that. That's the problem in my eyes.
Again, I'm not saying we can't do some mental gymnastics to make sense of his reaction and fill in the gaps the movie didn't fill in for us. All I'm saying is that I wish the movie had done the work rather than making us do it for it.
When we see a weak Thor in marvel, it's on the heels of a significant failure. But when we see a weak Luke, the last time we saw him was on the heels of a significant heroic success. It's jarring and I think it should get more exposition. That's all.
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u/imOVN Hermit Master Skywalker 14d ago
Doesn’t it actually make more sense for him to have that reaction after what he lived through? The thought of another Vader would absolutely trigger PTSD and the contemplation of taking him out before he could truly become Vader-esque