Yes you did, right here:
Swashbuckling: movies and shows where the moral implications of violence might be implied but only to a slight degree.. but they are not dwelled upon. Which is why Superman killing Zod in Man of Steel is entirely different than him doing it in Superman 2.
It's the reason why we don't consider shooting stormtroopers "murder"
Actually if you were saying that I'd agree with you.
Now,
you may not consider the killing of storm troopers "murder", but there's a reason the rank and file bad guys all wear masks or are droids and it's not budgetary. It's because it's much easier to dehumanise them and thus not be presented with the moral questions which would detract from the fun. It makes the people whose faces you do see much more valuable by comparison. You're more invested in them.
You don't want to think about the pilots of Empire fighters being people who are scared or in pain, people with families who have just lost a father or brother, because there's only room for so much pathos within a film. The good guys, the rogue squadron, the gaurds who die facing Vader and trying to prevent Leias' capture, we're supposed to care when they die, supposed to see their suffering and fear. It differentiates the actions of the heroes and the villains and stops us asking awkward questions about what the difference actually is between them.
In other words it's done precisely to make the film
less morally and intellectually challenging and avoid exploring difficult questions.
In other words avoid unnecessary depth.
It's basic stuff and a well known trope of film making.
Luke, on the other hand, is someone we are supposed to be exploring. We are supposed to actually be invested in him and his lack of healthy human reactions to immense tragedy pulls me out of the story. We see another double standard here in the treatment of Anakin who, despite arguably showing sociopathic tendencies (and he does), questions and is troubled by the consequences of his actions. It's a change in the tempo and the timbre of the film making which can only be explained as Lucas selectively investing his main characters with the sort of personal depth which warrants explanation.
Quite literally it happens when it suits and that robs the entire franchise in terms of how we engage with these characters. For me it is difficult to ignore and jars far more than anything about Reys' portrayal.
Luke looks shallow, soulless and empty by comparison to Anakin, Anakin looks melodramatic by comparison to Luke, but it isn't just about the characters, it's about the tone and style of the films they are shown in.
ANH
is shallow, it does avoid anything which might look problematic next to the simple narrative or cast the clear binary divide of hero and villain into question, but in doing so it presents us with a problem. In light of the later films which do, to some extent at least, explore those questions it renders Luke a very difficult person to relate to. If he is to be more than an archetype we cannot ignore what is on screen and that doesn't play out well for him at all.
