An argument can be made that Empire Strikes Back broke them first. The villain wasn't just a villain but now a former good guy and connected to the hero. There is a level of lost innocence that isn't resolved until ROTJ.
Is Toxic "Star Wars" Fandom Imploding?
- Thread starter Locutus of Bored
- Start date
I think the big difference here is falling to darkness and falling to despair. Had Luke gone bad we could understand to some extent and I don't think that's too far removed from fairy tale or serials. You used to see something similar with mind control or black mail a fair bit, from what I can recall. Heck we saw hints of this with Bilbo and Frodo, to go back to my earlier analogy, what we don't want to see is a hero just wallowing in their own despair. Had Luke been beaten and imprisoned or even twisted by the dark side and being the true face of Snoke would have been in keeping with the tropes and themes. Rey would have then had to bring him back to the light just like Sam tried with his master when they needed to drop the ring. For me, I'm not bothered what Luke was doing so long as he was doing something.
Granted if you were going to have him go to the dark side then you might want to have done a bit more building than "my nephew had some scary dreams one night so I was fifty fifty on chopping his head off with a lightsabre but that's a problem with the execution of the script rather than a core story problem for me.
Luke was beaten by his own fear. Which is consistent with mythology building is a person being their own worst enemy. It is also consistent with the worldbuilding of Star Wars, both with Jedi teachings, Luke's trial in the cave, and what has occured in past films.
This is my struggle. There are so many comments that are being levied come from the basis of wanting Luke to fight some external force, like Snoke or Kylo. But, these films have been as much about the internal struggle of the heroes as external battles. That, for me, is far more interesting because it gets to the heart of these characters as people and their internal reactions rather than big, flashy, battles.
Scary dreams is hardly what Luke saw, but regardless, it was a brief, instinctual reaction, and he immediately regretted it. He just didn't have any time to explain.
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But that needs to be symbolised by something in a flashy action adventure movie. As I said if you want to make some intellectual think piece then I will be the first in line for that but your not making that, your making star wars. Have snoke be a representation of Luke not doing nothing by giving us a flash back where he let palpatine come to power or something but you have to boil it down to good and evil for the simple matter is that your making a flash gordon fan fic. I get what your saying, I don't want it to come across that I don't. But also he fact that this fear held him for ten years while the galaxy went to shit is about ten and a half years too long for your hero archetype.
I think my problem here is that if we'd had this fleshed out. Gone into a little more detail on the two characters. Had some butting of heads or Luke getting worn down by the pressures of running the Jedi to explain it. The problem is that Rian is too busy being clever and giving us a message on how no truth is the real truth how everything is just a point of view that it derailed the movie leaving people like me to see Luke trying to slice and dice his nephew for no real reason.
And before anyone says anything I know the whole "certain point of view" thing from Ben. The difference is that didn't derail the movie, it gave us a second act twist. This leaves us feeling un-explained for why things are happening. Why isn't Luke talking to Kylo's folks or training him one on one or something, I don't know Rian is too busy trying to be clever. George meanwhile is just using that for a dumb twist to get people excited for the final act. Maybe like that twist it will be fleshed out in act three but it feels more like they have said what they want about that and aren't going to touch it again. It's not a lingering plot we're going to want answers to in the next movie. I mean I do, but I mean for the general movie going audience.
With due respect, no it doesn't. It hasn't needed that since ESB. That's when SW moved from Flash Gordon fan fic into its own universe.
Also, ten years? Ten years is short compared to studying most other mythological heroes. And, despite modern day interpretations of "happily ever after" that is a rarity in myths of antiquity. Beowulf, Robin Hood, King Arthur, to name just right off the top of my head. The Three Musketeers end up separated and dead. Oh, and even Princess Bride ends poorly.
Far from being inconsistent with mythmaking, TLJ actually fits the bill very well.
Agree to disagree then. I think Rian Johnson did fine, and that certainly wasn't the message I took away.
The certain point of view derails pretty much everything that was set up before, and undoes much of the good that Obi-Wan had done. The PT cemented that. So, as I said, TLJ is consistent with the worldbuilding done in Star Wars prior. We don't need big grand battles or flashy effects to see the the deepers themes.
For the record, the same complaints could be levied against ESB. We take ROTJ for granted because it fleshes out so much of the twists and rug yanking in ESB. Now, I could be wrong and Episode IX might explain nothing. I'll deal with that when it comes around. But, personally, I am satisfied with information as presented in TLJ, and can infer sufficiently for my purpose of understanding the story so far.
This is how I reacted. Of course there's going to be a passing the torch aspect to the old guard being replaced. It's quite ageist but it is also the way life works. That first screened movie, which may have been 4th in order but really first in establishing character, required less of an investment to follow the journey of say, Obi-Wan. Yet he is the obvious parallel to how Luke could've been. Kindness but strength. Someone said it up thread - dignity. Still a hermit, not necessarily admired, but not actually bitter either. He took nothing away from Luke. It was just written with more heart. These adventures are escapism, misery guts Luke was a downer!
These adventures ceased to be escapism when Obi-Wan Kenobi cut off his student's legs and arm and left him to burn. Or when Vader cut off his own son's hand, or tortured his son's friend to draw him in. Yeah, it also is wonderful escapism...
It's good to have a hobby.
These adventures ceased to be escapism when Obi-Wan Kenobi cut off his student's legs and arm and left him to burn. Or when Vader cut off his own son's hand, or tortured his son's friend to draw him in...
Or when toddlers were being chopped into kibble...
Bilbo was mentioned as a casual aside, but no, he wasn't just living his life.
He had grown to hate many of his peers, he was tormented by the ring and suffering deeply, he had grown mistrustful of others and had decided to give up his life in the Shire for those reasons. Nor did he give up the ring when asked, he had to be intimidated in order to do so and even then craved it afterwards, threatening Frodo in Rivendell.
Anyway, back to the point.
You seem to have a strange idea that there is a "correct" formula that films should follow in their story telling and that by having Luke flawed (or more correctly, just "human") the way he was and to make choices outside of that formula somehow invalidates TLJ. There's no reason Luke shouldn't choose a life of solitude, nor why he shouldn't give up on his previous goals in life other than your expectations.
He's a human being whom we have known very briefly some thirty or so years earlier and have nowhere near enough information about to predict his thought processes this far down the line. There's no reason we should fit him into a heroic (or any other) mould simply to please fans who don't want to see their heroes change or show any other side to their nature than the simple crusader they remember from the OT.
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No..he has an idea that Star Wars films cleave to a certain order. And he’s right...that’s one of the points in the Star Wars films, and why you can’t move for heroes journeys and Campbell and whatnot.
TLJ didn’t mess with that as much as I thought, but it was a bit of a mess, and was breaking that formula...change for the sake of change and all that. Luke could and should have been done better. Especially after already killing Han in the ‘wise adviser’ role.
Heroes of the type Star Wars uses are specific archetypes...at the moment it dies read as ‘bury the past, it was rubbish, but not too rubbish to use it to drag an audience in’ which is very...insecure of the modern writers. *shrug*
Not only did Luke, Han, Leia and Lando deserve better, but so do Rey, Finn, Poe and Kylo frankly.
...Ever actually read Campbell? Because the Star Wars movies have long since cleaved. Both of its heroes not getting a quantifiable reward (aka. a woman) and Anakin instead being based on Shakespearean tragic villains, is a bit of a giveaway.
In fact, it’s arguable that TLJ puts things back on track. Because Campbell highlighted that the archetypal hero tends to literally and/or metaphorically die. Then return, also possibly literally or metaphorically.
Luke underwent both types of ‘death’ in TLJ. Likewise his metaphorical return has already happened (both his epiphany and stand against the FO, and his reborn legend inspiring the kid in the epilogue), and his literal return is all but guaranteed.
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I'm sorry to do this to you for the second time in a few days because normally I tend to see a lot of value in your posts, but wow, you're wide of the mark.
Archetypes exist because they develop as meta phenomena, arising from the structure of the story, not because they are deliberately written in according to a formula. @Hela ninja'd me here but it really comes across as though you've read about Campbell without really delving into the actual substance. Characters do not rigidly follow the HJ to the letter, nor is the author beholden to try, these questions arise after the fact and aren't somehow criteria for whether the story was "correct" according to some preexisting criteria. These things are not deliberately written into stories, they arise from the shared human experience of the author and the reader (viewer)
Luke famously followed some version of the hero's journey in the OT, in fact he's often held up as an introductory example, Campbell 101, but as has been pointed out even there he diverges in several ways from being cast entirely in the mould, every hero does.
The OT has finished, however. Insofar as we view characters as being tied to an arc his is complete, but the real world doesn't work in story arcs, people live on after walking into the sunset. If he were to be included in the new films any actions he takes are moving beyond that arc, they are about what he does afterwards and real people don't act according to the sorts of structures you seem to feel should be imposed.
He could be leading the resistance, he could be training new Jedi, but he could equally have become a haberdasher with an interest in styling his hair, because that's much closer tot he behaviours real people demonstrate and frankly I don't want my fantasy to be constricted by the idea it has to be a fairy tale, rater than being enjoyable for drawing on that.
Totally. Some do. But Star Wars is something that has a huge chunk of synthesis in its mix. (dune, princess of mars, Flash Gordon...) it’s almost a pastiche. So I can see how Luke in TLJ doesn’t feel right, and can see why that would be a bad thing. I can see how he ends up where he is, and so can the writers, but they are a bit clumsy about it (hence two versions of the Kylo wakes up to Uncle Luke scene) which is what overall feels like being let down. There’s no ‘mast of the Argo falls on his head’, but with the second character getting the happy ending stripped before being offed, it gets a bit...unpleasant? There’s a difference between deconstructing and just plain breaking. Maybe it’s because of the time difference being addressed between movies, maybe it’s because of the rush to set up the new heroes (shades of having Worf getting his arse kicked every time we need to know the big bad is bad...so far Kylo and the FO are responsible one way or another for the deaths of Luke, Han, most likely Leia, three whole worlds of the New Republic....they must be more bad ass than the empire right? They have taken out all of its enemies...) but it’s leading to some clumsiness in there, that for many people makes the films simply not feel right. The idea it’s about realism is a non starter, because it’s Star Wars....almost nothing about it is realistic, so it has to apply its own rules..which are the rules being bent and sometimes broken...often for clumsy reasons.
Fans/audience aren’t necessarily gonna enjoy that. Sure, there are old heroes and bold heroes, but no old bold heroes...but do we need to take apart the past so completely simply to make the present look good? I don’t think so.
It’s not just Campbell I am talking about. It’s just the one that comes up most often. I actually like the Shakespeare route George took with the prequels, it’s a different kind of myth. I also like how you can try to work out precisely who is the chosen one...Anakin? Luke?
The characters all full different roles at different times, but it is, as said, a very fairy tale set up. If it stops being about good vs evil, and starts getting too many shades of grey in, it starts to lose something. If the heroes have to suffer after they get the happy ending, what’s the point?
And the heroes all did get a quantifiable reward, (the woman bit is daft..through from a certain point of view, it’s actually what two of them got...) specifically ‘family’ and peace. Han got a wife and brother, Luke got a sister and brother, Leia got a husband and brother. Lando got that family too, but a little less, but then..he’s only in two thirds of the trilogy, poor cape dude. First the new sequels stripped the family, then the peace, the. The heroes lives.
Everything you're saying to me simply sounds more like a problem within the fanbase than the films, people not wanting even the slightest variance from the what they expect and feel safe with. I don't want to feel I'm watching something where there's no creative freedom, where the plot is defined by a formula and anyone one of us could sketch it out in advance because that formula is so well known and goes so unchallenged.
I know I'm harping on the point but if we are applying the HJ to Luke he's already completed it, it can't define him so what is supposed to happen next? If we are to follow the conventions established in the world building that has gone before one side gains temporary ascendency before falling, typically due to some internal strife or failing amongst it's most prominent figures. That cycle works in both directions, The Empire fell due to Vader's questioning of Palpatine and guilt at his own actions, the Republic before it due to the hubris and arrogance of the Jedi Order and their failure to predict Anakin's fall, prior to that we know of Plagueis reaching previously unknown heights within the Sith teachings, much as Yoda later did with the Jedi. He was killed by his own pupil. The SW universe is on the large scale defined by the constant flux between two polar extremes and the shift from one is almost always internal. Luke as seen in TLJ is just the latest iteration of that.
The problem is people have grown attached to him above all other characters, he has come to define the idea of the ultimate hero of the setting, the final victory of light because that's how he was presented to us in the OT. Everything else has stemmed from that and comes secondary in the minds of much of the fanbase.
The world doesn't neatly wrap up adventures though, nor does SW. Life goes on and it does so without the benefit of a compass defining the route. Therein lies the problem, the story had to move on beyond the events of ROTJ and that means seeing what happens after the glorious victory, what comes next and how reality never meets the hopes and expectations of those who fight for those ideals. Luke being disillusioned and living in self imposed exile is well within the bounds of valid story telling, but that doesn't fit with the image people have of the happy ending he came to represent.
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