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Messed up Luke makes sense...

Mage

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I mean, think about. His aunt and uncle were totally protective of him, never allowing him to make his own choices. They seem to know about his father, so they're scared. Comes along Ben, who basicly says 'you should stop listening to what those people are telling you, and do exactly as I tell you'. No free choice at all.

Next up, Ben is killed and he's roaming around the galaxy as a hunted man basicly. Untill a ghost tells him to go somewhere and be told again what to do and trust his faith into some unseen Force. He's basicly told that recueing his loved ones is not allowed. Then he finds out his father isn't dead, but an evil tyrant. AND it turnes a man he wanted to trust never even told him he had a sister.

With only basic training in the Force, he's now also given the order to rebuild the Jedi Order (pass on what you have learned). This totally backfires, and his own kin slaughters the whole bunch of his students.

Really, messed up and scared Luke from the trailer makes total sense.




Now, yes. That was a silly post, I understand. But, I know some fans are disappointed at the portayel of Luke in the new trailer. But really, look at what he's been going through all his life. There was no true stable core in his world. Even the upbringing by his aunt and uncle had a root in fear. A dapper hero would have been awesome, but this idea of a man on the brinck of loosing his last shred of sanity..... It makes more sense I think.
 
If Luke were going to be messed up by those early experiences it would have manifested itself way earlier. He seemed to be the kind of guy who bounced back from trauma pretty easily, as unrealistic as that may be. The messing up had to happen AFTER ROTJ. Mid life crisis if you will, but AFTER.
 
If Luke were going to be messed up by those early experiences it would have manifested itself way earlier. He seemed to be the kind of guy who bounced back from trauma pretty easily, as unrealistic as that may be. The messing up had to happen AFTER ROTJ. Mid life crisis if you will, but AFTER.

We spend time with Luke a whole of four years. This is 20 years or so later. A lot can happen in between.
 
Well think about it... Both of his Masters die before he really gets any benefit from being a Jedi among them.. He has NO peers.. No Jedi council to learn and grow from once he become a Jedi.. Even if they are there as ghosts, it's not the same. He's on his own to rebuild an entire society of Jedi... Han and Leia entrust him to take Ben under his wing and teach him the ways of the Force and to become the next great Jedi.. Then Ben goes all Dark Side on them and kills everyone... No wonder Luke flees.. I'd be completely messed up too... That last thing I'd want to do is take another padwan on after all that...
 
I think it's Ben/Kylo turning on him and killing his other students that has him so messed up in TLJ. From what we've seen of him in the OT, and the bits and pieces afterwards he didn't seem that badly effected by what happened there. The impression I've gotten is that he off into exile because he blamed himself for what happened with Ben, and decided to off by himself to study the Force and the ancient Jedi.
 
If Luke were going to be messed up by those early experiences it would have manifested itself way earlier. He seemed to be the kind of guy who bounced back from trauma pretty easily, as unrealistic as that may be. The messing up had to happen AFTER ROTJ. Mid life crisis if you will, but AFTER.
Not necessarily. He pretty much went from one adventure to the next. His period of mourning for Beru and Owen and Obi-Wan was, what, a minute, maybe two, before he was dealing with Mos Eisley, TIE fighters, and saving the Rebel base, evacuating the Rebel base, finding a Rebel base, etc.

I'm not sure what therapy looks like in a GFFA, but I doubt it's minute therapy.
 
ROTJ was as close to a Disney happy ending as you're gonna get. Having Luke backslide, develop angst, and disappear is merely a contrivance to propel the sequels. There's no getting around the perception of a gap or discontinuity in characterization and all we can do is offer rationalizations for it. There really weren't enough loose ends after ROTJ to justify a whole new trilogy. They had to effectively undo the hard-earned closure of ROTJ in order to create them, which is the unresolvable problem here. Given those parameters, you can still make a good movie, but that problem will never completely go away.
 
The problems the galaxy has in TFA are more or less the same as they had in the old EU. A surviving Imperial Remnant that was fighting the Republic for decades with a shadow Empire building in the unknown regions of the galaxy away from Republic eyes. That and a lot of Jedi problems with the dark side.
 
The problems the galaxy has in TFA are more or less the same as they had in the old EU. A surviving Imperial Remnant that was fighting the Republic for decades with a shadow Empire building in the unknown regions of the galaxy away from Republic eyes. That and a lot of Jedi problems with the dark side.
Exactly. It isn't like the EU had a "Happily Ever After" for the Big Three anyway. Sorry, when ever I hear that Abrams "ruined" that aspect. Life wasn't exactly roses for the galaxy after ROTJ.
 
Sure, but to play devil's advocate here, the OT characters evolved into new roles that were all a step up and forward from their previous ones. Leia ended up running the government, Han put his crime aside to serve his new family, Luke succeeded in bringing back the Jedi (with only a few notable misfires). It was a new dynamic that while still a challenge to them challenged them in ways that were different from that of the OT. They matured, they grew up, they grew into better people than they had been. It was very optimistic.
 
Not every story in the EU was optimistic and they had major setbacks in terms of careers, family, and even towards each other. The New Jedi Order nearly fell apart, more than once. It was almost wiped out once or twice. The Solo children and their parents suffered a lot at the kids became adults. One paid the ultimate sacrifice and it nearly destroyed the family. Another fell to the Dark Side and it did destroy the family. They picked up the pieces afterwards. That is basically what is happening in the new trilogy. A Solo child has fallen to the Dark Side and is destroying the family along with the Jedi Order has been basically destroyed. This happened in the old EU. The only difference is who in the family was murdered.
 
Not every story in the EU was optimistic and they had major setbacks in terms of careers, family, and even towards each other. The New Jedi Order nearly fell apart, more than once. It was almost wiped out once or twice. The Solo children and their parents suffered a lot at the kids became adults. One paid the ultimate sacrifice and it nearly destroyed the family. Another fell to the Dark Side and it did destroy the family. They picked up the pieces afterwards. That is basically what is happening in the new trilogy. A Solo child has fallen to the Dark Side and is destroying the family along with the Jedi Order has been basically destroyed. This happened in the old EU. The only difference is who in the family was murdered.
I stopped reading after the first few books of NJO. The new villains just didn't interest me.
Well luke was hiding and didn't want to be founded. Han was back to smuggling, and R2 was depressed and shut down.
Great reading comprehension! Top of the class.
 
I stopped reading after the first few books of NJO. The new villains just didn't interest me.

Great reading comprehension! Top of the class.

Thanks!

I agree they matured but I just don't think it was optimistic.
 
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Not every story in the EU was optimistic and they had major setbacks in terms of careers, family, and even towards each other. The New Jedi Order nearly fell apart, more than once. It was almost wiped out once or twice. The Solo children and their parents suffered a lot at the kids became adults. One paid the ultimate sacrifice and it nearly destroyed the family. Another fell to the Dark Side and it did destroy the family. They picked up the pieces afterwards. That is basically what is happening in the new trilogy. A Solo child has fallen to the Dark Side and is destroying the family along with the Jedi Order has been basically destroyed. This happened in the old EU. The only difference is who in the family was murdered.
Exactly. The difference right now is that there isn't all the background information.

But, Chewie dying? A Solo child falling to the Dark Side? Yeah, all very optimistic...or not.
 
I think my major complaint with the EU is that it really didn't push the characters further all that much. Sure, there were ups and downs, trials and tribulations but the writers/publisher's persistent unwillingness to break away from the established format essentially had the core three characters running on the spot for the best part of half a century. Even stuff like Chewie dying, one of the Solo kids dying and the other turning too the dark side were little more than stunts and did little to further the core characters along any discernible arc. Hell, at one point Luke supposedly turned to the dark side, took up Vader's place at the side of a resurrected Emperor and it had *zero* effect on his character over the long term. Talk about a narrative reset button!

Honestly, a rosy "and they lived happily ever after" would have been preferable since at least it would give some closure instead of this comic-book-like "never ending second act" nonsense. They should have at the very least put those characters on a back-burner after a certain point and let newer, younger characters come the the forefront. There was every opportunity to do so and there was certainly no shortage of candidates, but for whatever reason none of them were allowed to really come into their own. Jaina is probably the best example of this. She had all the makings of a new lead character for the franchise...and the best they could come up with was a tired "love triangle" and a nebulously foreshadowing destiny they never actually followed up on (see also: Vima Sunrider.)

One of the best things the ST appears to be doing is showing that these people have changed in the 30-odd years since we saw them last. I mean nothing is more emblematic of this to me than casting Han in the Obi-Wan role. The ultimate cynic and selfish rogue became mature, compassionate and wise.
 
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We can always image that Jaina Solo-Fel was the first Empress of the new Empire and first master of the Imperial Knights. With her uncle's blessing.
 
We can always image that Jaina Solo-Fel was the first Empress of the new Empire and first master of the Imperial Knights. With her uncle's blessing.
"Imagine" being the operative phrase there. Given the sheer volume of material Bantam, Del Rey & Dark Horse were able to produce over the years there's really no excuse for not having explored that character fully and yet they barely skimmed the surface.
 
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