I will agree that Poe was less developed that perhaps could have been. Unfortunately, this is largely a function of him suppose to die in the crash and not return. Up to you to decide as to the function that could have served in the story. Though,
@HugeLobes, that does help solidify a potential character idea.
Here is my view on the following. We are deprived of nothing regarding the Luke/Rey relationship thus far. Luke was a mythical being, ostensibly overblown, which is a classic literature trope of the legend who is often less than the legend made him out to be. I do not understand the continual discussion as if Luke is out of the picture to train Rey, when clearly that wasn't the case for Luke and Obi-Wan, or Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. In essence it is a non issue unless Luke doesn't appear in Episode 9, which would surprise me.
Rey and Finn can still be a relationship. Largely because these two people have never had normal functioning relationships before. SO, the idea that they should immediately become romantically involved is about as appealing as a high school romance. It sounds nice on paper and yet is psychologically unhealthy.
You and I must have watched very different movies then.
Her call is much smaller with BB8 and then becomes larger with the Force vision. A call which she rejects, in mythological style, only to be pushed in the story. She now has to find her place in that story. That's the adventure for me is this character not having a clearly defined role and she has to make her way in the galaxy.
Now, that might not appeal to all who wanted the clearly defined roles of the myth making, but it appeals to me in a very "coming of age" story and identity formation for that character.
That's a fair point, but I don't agree. Luke's failure wasn't just his failure. He saw it as an instinctual reaction that came from the Jedi, and that's demonstrated throughout the saga.
I have discussed this in the past, but I'll share it again. A man was once turned in to the Nazi government for being subversive. He survived the concentration camp and was liberated. When he returned home he discovered that his own son had turned him in. The man hung himself after that.
Fewer emotional ties often gives us more resolve because Luke had the conviction that he could change Vader. But, here was someone that he had grown up with, knew and had more emotional ties to and the Dark Side still got to him. How deeply that must have wounded Luke! Far from being unbelievable to me it is the most human of reactions.
I didn’t know that Poe was intended to not survive TFA. That at least explains why he got such short shrift in TFA.
You make a good point that the relationship between Rey and Luke can continue, with a Force Ghost Luke perhaps. Though I would say we were deprived of a relationship between the two characters in TLJ that would’ve given an after-death continuation more resonance. We got to see more mentorship (dare I say friendship even), among living Jedi or Jedi apprentices in both previous trilogies. TLJ decidedly had Luke mostly sit out on that role, shirking it, as he had shirked decades of duty since (at least Johnson kept that consistent). We didn’t see such a dereliction in either previous trilogy. Obi-Wan was the watchful guardian of Luke on Tatoonine, while on Dagobah, Luke got a short test of patience before being accepted to be a Jedi apprentice. TLJ pushed Luke’s reluctance too far, and then gave us too short a window to see both him and Rey bonding. By the end of the film it was clearly said and shown that Rey had ‘all she needed’ to be a Jedi so what then will really be the point of bringing Luke back from a storytelling perspective, outside of correcting the ‘mistake’ (and I do believe it was a mistake) of his mishandling in TLJ? Rey did pretty well without him, unlike how Jedi training in the past was depicted, which showed that the masters taught, and the students learned. This isn’t a fault of Rey, who wanted that relationship, but how Johnson handled Luke, who rejected it. Albeit, they did give Luke a reason for that (didn’t agree with that either, but he had his reasons).
Luke was not an overblown mythological figure. He did play a role in saving the galaxy. He was such a threat that Snoke and Kylo Ren were hunting for him, and Leia knew he could be a game changer in their war against the First Order. That’s not overblown, and it was proven by his actions in the original trilogy.
You are right that Rey’s call was smaller, and she did eventually answer it. Though her lack of ties in the overall story, coupled with a lack of strong character development, leave her a nebulous presence in the trilogy thus far. A Deus Ex Machina character.
Good point about neither Rey or Finn having normal relationships before, though there is a question of what is a normal relationship. I don’t see a Rey and Finn pairing being any more messed up than other romances/potential romances in Star Wars (Anakin/Padme, Cassian/Jyn, or even Ben/Rey for that matter). I think both Ridley and Boyega have a natural chemistry. With the addition of Rose Tico, I don’t see Rey or Finn becoming more than just friends now.
I don’t think Luke’s reaction in TLJ was instinctual to the Jedi at all. Even if you want to compare him to the two best known Order 66 survivors, both didn’t shut themselves off from the Force. They didn’t run away, especially Obi-Wan. And when both received the call, they answered it. Luke did not. Luke left his sister, his family, and the galaxy at the mercy of a powerful dark sider in Snoke, his own nephew, and a resurgent empire. That’s different than having the world ripped from you and the Republic turn against you in the prequels.
Throughout the previous films we saw the Jedi get involved a lot, and to that, Luke’s concern about Jedi meddling making a situation worse, okay I’m not a fan of that, but that’s something. However, it doesn’t wash for me because it wasn’t some impersonal, large Jedi Order that was making mistakes, it wasn’t Luke having issues with an establishment (like Anakin arguably did in ROTS), Luke was the establishment. Luke made a mess that he refused to clean up, that he left for others do to, and that didn’t jibe with the character from the original trilogy. Certainly, people change, and people don’t always get better or improve over life, but to do this to such a hopeful, inspirational figure, I wanted a better explanation for why. I mean, his fear about Ben became a self-fulfilling prophecy. So once Ben really did go to the dark-side it was incumbent upon Luke to finish what he almost did at the Jedi Academy for the good of the galaxy. The fact that he chose to have a pity party for years instead doesn’t make sense to me. And that he shut himself off from the Force perhaps because he didn’t want to hear judgment from the Jedi Force ghosts.
I think you make a good point about emotional ties when it comes to Luke and Ben, though on the other side of your argument, couldn’t that have compelled Luke to work even
harder to redeem Ben? That he would close himself off for years, not even talk to Leia or Han, tell them what he did, so they could at least have that information, it just felt more plot-dictated than organic to the Luke from the original films. And it was never reconciled why he left a way to find him in TFA if he was so adamant about not wanting to be found or get involved in TLJ, which was another example to me of how plot-dictated TLJ was, at the expense of character. To me, Luke's reaction was more about his own guilt, his refusal to make peace with his actions instead of Ben. Ben's subsequent actions proved that Luke's instinct or whatever had been correct, though it does stand to reason if Luke didn't push Ben into fully going to the dark side much faster than he would have, and/or that it made it even harder to potentially redeem him. Luke, who had been one of the more self-sacrificing characters in the original films, became one of the most selfish in the sequels, until the last minute plot-dictated 'save' though after the Resistance had been all but wiped out.
