Five Points of Controversy in Star Wars: The Last Jedi That are Actually Beautiful - Part IV (Spoilers)

4. Not my Luke Skywalker

Acknowledgement: “Not my Luke Skywalker” is a hashtag gaining momentum. I doubt it will ever rival the somewhat entitled sounding “not my president,” but clearly those who use the hashtag feel just as passionate. Maybe even more.

I laughed when Luke tossed the lightsaber over his shoulder. Rian Johnson trolled me and I guess I just like that sort of humor. Andy Kaufman would have been proud. I will admit, The Last Jedi had me worried about Luke, and I thought, “Oh no . . . Mark Hamill was right.”

I think if you found this blog you probably know about Mark Hamill talking in several interviews about how he fundamentally disagreed with what Rian Johnson had in mind for his most iconic character. Just in case you didn’t, here is one of several hundred Youtube videos on the subject. Of course, this isn’t the best way to promote a movie, but I think Mark was honest when he made sure to start talking about how he had come around to Johnson’s vision.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djJ6GAplhFU

 We all could kind of predict Luke would not want to train Rey at first, and then he would grow and give in. However, we all assumed Luke had gone looking for the first Jedi temple because he wanted to correct his mistakes somehow. Come to learn he intends to just live out his days as a hermit until he dies. We all wanted Luke to be inspired by something, pick up his saber and go help Rey. We all wanted bad ass moments with him taking down the Knights of Ren, or maybe crushing First Order Walkers. We did get a blaze of glory moment, but despite the incredible final act, I can understand how it would feel underwhelming. Even Yoda didn’t fade into the force until Return of the Jedi. For years we have been reading stories, which are now legends, on how Luke managed to find himself a wife, have a son, and take down several more threats to the galaxy. We didn’t necessarily expect to see all of those things, but we wanted a hint of them. We were hoping for two more movies with Luke as a mentor for the next generation. We still might see him around in the next film, just not the way we hoped. However, when the story is examined in a big picture context, the poetry of Luke’s arc in this film is gorgeous.

How Luke was written: Considering the flashback sequences, Luke hasn’t been gone for twenty years. It seems like maybe two or three at the most. His failure with Ben Solo is relatively recent on the time scale. It leaves plenty of room for some of the badass stories we were hoping for to still be back into canon. What we have to come to terms with as fans is this: The Last Jedi is the story of the final days of Luke Skywalker. It is the story of how he placed his hopes in a young girl and decided to let his legend give hope to the galaxy. It is the story of how he came to terms with becoming more powerful than we could ever imagine, by moving from this life into the next. Han Solo was a mentor for Rey, but he doesn’t have the power to be her spiritual guide.

Luke does.

Since this trilogy as a whole is about the new generation, it is a fitting place to be. If I am Rian Johnson, I have to imagine how Luke would react to feeling responsible for losing Ben to the dark side. I also need to include things like how Luke probably found out about the old Jedi order and how his father fell. I will have to trust my audience to understand what my worst fear might be as a Jedi Master losing his student to the dark side without explaining them. The circumstances surrounding the fall of Ben Solo will be the final section in this series, so I am only going to state the obvious here. Considering the context of the moment of doubt Luke had that caused him to even consider the unthinkable, the person Luke becomes makes total sense.

 He is a man racked with guilt. Even touching a lightsaber again must disgust him even more than it disgusts us to see him milking weird space walruses. As a writer this broken man is who I build my story around. I can’t just have Rey show up and suddenly he changes his mind. I can’t have him return to heroics for his buddy Han Solo. So what really brings Luke back to us?

The Point of View of Master Skywalker: The real moment of triumph in this film is a quiet one. It’s when Luke opens himself up to the force again. This happens after R2D2 takes his “cheap shot” and shows Luke is original call to action. Something about his training with Rey prompts him to reach out to Leia. Her pain and suffering might have caused him to want to go to his sister, but as Luke rushes to find Rey he walks in on her and Kylo Ren physically touching through the force. All his fears come rushing back, and he does not respond well.

He tells Rey to leave, but she is determined that Kylo Ren could come back to the light. Luke tries to tell her not to go to him, but she won’t listen. However, Luke is open to the force now, and a certain green Muppet can at last make contact. Yoda is more than a cameo. He is the turning point in the film. Up to this point, both Luke and Kylo Ren are trying to burn down their past in different ways. Luke is trying to hide from his greatest mistake, and Kylo Ren is trying to literally destroy his past to gain power.

However, Yoda offers the balance. It is fine to destroy your past, as long as you learn from it.

“Failure is the greatest of teachers,” he says.  

The crux of the movie becomes that Luke needs to break free of his existential quandary. He needs to burn down the past of his failures, but he also needs to realize that he has learned from them, so that he does not have to be in constant fear of them happening again. This is the balance for Luke. To continue to pass on what he has learned to a new generation to include the lessons of his failures. Yoda bonks Luke over the head with his ghost walking stick—and it hurts. Then he destroys the tree. These two acts give us a new perspective on what Force Ghosts can achieve, so we should be perhaps a little excited that Luke no doubt becomes one.

 As for the texts, we learn at the end of the film that Rey has already taken them. Yoda knows this, so it is symbolic of the Force placing its trust in Rey to be the balance of the future. But Luke has also placed his faith in Rey. He knows his final act will create a legend, but he also knows he will not survive the effort it will take to project himself across the galaxy. He is both inspiring hope to the galaxy and placing hope in his last student. I find this notion beautiful.

I want to point out that we couldn’t get these motifs done correctly if Luke is physically at the final battle. Luke cold have destroyed the squadron of walkers, but he would still have to lose. Some people would have perhaps like to have seen him go out in this blaze of glory, or even sacrifice himself to Kylo Ren the same way Obi Wan did to Vader. This all sounds good in theory, but I think in execution we would have not been as pleased with the result. People would argue, “If Luke was so powerful why he couldn’t have just crushed Kylo Ren and ended the threat right here?”

We would never have bought Kylo Ren besting Luke in a duel. Could you imagine the outrage compared to the sort of small squabble we have over Luke’s death now?  Moreover, from the point of view of the character of Luke Skywalker, sacrificing himself might be significant for Rey, because he would be able to talk to her as a force ghost. Yet the rest of the Galaxy would see Luke Skywalker be defeated. Nor would he have been able to keep the First Order from advancing. Even if he could destroy several walkers it would not have bought enough time in my mind. Hope might have been in danger of being extinguished. 

Instead, Luke chose to goad Kylo Ren into a fight he could not possibly win, even with all his might. I became the kid at the end of the movie, creating my own legends of Luke Skywalker in between the films while still in awe of the way he showed us why he is one badass Jedi Master.