On December 30 2015 01:34 KwarK wrote: Also to nitpick, if I sent my son off to a training camp and he came back a radicalized member of ISIS who'd already bombed a few places I'd be really pissed with the guy running that camp. Also are we supposed to think Luke doesn't know that a lot is at stake while he's on his exile. He left knowing what was going on for his own reasons. Now we find him and go "hey, shit is pretty bad, please come back" and expect him to go "oh, it's bad? Shit, sorry, I thought things were good, that's why I've been chilling over here for so long but if they're bad I'll totally come back. My bad, this one is totally on me. I hope nothing really bad happened while I was gone, I mean I felt this big thing in the force a few days ago which might have been hundreds of billions of people dying at once but I figured it was probably just gas". If he's gone he's gone for a reason.
I am pretty sure that is going to be filled in. But I bet Luke fears he will be turned to the dark side if he faces Ren. That he won’t be able to control his angry and betrayal, kill Ren and then become a larger threat than Ren would ever have been.
If that is going to be the plot of the second movie, dear god save us all. That's the worst theory I have read about Luke so far lol.
Kwark is right, Luke being away makes literally no sense at all.
It actually makes a lot of sense. Luke exiled himself after Ren's fall instead of fixing it. Knowing he would make it worse (by murdering him in rather dark ways) is one of the most likely reasons for his self imposed exile.
Luke is not Anakin wtf
So name another likely reason for Luke to go into exile right after Ren murders the rest of his students.
edit: The other likely reason being he wanted nothing else to do with any of it but that is kind of a huge dick move to do before fixing the Ren situation.
That's exactly it. There is no logical reason for Luke being gone. It's stupid and does not make any sense at all. Luke is the type of person who would rather fix the problem than run away from it.
On December 30 2015 01:34 KwarK wrote: Also to nitpick, if I sent my son off to a training camp and he came back a radicalized member of ISIS who'd already bombed a few places I'd be really pissed with the guy running that camp. Also are we supposed to think Luke doesn't know that a lot is at stake while he's on his exile. He left knowing what was going on for his own reasons. Now we find him and go "hey, shit is pretty bad, please come back" and expect him to go "oh, it's bad? Shit, sorry, I thought things were good, that's why I've been chilling over here for so long but if they're bad I'll totally come back. My bad, this one is totally on me. I hope nothing really bad happened while I was gone, I mean I felt this big thing in the force a few days ago which might have been hundreds of billions of people dying at once but I figured it was probably just gas". If he's gone he's gone for a reason.
I am pretty sure that is going to be filled in. But I bet Luke fears he will be turned to the dark side if he faces Ren. That he won’t be able to control his angry and betrayal, kill Ren and then become a larger threat than Ren would ever have been.
If that is going to be the plot of the second movie, dear god save us all. That's the worst theory I have read about Luke so far lol.
Kwark is right, Luke being away makes literally no sense at all.
It actually makes a lot of sense. Luke exiled himself after Ren's fall instead of fixing it. Knowing he would make it worse (by murdering him in rather dark ways) is one of the most likely reasons for his self imposed exile.
Luke is not Anakin wtf
So name another likely reason for Luke to go into exile right after Ren murders the rest of his students.
edit: The other likely reason being he wanted nothing else to do with any of it but that is kind of a huge dick move to do before fixing the Ren situation.
That's exactly it. There is no logical reason for Luke being gone. It's stupid and does not make any sense at all. Luke is the type of person who would rather fix the problem than run away from it.
That's why this movie sucks.
He was said to be searching for a Jedi temple, likely to learn something he doesn’t know. Clearly his last attempt at training Jedi went poorly and he needs to do it. There are plenty of reasons for him to be staying out of sight, including the First Order could kill him.
I've been reading the last few pages and I'm kind of surprised that there has been such little mention of the Supreme Leader. He's clearly the main antagonist and we know nothing about who/what he is or his motivations, aside from being a Dark Lord of the Sith (who is "training" Ren).
It seemed obvious to me that whatever Luke is doing, he's doing it to stop this Snoke guy (not so much Ren), and he has knowledge involving this guy that hasn't been revealed to the audience yet, that will presumably make sense of his exile.
On December 30 2015 00:20 Velr wrote: Leia/C3PO/R2D2. They have nothing to do in this movie and are just there for "fanservice/nostalgia". If you bring in old characters, make them do something. Yes, Leia is kinda involved, but thats all because of having/bringing up a child with Han between 6 and 7 (so, offscreen). Maybe she will be more important in the next one, I highly doubt it because, well, there is not much room for "Generals" on the side of the good guys if you don't go far away from the formula the original trilogy had.
There is no reason for Leia to be in this movie... Well, as muchas there was for the game in the Falcon.
I tought the movie was great but it just jumped at me with fanservice/nostalgia stuff for absolutely no reason, it felt weird.
I disagree. Prequel R2D2 and C3P0 were fanservice plain and simple. There was absolutely no reason for them to be there because they are just droids. The only reason they become famous is because of the Death Star mission which is decades in the future.
VII did exactly what it should do with the old cast. Maybe a lot of you haven't read the old EU books, so you don't know what could have happened, but I think the best comparison is the Pirates of the Caribean trilogy: useful characters in the original film get dragged along for film after film for no real purpose, taking up valuable screen time that could have gone to new actors. (two goofy pirates, two goofy soldiers, Barbarossa, even Will and Elizabeth's story arc was finished after the first and the films were a little lost on what to do except to reboot their relationship and ship Liz and Jack for a bit before going back. The 4th at least had the right idea to drop all the character's whose stories were done, but it turns out Jack works better as not the central character.
Anyways, the really bad EU books found ways to cram Luke, Leia, Han Solo, R2, C3PO, and Lando into the story with some subplot or other. One story literally had Lando exploring some random alien spaceship that had zero to do with the main plot and with a 'welp. That was a neat ship, I guess' ending. Some stories knew what to do with all six, but most didn't and tried anyways. The results were terrible.
By contrast, VII gave the most time to Han (and in his shadow Chewie) this makes sense- he's the top billing cast member and + Show Spoiler +
he's going down in the blaze of glory.
Furthermore, he was the Force disbeliever in the past, so it's nice having him being the one to confirm their stories of the past. Slotting Leia into a general role allows her to be in a supporting role for the entire movies, which is fine as it gives the new characters plenty of screen space and whenever the film needs a general, she can pop in (I still want to see her become a Jedi Master though.) Furthermore, she's necessary because of who the central villain is- Han deciding to try to bring Kylo back was as much about the reconciliation arc between him and Leia, which was great.
R2D2 and C3PO are heroes from the past, but have no reason to be a big part of the action... and they weren't. We really got a 'hello, I exist' from 3PO and that's it. That's perfect, that's all you need.
Pulling Luke out for the entire film works well because it gives lots of time for Han and the new characters- the next movie I expect lots of space for a wise, but troubled (and perhaps bitter) Luke.
And no Lando at all- I actually wouldn't mind if he shows up in a supporting role in the next films- maybe as a government official in the Republic, maybe some business operation (EU's go to). But just as a supporting role and nothing too big. I mean, I guess you could call the inclusion of Nien Nunb and Ackbar as fanservice as Ackbar wasn't even operating as an Admiral, but whatever.
Were people expecting a Star Wars film with absolutely no one from the Original Trilogy and no Millennium Falcon? Because that was never happening. Even the Fellowship of the Ring had Gandalf, Gollum and then Bilbo and Gloin in supporting roles.
Honestly, for character screen time, I think they did exactly what they needed to do. My main gripe was going back to the Death Star well one more time. But if this is the last time, I'm good.
A possible plot line to be discovered later about Rey's arrival on Jakku could be that Kylo wanted to spare her because he hadn't completely gone to the dark side and still felt an emotional connection to her, and hid her/got someone to hide her on Jakku to prevent her from being slaughtered like the other Jedi apprentices. It doesn't explain why he does not recognize her at all or figure things out when he ends up meeting her, though (instead of saying "that girl I've heard so much about"). Perhaps it was a knight of Ren who hid her instead? And if she's Luke's daughter, perhaps he exiled himself because his wife had been killed and he thought his daughter died as well, and the pain was so intense (especially since he took it as a personal failure) he felt he could not teach anyone else at that time.
All of that still makes it out-of-character for him to stay exiled while billions of people die elsewhere in the galaxy, though (although there could be a terrible cop-out like "my ship got destroyed and I got stuck on the planet" :p). You can't completely save the terrible writing. The fact that we don't know how many years passed since the slaughter doesn't help either.
Luke could have a fantastic reason for leaving or a terrible one. We don't know because there is hardly any exposition about why he left or what he has been doing during that time. That doesn't make the writing terrible.
On December 30 2015 02:54 kwizach wrote: A possible plot line to be discovered later about Rey's arrival on Jakku could be that Kylo wanted to spare her because he hadn't completely gone to the dark side and still felt an emotional connection to her, and hid her/got someone to hide her on Jakku to prevent her from being slaughtered like the other Jedi apprentices. It doesn't explain why he does not recognize her at all or figure things out when he ends up meeting her, though (instead of saying "that girl I've heard so much about"). Perhaps it was a knight of Ren who hid her instead? And if she's Luke's daughter, perhaps he exiled himself because his wife had been killed and he thought his daughter died as well, and the pain was so intense (especially since he took it as a personal failure) he felt he could not teach anyone else at that time.
All of that still makes it out-of-character for him to stay exiled while billions of people die elsewhere in the galaxy, though (although there could be a terrible cop-out like "my ship got destroyed and I got stuck on the planet" :p). You can't completely save the terrible writing. The fact that we don't know how many years passed since the slaughter doesn't help either.
The first oder wasn't that big of a deal in the timeline before the movie, that is exactly the reason the resistance is so small. Almost noone gives a damn. That will probably change in the next two movies.
On December 30 2015 02:56 CobaltBlu wrote: Luke could have a fantastic reason for leaving or a terrible one. We don't know because there is hardly any exposition about why he left or what he has been doing during that time. That doesn't make the writing terrible.
Yeah- if Ren when to ground after the initial slaughter, then there is no imminent danger. Yes, Luke could continue a possibly fruitless search for the one rogue apprentice, but if Kylo focused on hiding rather than killing, who knows how long it would take. Whereas, this could be a great time for Luke to search the old Jedi temples to see where he went wrong in his teaching (which clearly it did if not only Kylo turned, but a group- Ren's knights.) However, now that Kylo found some allies and is on the move, the research is over and it's time Luke to come forth again. (Plus the arrival of a new apprentice: when the teacher is ready, a learner will appear, to flip the Zorro quote.)
Unanswered is not the same as poorly written, but rather judgement suspended. I will cheerfully turn on that story point if Luke has a rubbish reason for disappearing, but the film sold me on the first part of the film, which was enough to carry me through another Death Star and enough for me to look forward to how they will fulfill a multitude of promises. This film more than any other Star Wars film ended with a whole series of questions, so the follow up films will be really, really important.
I really hope in the second film, the Resistance vs First Order shakes up the Republic and Empire peace and we get a full blown civil war rather than playing out Resistance as nouveau-Rebellion in the VIII and IX. I feel like a civil war is the pay off we need for destroying the Emperor, Darth Vader and two Death Stars: the good guys can muster a decent fleet and they hold a sizable portion of the galaxy. (A 'we were wrong' from the whoever is left from Republic leadership/ were out of the Hosnian system at the time and then 'this means war' would be fine.)
Part of the fun of the 4-6 was speculating on how the Empire came to power and the relationship between Vader and Obi all of that. The Prequels sucked the joy right out of that, sadly. But answering all the questions in a single film was never part of the plan.
On December 30 2015 02:56 CobaltBlu wrote: Luke could have a fantastic reason for leaving or a terrible one. We don't know because there is hardly any exposition about why he left or what he has been doing during that time. That doesn't make the writing terrible.
I'm not saying Luke's initial departure is what makes the writing terrible to me. Having Luke stay exiled after billions and billions of people die on various planets, as well as his friend Han Solo shortly after, does.
Love especially at moment 2:30 where Ray is about to move into Ewan's practice weapon, Ewan pulls it back just in time.
I guess when you are a big deal actor who wants to get through a fight scene uninjured, you give the stuntman, who can get injured without the movie getting delayed, the same courtesy.
Is there any in-universe answer to why they need to do thrust attacks with two hands? Rey did that a lot. Isn't it so that if you nick an enemy barely without any force, the lightsaber will feel no resistance? Why not do a rapier-like attack and extend yourself as much as possible. Without any armor, the rapier is the no.1 dueling sword and the 1 handed lunging thrust is the no.1 attack.
Even in kendo, when they do do a thrust, they do it t one handed. Unless of course, there's a mind game where the opponent tries to feint attack. You can then just hold out your weapon and he will walk into it, expecting you to parry his feint.
This makes me wonder why they fight two handed with lightsabers period. If you put two hands on a hilt, you lose so much fine control. This is true eventhough the intuition of a lot of people apparently says differently. And lightsaber hilts are all 1 handed anyway. You can't even get the advantage of leverage on those hilts.
I am pretty sure that whole attack to the resolution of the film takes place in the span of less than a week or two. He could have been willing to come back and then got news "nah, they got it."
Edit: I think lightsabers have some resistance to them when cutting through things. We just don't see it. I picture the weapon to be a lot like a chain saw, where it cuts through stuff fine until it jumps back and fucks you up.
As for stun doubles, they use them if there is a risk the actor will get injured or hit in the face. A bruised face can set shooting back days and that costs a lot of money. Interestingly, they don't need to use stunt doubles as much with sword fights as they do with hand to hand combat, since there is more space for the camera to work with.
On December 30 2015 02:56 CobaltBlu wrote: Luke could have a fantastic reason for leaving or a terrible one. We don't know because there is hardly any exposition about why he left or what he has been doing during that time. That doesn't make the writing terrible.
I'm not saying Luke's initial departure is what makes the writing terrible to me. Having Luke stay exiled after billions and billions of people die on various planets, as well as his friend Han Solo shortly after, does.
It's not clear to me exactly how long he stays in exile after the Hosnian planets blew up, given how many films compress time so much (*cough* Lord of the Rings *cough* The Hobbit.) I actually have no idea how much time passed in VII or in a great many Star Wars films. (Empire is the weirdest in that regard- looking at Luke's subplot, I assume months and months, but looking at Han and Leia's subplot, I assume days.)
It's entirely possible that Luke's reasons for staying away are really compelling but then we would need him to just go "nope, I'm away for a good reason and I'm staying away" when someone finds him. If that happened and they just left the planet with Luke on it and moved on with their own things then that'd be a waste of a film though. An entire film devoted to finding someone who doesn't want to be found and then he just isn't interested.
What has to happen for plot reasons is Luke gets swayed by arguments which he must have already been aware of and taken into account.
I hope they can make his reasons compelling for him internally and I hope they do not try to rationalize it.
So far it looks like he copped out. He was the only Jedi, failed at something, and went into hiding.
Maybe he knows that he can't defeat Snoke and he couldn't tell anyone he was hiding from him because of shame. They would divulge his location when caught, so he couldn't tell him where he was hiding. But he could have told he was.
They must portray it as a flawed hero move, not at something that makes sense. But they do need to show the audience that it made sense to Luke. Because the way they showed Anakin going dark side wasn't.
On December 30 2015 01:34 KwarK wrote: Also to nitpick, if I sent my son off to a training camp and he came back a radicalized member of ISIS who'd already bombed a few places I'd be really pissed with the guy running that camp. Also are we supposed to think Luke doesn't know that a lot is at stake while he's on his exile. He left knowing what was going on for his own reasons. Now we find him and go "hey, shit is pretty bad, please come back" and expect him to go "oh, it's bad? Shit, sorry, I thought things were good, that's why I've been chilling over here for so long but if they're bad I'll totally come back. My bad, this one is totally on me. I hope nothing really bad happened while I was gone, I mean I felt this big thing in the force a few days ago which might have been hundreds of billions of people dying at once but I figured it was probably just gas". If he's gone he's gone for a reason.
I am pretty sure that is going to be filled in. But I bet Luke fears he will be turned to the dark side if he faces Ren. That he won’t be able to control his angry and betrayal, kill Ren and then become a larger threat than Ren would ever have been.
Hahaha jar jar Abrams will forever be his name if that happens
Well Abrams isn't directing the next film. Rian Johnson of Brink and Looper is. He is also writing the screen play.
Edit: I would also point out that Luke was always at risk of falling to the dark side, which was the point of that last fight in Jedi. And its not like they have anyone else to train new Jedi if Luke can't stop Ren.
To me, the point of the last fight in RotJ is that Luke will "never" turn to the dark side, regardless of temptation. That's one of the best moments of the whole series. If the problem for Luke was that he feared turning, then we remove yet another great element of the OT by saying his character arc never happened, or he's not aware of it despite the fact that he very clearly stated it at the end.
On December 30 2015 01:34 KwarK wrote: Also to nitpick, if I sent my son off to a training camp and he came back a radicalized member of ISIS who'd already bombed a few places I'd be really pissed with the guy running that camp. Also are we supposed to think Luke doesn't know that a lot is at stake while he's on his exile. He left knowing what was going on for his own reasons. Now we find him and go "hey, shit is pretty bad, please come back" and expect him to go "oh, it's bad? Shit, sorry, I thought things were good, that's why I've been chilling over here for so long but if they're bad I'll totally come back. My bad, this one is totally on me. I hope nothing really bad happened while I was gone, I mean I felt this big thing in the force a few days ago which might have been hundreds of billions of people dying at once but I figured it was probably just gas". If he's gone he's gone for a reason.
I am pretty sure that is going to be filled in. But I bet Luke fears he will be turned to the dark side if he faces Ren. That he won’t be able to control his angry and betrayal, kill Ren and then become a larger threat than Ren would ever have been.
Hahaha jar jar Abrams will forever be his name if that happens
Well Abrams isn't directing the next film. Rian Johnson of Brink and Looper is. He is also writing the screen play.
Edit: I would also point out that Luke was always at risk of falling to the dark side, which was the point of that last fight in Jedi. And its not like they have anyone else to train new Jedi if Luke can't stop Ren.
To me, the point of the last fight in RotJ is that Luke will "never" turn to the dark side, regardless of temptation. That's one of the best moments of the whole series. If the problem for Luke was that he feared turning, then we remove yet another great element of the OT by saying his character arc never happened, or he's not aware of it despite the fact that he very clearly stated it at the end.
I never took it that way. I always took it as he resisted the temptation to finish off his father, but just barely. And the subversive nature of the Dark Side, that the thing that brought him closest to falling with the love for his sister. Luke declares he will never turn, that he is a Jedi, like his father before him. But his father fell after becoming a Jedi. I never took it as Luke will never fall to the dark side in the future.
On December 30 2015 03:17 Plansix wrote: I am pretty sure that whole attack to the resolution of the film takes place in the span of less than a week or two. He could have been willing to come back and then got news "nah, they got it."
Edit: I think lightsabers have some resistance to them when cutting through things. We just don't see it. I picture the weapon to be a lot like a chain saw, where it cuts through stuff fine until it jumps back and fucks you up.
As for stun doubles, they use them if there is a risk the actor will get injured or hit in the face. A bruised face can set shooting back days and that costs a lot of money. Interestingly, they don't need to use stunt doubles as much with sword fights as they do with hand to hand combat, since there is more space for the camera to work with.
That's because with a sword fight, you are never allowed to strike your opponent. You can't make a movement that if not parried, would hit your partner actor, period.
I am sure that's the first thing they learn. Then they memorize this choreography of attacks that all miss. Even the attacks they mean to dodge, the other guy misses anyway just in case.
Add to that that most actors still move clumsily and the inherent nature of a lightsaber duel that already demands quite a lot of suspension of disbelief, and we have a problem.
We have scenes were droids are cut in half with no apparent resistance. Hands of flesh as well. We have them cut through re-enforced doors. As far as I know there is no reason to push your lightsaber through your opponent.
On December 30 2015 01:34 KwarK wrote: Also to nitpick, if I sent my son off to a training camp and he came back a radicalized member of ISIS who'd already bombed a few places I'd be really pissed with the guy running that camp. Also are we supposed to think Luke doesn't know that a lot is at stake while he's on his exile. He left knowing what was going on for his own reasons. Now we find him and go "hey, shit is pretty bad, please come back" and expect him to go "oh, it's bad? Shit, sorry, I thought things were good, that's why I've been chilling over here for so long but if they're bad I'll totally come back. My bad, this one is totally on me. I hope nothing really bad happened while I was gone, I mean I felt this big thing in the force a few days ago which might have been hundreds of billions of people dying at once but I figured it was probably just gas". If he's gone he's gone for a reason.
I am pretty sure that is going to be filled in. But I bet Luke fears he will be turned to the dark side if he faces Ren. That he won’t be able to control his angry and betrayal, kill Ren and then become a larger threat than Ren would ever have been.
Hahaha jar jar Abrams will forever be his name if that happens
Well Abrams isn't directing the next film. Rian Johnson of Brink and Looper is. He is also writing the screen play.
Edit: I would also point out that Luke was always at risk of falling to the dark side, which was the point of that last fight in Jedi. And its not like they have anyone else to train new Jedi if Luke can't stop Ren.
To me, the point of the last fight in RotJ is that Luke will "never" turn to the dark side, regardless of temptation. That's one of the best moments of the whole series. If the problem for Luke was that he feared turning, then we remove yet another great element of the OT by saying his character arc never happened, or he's not aware of it despite the fact that he very clearly stated it at the end.
I never took it that way. I always took it as he resisted the temptation to finish off his father, but just barely. And the subversive nature of the Dark Side, that the thing that brought him closest to falling with the love for his sister. Luke declares he will never turn, that he is a Jedi, like his father before him. But his father fell after becoming a Jedi. I never took it as Luke will never fall to the dark side in the future.
His direct quote is "Never. I'll never turn to the dark side." I'd say that's pretty clear. Maybe you thought he was lying or mistaken, but that's definitely not how I took it. I think his total rejection of the dark side is his great victory, the greatest personal victory of the series aside from maybe Vader's turn back to the light.
A better motive for Luke to go into seclusion is that he became a total pacifist - this is not clear, but it makes a lot more sense to me. In RotJ, he relates rejecting the dark side with rejecting violence when he throws away his lightsaber. If he was just teaching his new apprentices the ways of the force without any combat training, the force as a religion rather than a tool to fulfil a "keepers of the peace" role, then his seclusion makes more sense.
EPT
