lol...
Oh good I hoped you'd respond.
Let me give you an example of the stupidity (as I perceive it) of the narrator of this video. Early on, he states, "saying that pushing the characters in an honest emotional direction is also stepping outside the bounds of the story, and taking it to surprising places, is contradictory and makes my head hurt to even think about."
I'm not surprised that his head hurts; his personal bias is preventing him from being able to rationally process simple concepts. You *can indeed* push characters in an honest emotional direction *AND* simultaneously step outside the bounds of the story while taking it to surprising places. In TLJ, Luke blaming himself and feeling like a failure is an honest emotional direction following TFA, where Han explicitly says that Luke blamed himself for what happened to Ben/Kylo. That's a pretty straight-forward example of linear story logic/progression.What RJ did that then pushed the bounds was to inject Luke's questioning about the whole Jedi Order into his malaise. He turned the personal trauma of losing Ben to the dark side into a broader analysis of the very religion and belief system that Luke had dedicated his entire life to.
I no longer agree that Luke's state in TLJ is a logical progression of the character as we knew him in the OT. I say "no longer agree" because on my first few viewings I saw him as an emotional and raw character who was crippled by the pain of failure (or perceived failure) and then pulled himself up by his boot straps to get back into the fight again. And I think that that's probably what RJ was going for and possibly thought was his only option after being handed a story that had Luke inexplicably hiding away when his friends needed him most.
But...I no longer think that RJ executed it in a manner that honors who Luke was.
Let's shift focus for a second to the other pop culture phenomenon going on right now--the MCU.
Captain America became disenchanted with SHIELD (TWS), the government/United Nations (CW), and even half his team (also CW.) Then he was a part of the greatest failure in history which was not preventing Thanos from using the Infinity Stones to wipe out half the universe. However in none of those films did he turn his back on his closest friends or on innocents in need of protection. Even when there was no longer a battle to be fought he still stepped up and helped regular every day citizens deal with their grief (EG.)
Or maybe consider Thor, who in EG might be the closest equivalent to TLJ Luke with the way he seemingly "gave up" and let himself go. Even then Thor didn't turn his back on his remaining people or his closest friends. He wallowed in self-pity yes, but he was still a good and loyal friend ready to mouth off to an annoying Fortnite troll who was pestering his buddy at a moment's notice.
I could go on with Hawkeye and so on.
My point is that Luke could have been disenchanted with the Jedi Order as Cap was with the various institutions that he served. Or crushed by despair like Thor or Hawkeye. But he still could have been an inspiring character even in his grief. Okay so the Jedi need to end in his opinion. Do pilots need to end too? Why didn't he hop in a fancy new X-Wing and fly on Poe's wing? Or at least serve as a field commander like General Rieekan or someone?
Why couldn't TLJ have opened with Rey handing him his lightsaber and the camera pulls back to reveal a dozen pupils who did survive Kylo's slaughter, all being trained by Luke as the prep for a counter-assault on the First Order? RJ was *not* backed into the "all Luke's pupils are dead/using the Force is bad/he can't help Leia in *any way*" corner that he made himself out to be.
And that's what rubs me the wrong way. When immature Luke nearly froze to death he still hopped into a snowspeeder the very next day. When his snowspeeder got shot down he charged an AT-AT on foot. **** going wrong for him was kind of a staple of his character (buying droids that got his family killed the film before, etc.) but he was always there for the cause and his friends (arguably to a fault as the Emperor chastised him in ROTJ.)
And IMO TLJ Luke didn't react to failure in a way that lined up with even his past immature self, let alone the seasoned and enlightened master you'd think he would have become 30 years later.
Also I did think that it was a good point calling out Chewie for watching his friend of decades get murdered by Kylo Ren and then two days later deliver Rey right to him without a word. As we learned in ANH Chewie isn't a big fan of marching into detention centers to rescue innocents, let alone someone who may well be the most evil person he's ever seen.
And then there's simple recycling of the exact same three act structure of previous movies right down to the same battles being repeated with the same vehicles. Why? There was no need for that. We made fun of ROTJ for decades due to it ripping off the DS attack of ANH, why should the ST benefit with the full benefit of 20/20 in all the years since ROTJ. I don't mind broad stroke themes being repeated (Empire attacking Yavin base in ANH, Empire attacking Echo base in ESB) but at least change up the locales and ships and things. And that's where I've come to realize that even if I ignore what I perceive to be mischaracterizations of the main heroes and just want to sit back and watch the choreography and visuals on a scene by scene basis I found myself asking on my most recent viewing of TLJ "Why am I not simply watching the OT? I don't need this movie if I want to just AT-AT's marching across a white desolate landscape, I don't need this movie to watch someone try to turn a bad guy good while being escorted to a throne room with red guards via elevator, I don't need to watch this movie to see someone seeking out a reclusive Jedi master for training, etc."
So beyond some *awesome* memories of watching it with my kids on opening day now that the dust has settled I have a hard time feeling like TLJ justifies it's existence or inclusion in the Saga. Throw in RJ's twitter tantrums and insults to the fans and that makes it even easier to wash my hands of it. I don't *want* to forsake TLJ nor do I want to dislike it so I really do hope that somehow TROS is so good that I handwave away my issues with it and just call it good. But I'm not holding my breath that will happen. We'll see.
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What'd you think I was talking about...
