Star Wars: Episode IX - THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

[guyver1]

So...if this theory of force essence transference exists in the SW universe..Maybe Rey isn’t wrong to take on the name Skywalker since Ben is a part of her now

What do you guys think

 

[Prime Clone]

So...if this theory of force essence transference exists in the SW universe..Maybe Rey isn’t wrong to take on the name Skywalker since Ben is a part of her now

What do you guys think

That's actually one of the ways I was trying to rationalise this supposedly being the "Skywalker Saga" and the final episode being called "The Rise of Skywalker". Maybe the dyad is now one and Rey and Kylo are literally Reylo.

 

[jye4ever]

I do like that when Luke blew up the death star he was receiving only verbal guidance from Kenobi similar to Rey defeating the emperor only with verbal guidance from the force instead of them materializing in visual form.


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[guyver1]

I do like that when Luke blew up the death star he was receiving only verbal guidance from Kenobi similar to Rey defeating the emperor only with verbal guidance from the force instead of them materializing in visual form.


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Well maybe that’s why there has always been the iconic creed throughout SW history

The Force will be with You...ALWAYS

 

[e30ernest]

The Brief moment off Pure instinct is not really Thinking... It is acting without thinking.. He did not go in the hut with the intent to kill Ben.. When he looked inside he saw what Ben had become or what Snoke / Palps wanted him to think he had become, this is when pure instinct kicked in a he ignites his saber..

Yeah it is difficult to get inside the head of a Force user because the Force is not real (there is no 1:1 analog to real life). I think the closest real-world example to the above would be crime of passion or temporary insanity where sudden rage compels you to violence.

 

[TaliBane]

I put in bold the central part of where I think the disconnect is. You're saying that Luke simply amped up his fighting. But, Luke wasn't fighting at all before that. He was avoiding Vader the whole time. The only reason they locked sabers in the first place is because Vader interrupted Luke's swing at Palpatine.

Luke WAS NOT FIGHTING his father, and went into that throne room with no intention of fighting his father, much less killing him. And *that* is why the Leia moment is important, and transformed the situation. Only from that point did Luke have violent intent. It resulted in a severed hand and a realization that "I am my father's son, and I'm going down the same path because of fear." Remember, *fear* is the path to the dark side. Fear of what would happen to Leia resulted in Luke feeling anger. Dark side path . . . cut off hand of a family member . . . rage . . . this is all happening to Luke as it had with his father. And that's when he collected himself.

The point of this is whether Luke intends to KILL Vader. Some here say he has that intention earlier in the fight, others later when he has the sister/no moment. I say he never does, even when he loses his cool and defeats Vader.

What happens in the "no!" moment is Luke has it hammered home to him that he has to actually defeat Vader (in battle) to get what he wants; that his words and avoiding the fight won't work. But, sixty seconds later, Luke has the chance to kill a disarmed Vader (Palps hasn't entered back into the scene at this point) - and he doesn't. That's the critical point.

The darkside thing is garbage too - if Luke is hellbent on killing Vader in Luke's "darkside minute" (Luke holds a world record for shortest time in the darkside,) why doesn't he? instead, seconds after wailing on Vader's saber (oh-no... Luke has an ANGRY face, it must be the darkside!) and severing his hand, Luke is back to himself.


I think the problem here is everyone recalls the semantics that surround all this: they hear the echoes of the Luke/Ben earlier exchange "I can't kill my own father/Then the Emperor has already won" (thereby planting the idea that Luke has to kill Vader) plus hearing Palps' endless rhetoric that the very act of Luke raising his saber against him would constitute him giving into hate and anger, and a path to the darkside.

But that's NOT what Luke does onscreen. This is what people don't seem to get. HOW does Luke trying to kill this evil, supernatural being Palps that has his father on a puppet string, that has sprung a trap on his friends and the alliance, is blasting thousands of rebels to bits every few minutes... constitute Luke giving into hate/anger/darkside etc? It DOESN'T. What Palps is saying is 100% a lie.

Isn't that like saying killing Hitler - just as he's ordering the killings of thousands - would be giving in to anger and hate, an act of giving in to the dark side? No, that's just a rational act. Right?

Say what!? Luke is talking about stopping the future that he sees from becoming reality. As to the rest of the assertions you made about the TLJ scene, I've already gone into length today about what happened on screen, and how to interpret it with logical use of context. I'm tired of re-hashing it, and I know that doing so wouldn't change your mind one iota. So we just have to agree to disagree, unfortunately.

EDIT: Oh, I see now. You mean kill the boy to stop the future. Okay, gotcha. Sorry about that.

I'm confused. To clarify the basics so we're on the same page:

1. Luke had some bad feelings about Ben,
2. Luke went to Ben's hut in the middle of the night to confirm those feelings,
3. With feelings/intuitions confirmed, he then decided to kill him (for however a brief moment.)
4. Luke ignited his saber to kill Ben, waking Ben

Are we in agreement on that or not?

I'm unclear on how anyone can "interpret" this without the idea that Luke came to the hut with the potential of killing Ben based on what Luke previously felt.

I think Ajp summed it up perfectly. At this point I'll also have to agree to disagree with you on this one Talibane.

As for that TLJ scene, it's funny how we're presented with different points of view on the movie itself:

1. The point of view from a defensive Luke
2. The point of view from a Ben who felt betrayed
3. The truth from Luke (which turned out to be in-between)

It's almost like people from all sides of the debate (we remember/understand the scenes of the same movie differently).

How can it be any other way? It's shown in these fragmented flashbacks, with opaque dialog with no context whatsoever (we see NOTHING of what happens between Luke and Ben) and it's told in multiple ways.

The scenes are so vague as to be almost meaningless, and it was done this way on purpose because the filmmakers really had no idea what they wanted Luke to do - yet you're treating it as if it's this genius move.

It's the TOTAL lack of clarity that has us all struggling to understand it.

The Brief moment off Pure instinct is not really Thinking... It is acting without thinking.. He did not go in the hut with the intent to kill Ben.. When he looked inside he saw what Ben had become or what Snoke / Palps wanted him to think he had become, this is when pure instinct kicked in a he ignites his saber..

After that I am not sure if you just stop watching the video after a certain point and fail to hear Luke say

and for the briefest moment of pure instinct, I thought I could stop it. It passed like a fleeting shadow, and I was left with shame and with consequence. And the last thing I saw were the eyes of a frightened boy whose Master had failed him.

So even quicker then his instincts his rational thought came in and took over... By then it was too late.

Also I would say that Since Kylo went and killed all the other Jedi Luke was teaching that Luke obviously had the right idea about where Ben was headed.

But... what is meant by that "brief moment of pure instinct" to you? Forget fleeting shadows and shame and all that flowery crap. You're dancing around this.

His "rational thought came in and took over"... and it stopped Luke from doing.... WHAT?

The "brief moment of pure instinct" is Luke's decision to kill Ben and ignite his saber to go ahead and do it, followed by the "rational thought" to change his mind.

Based on his feelings or intuition or whatever... Luke decides to kill Ben, and ignites his saber to do so. Can't you admit that?

By just showing the dialog, you're also omitting the fact that the movie SHOWS Luke ignite his saber as he says that in VO, reinforcing what Luke is planning to do in that moment - to kill Ben. Luke igniting his saber is what wakes Ben.

The issue is that the (intentionally) hopelessly murky way these scenes are presented gives people a lot of wiggle room to deny what is OBVIOUS.

 

[TaliBane]

The Brief moment off Pure instinct is not really Thinking... It is acting without thinking.. He did not go in the hut with the intent to kill Ben.. When he looked inside he saw what Ben had become or what Snoke / Palps wanted him to think he had become, this is when pure instinct kicked in a he ignites his saber..

Imagine a teacher of your teen son enters your son's dorm room in the middle of the night in a search for answers about some evil acts he believes your son is planning.

He finds evidence that - in his mind at least (ie not exactly a court of law) - supports his belief that your son is indeed planning these acts.

In a brief moment of pure instinct, he gets a flash of anger and pulls/cocks his loaded gun (oh, he brought his gun) with the intention to kill your son. The sound of the weapon being drawn wakes your teen son and even though the teacher changes his mind about pulling the trigger within seconds, the gun goes off and kills your son.

Was he "acting without thinking", therefore should be forgiven? That we shouldn't judge him too harshly? I mean he didn't go to the dorm with the intention of killing your son, and it was just some pure instinct that kicked in.

I suppose this, in part, is what Han and Leia would have faced had Luke not had that second thought not to kill Ben.

Some of this hinges on how accurately you think a jedi/force user can read/predict the future, or "foreseeing" someone's actions. Onscreen, the evidence for accuracy is pretty lacking - Yoda says the future is "difficult to see" because it's always in motion (indeed what Luke thinks he sees in fact a TRAP,) and Palpatine talks a lot about Luke's "destiny" and things he has "foreseen" as if the are foregone conclusions - but that never come to pass. Like none of it.

So with that in mind - that predicting the future via the force is not all that accurate - and setting aside the fact that we as viewers know the future and Ben/Kylo's actions.... how justified was Luke to be there in that hut and do what he did? And what if Luke had had that second thought a moment AFTER he swung the saber at Ben, instead of a moment before?

So Luke erroneously (and he should know this - the Yoda and Palps examples are in the past) believes his feelings/predictions about Ben are accurate. He goes to this boy's hut in the middle of the night - armed (makes no sense that a Jedi teaching young students on a remote island is armed all the time) - to confirm his feelings/predictions, is satisfied they are accurate, and in a flash of "pure instinct" decides to kill the boy based on those likely erroneous beliefs and ignites his weapon to do so.

And you see this as not only perfectly understandable, but easily forgivable?

 

[JAWS]

Imagine a teacher of your teen son enters your son's dorm room in the middle of the night in a search for answers about some evil acts he believes your son is planning.

He finds evidence that - in his mind at least (ie not exactly a court of law) - supports his belief that your son is indeed planning these acts.

In a brief moment of pure instinct, he gets a flash of anger and pulls/cocks his loaded gun (oh, he brought his gun) with the intention to kill your son. The sound of the weapon being drawn wakes your teen son and even though the teacher changes his mind about pulling the trigger within seconds, the gun goes off and kills your son.

Was he "acting without thinking", therefore should be forgiven? That we shouldn't judge him too harshly? I mean he didn't go to the dorm with the intention of killing your son, and it was just some pure instinct that kicked in.

I suppose this, in part, is what Han and Leia would have faced had Luke not had that second thought not to kill Ben.

Some of this hinges on how accurately you think a jedi/force user can read/predict the future, or "foreseeing" someone's actions. Onscreen, the evidence for accuracy is pretty lacking - Yoda says the future is "difficult to see" because it's always in motion (indeed what Luke thinks he sees in fact a TRAP,) and Palpatine talks a lot about Luke's "destiny" and things he has "foreseen" as if the are foregone conclusions - but that never come to pass. Like none of it.

So with that in mind - that predicting the future via the force is not all that accurate - and setting aside the fact that we as viewers know the future and Ben/Kylo's actions.... how justified was Luke to be there in that hut and do what he did? And what if Luke had had that second thought a moment AFTER he swung the saber at Ben, instead of a moment before?



And you see this as not only perfectly understandable, but easily forgivable?

If I can forgive Vader for killing little kids and I can forgive Kylo for killing Han... I think I can get over Luke Luke not killing his nephew.

To your point... I don't know what its like to have that vision.. But a moment of Pure instinct makes me feel that what ever vision / feeling that Luke got from Ben must have been so powerful that it caused him to react in such a way and then came to his senses..

As for the comparison with my kids... Dude.. Not the same thing at all... We are talking Star Wars here buddy.. Not real life

So Luke erroneously (and he should know this - the Yoda and Palps examples are in the past) believes his feelings/predictions about Ben are accurate. He goes to this boy's hut in the middle of the night - armed (makes no sense that a Jedi teaching young students on a remote island is ​

armed all the time

) - to confirm his feelings/predictions, is satisfied they are accurate, and in a flash of "pure instinct" decides to kill the boy based on those likely erroneous beliefs and ignites his weapon to do so.​

I don't know what to tell you about Luke being armed... He's a Jedi knight / Master.. I don't know what the rules are for putting it away at night


I can only go by what the movie shows and tells us.. Luke went in to get a read on Kylo
What he saw / felt was astronomically bad
Without thinking he thought he could stop it all by striking him down
But rationality took over very quickly and Luke felt shame.
But it was too late and there was consequence... Not just for himself but for everyone.

 

[JAWS]

But... what is meant by that "brief moment of pure instinct" to you? Forget fleeting shadows and shame and all that flowery crap. You're dancing around this.

His "rational thought came in and took over"... and it stopped Luke from doing.... WHAT?

The "brief moment of pure instinct" is Luke's decision to kill Ben and ignite his saber to go ahead and do it, followed by the "rational thought" to change his mind.

Based on his feelings or intuition or whatever... Luke decides to kill Ben, and ignites his saber to do so. Can't you admit that?

By just showing the dialog, you're also omitting the fact that the movie SHOWS Luke ignite his saber as he says that in VO, reinforcing what Luke is planning to do in that moment - to kill Ben. Luke igniting his saber is what wakes Ben.

The issue is that the (intentionally) hopelessly murky way these scenes are presented gives people a lot of wiggle room to deny what is OBVIOUS.

I don't think I ever said that Luke was not at some point going to kill Kylo… But like e30ernest said.. I would liken it to a moment of temporary insanity.. Where emotion took over.

My argument is that it was not his intent going into his hut to do that.

You think it was obviously because Luke had his saber on.

I don't. Movie does not present it or tell it that way.

I would think if he was intending to kill Kylo in the Hut he would have had his saber drawn already.

I just don't see your reading on this or ROTJ at all.

The point of this is whether Luke intends to KILL Vader. Some here say he has that intention earlier in the fight, others later when he has the sister/no moment. I say he never does, even when he loses his cool and defeats Vader.

What happens in the "no!" moment is Luke has it hammered home to him that he has to actually defeat Vader (in battle) to get what he wants; that his words and avoiding the fight won't work. But, sixty seconds later, Luke has the chance to kill a disarmed Vader (Palps hasn't entered back into the scene at this point) - and he doesn't. That's the critical point.

The darkside thing is garbage too - if Luke is hellbent on killing Vader in Luke's "darkside minute" (Luke holds a world record for shortest time in the darkside,

) why doesn't he? instead, seconds after wailing on Vader's saber (oh-no... Luke has an ANGRY face, it must be the darkside!​

) and severing his hand, Luke is back to himself.​

Just out of curiosity... What significance does Luke looking down at his own hand and then throwing away the saber have to you? Anything at all? ​

 

[punisher1974]

I do like that when Luke blew up the death star he was receiving only verbal guidance from Kenobi similar to Rey defeating the emperor only with verbal guidance from the force instead of them materializing in visual form.


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To be fair Kenobi in space would have looked like Leia Poppins. Luke wouldn't have made the shot out of pure shock.

 

[Khev]

It would have been cool if after Luke blew up the Death Star and was flying back to Yavin Ben appeared in his flying ghost body outside Luke's cockpit and saluted him before veering off to realms unknown.

Then Luke could have said "I gotta get me one of those."

 

[punisher1974]

It would have been cool if after Luke blew up the Death Star and was flying back to Yavin Ben appeared in his flying ghost body outside Luke's cockpit and saluted him before veering off to realms unknown.

Then Luke could have said "I gotta get me one of those."

 

[ajp4mgs]

The point of this is whether Luke intends to KILL Vader. Some here say he has that intention earlier in the fight, others later when he has the sister/no moment. I say he never does, even when he loses his cool and defeats Vader.

What happens in the "no!" moment is Luke has it hammered home to him that he has to actually defeat Vader (in battle) to get what he wants; that his words and avoiding the fight won't work. But, sixty seconds later, Luke has the chance to kill a disarmed Vader (Palps hasn't entered back into the scene at this point) - and he doesn't. That's the critical point.

Tali, every lightsaber duel - by its very nature - carries the very real likelihood of being a fight to the death. You don't engage in lightsaber combat to score points. The conceptual genesis for cinematic lightsaber duels is samurai sword-fighting, intended to be like the duels portrayed in Kurosawa films. Can they sometimes end in a non-fatal resolution? Sure. But much like pistol duels, they're essentially meant to be quasi-ceremonial acts where you win by killing your opponent. Luke can't beat Vader by merely disarming him; Vader can still use the Force, and Luke knows that.

In the ROTJ duel, do you really think that Luke's wild swings which backed Vader down had any finesse or swordsmanship behind them? Any attempt to land precise shots? I think it's obvious that Luke was swinging with raw emotion (anger). And that was the whole point. The "sister" comment changed his intentions 180 degrees. Just prior to that, Luke said "I will not fight you, father." But right after the "sister" moment, Luke comes out with fierce intent; and to the delight of Palpatine.

The fact that he didn't kill a vulnerable Vader is what that scene is all about. That was the takeaway. Having him look down at his hand and then toss his lightsaber is how we the audience are being presented with what Luke is thinking and feeling. He stopped himself from something right? Otherwise, why have that scene? He was basically saying that he won't do this; he won't cross the line and go down the same path as his father. "You've failed, your highness." What do you think that meant, if not for Luke saving himself from crossing the line completely?

The darkside thing is garbage too - if Luke is hellbent on killing Vader in Luke's "darkside minute" (Luke holds a world record for shortest time in the darkside,) why doesn't he? instead, seconds after wailing on Vader's saber (oh-no... Luke has an ANGRY face, it must be the darkside!) and severing his hand, Luke is back to himself.


I think the problem here is everyone recalls the semantics that surround all this: they hear the echoes of the Luke/Ben earlier exchange "I can't kill my own father/Then the Emperor has already won" (thereby planting the idea that Luke has to kill Vader) plus hearing Palps' endless rhetoric that the very act of Luke raising his saber against him would constitute him giving into hate and anger, and a path to the darkside.

But that's NOT what Luke does onscreen. This is what people don't seem to get. HOW does Luke trying to kill this evil, supernatural being Palps that has his father on a puppet string, that has sprung a trap on his friends and the alliance, is blasting thousands of rebels to bits every few minutes... constitute Luke giving into hate/anger/darkside etc? It DOESN'T. What Palps is saying is 100% a lie.

Isn't that like saying killing Hitler - just as he's ordering the killings of thousands - would be giving in to anger and hate, an act of giving in to the dark side? No, that's just a rational act. Right?

Nope, sorry; the "darkside thing" isn't garbage. It's precisely what was being built up to in ESB for Luke's eventual and ultimate character conflict/triumph. Here's some dialogue from the Dagobah training scene:

YODA: "A Jedi's strength flows from the Force. But beware of the dark side. Anger... fear... aggression. The dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice."

That's setup and foreshadowing of what Luke would face in the sequels to follow (which were condensed into ROTJ). I think it's crystal clear in both intent and follow-through in terms of storytelling. All basic stuff.

That's where Luke's arc was intended to go: a flirtation with the dark side, and a pivot where he makes the opposite choice that his father had made. Whether you picked up on that or not from the ROTJ scene in question, what I'm telling you is that I think it was abundantly obvious what was going on. The Palpatine dialogue throughout further plays into the same conflict/crisis moment that Luke was set up to face.

I'm confused. To clarify the basics so we're on the same page:

1. Luke had some bad feelings about Ben,
2. Luke went to Ben's hut in the middle of the night to confirm those feelings,
3. With feelings/intuitions confirmed, he then decided to kill him (for however a brief moment.)
4. Luke ignited his saber to kill Ben, waking Ben

Are we in agreement on that or not?

Yes, we are in agreement as to that being an accurately-described sequence of events. But it's not complete. The "feelings/intuitions confirmed" part doesn't take into account that what Luke saw also went well beyond what he expected. And that's the key.

I'm unclear on how anyone can "interpret" this without the idea that Luke came to the hut with the potential of killing Ben based on what Luke previously felt.

My interpretation is as follows: Luke had been growing more concerned about a general sense that he was getting from Ben. He waits until Ben is asleep, and goes into his hut (I assume because the closer he is, the easier it'll be). What Luke sees is beyond anything he was prepared for.

Ben has been fully turned to the dark side and is actually like a wolf in sheep's clothing within the confines of Luke's Jedi academy. Ben will kill Luke's students and help tear apart everything that the Rebellion had fought and suffered to secure. Luke has a fleeting impulse to end that before it starts. But he can't murder his nephew, and never would've gone through with it.

Igniting his saber in a moment of weakness is something that I don't have a problem with since it was done in reaction to what was an all-but-certain tragic eventuality as far as Luke was concerned. To me, Ben had already been turned to the dark side and was being kept in Luke's academy in order to destroy it from within. If that's what Luke saw, I think his fleeting reaction was not only understandable, but even to be expected. That's my take, based on Luke's narration and other film context.

You're going to disagree with it because you probably see it differently. That's fine. But now you have a complete interpretation from an opposing point of view, for whatever that's worth.

 

[Khev]

 

[darth dennis]

To be fair Kenobi in space would have looked like Leia Poppins. Luke wouldn't have made the shot out of pure shock.

...or the big green floating Wizard of Oz head. Either way, pretty jarring for Luke!

 

[Mad Old Lu]

I'm finding it fascinating to see this new viewpoint for ROTJ. And for Tali to stand firm with his beliefs. I'm assuming Tali has seen ROTJ countless times for decades, and it's been crystal clear to the point that he never even considered the possibility of another interpretation. Pretty much like everyone else here but from the opposite side. Very interesting.

For the record, I agree with Jaws and ajp.

Slightly off topic, I still love TLJ and love it more the more I think about it.

And back on topic: I ordered ROS on 4K/Blu from Target and should arrive today. Not sure when I'll get a chance to watch it again though. Although I have to admit, the more I think about ROS, the less I like it, even though I do remember enjoying it the 2 times I watched it in the theater. I'm not bothered by Palps, or his "plan", nor any of the plot points. But it does bother me how thin the characters felt, especially after how rich they were in TLJ and even in TFA. Poor Finn was the worst--no arc to speak of.

 

[jye4ever]

To be fair Kenobi in space would have looked like Leia Poppins. Luke wouldn't have made the shot out of pure shock.

...or the big green floating Wizard of Oz head. Either way, pretty jarring for Luke!

He could have materialized in the XWing like Leia in his hut or like a heads up display lol


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[punisher1974]

He could have materialized in the XWing like Leia in his hut or like a heads up display lol


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Like a catholic Priest?

 

[Khev]

He could have materialized in the XWing like Leia in his hut or like a heads up display lol

Or if Ben's head materializes and rises between Vader's legs as he's about to shoot Luke.

"I have you now."

"Hello there."

"What???"

*crash*

lol

 

[punisher1974]

So the Jedi are Catholic Priests.