Are We Watching Movies Wrong - Subverting Expectations and the Betrayal of Luke Skywalker

yes fiction has rules as the Continentals very own Winston once eloquently said to John wick rules without them we live with the REA lows or something like that the argument you didn't complain when Luke Skywalker did it has been a consistent retort from those desperate to defend the cinematic hate letter commonly known as the last Jedi it also happens to be a go to excuse to defend rey star of the Disney sequels who is essentially the character equivalent of the rich heiress coasting through life on Daddy's money this is a tactic often used to label OG Star Wars fans as some flavour of bigoted or man-baby by trying to point out some manufactured hypocrisy because defending the Disney star were sequels by pointing out their virtues and merits is apparently a glaring impossibility for even the most ardent defenders and so defenses often boiled down to tearing apart Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy or forcing the naysayer to confront some suppose it in her bias and acknowledge an unfair double standard that critics of Disney star wars are being far stricter on Rey and the Disney sequels then they had been on Luke and the original trilogy and oddly enough while it's clear to many that this argument is so dishonest they would make a career politician fall to their knees in jubilant envy it might be unclear as to why which incidentally is probably why this argument is so favored in the first place and why it's so effective because the truth is we do have a double standard but unfortunately for the valiant Knights of Ray and their lifelong dedication to defending the Queen with one hand and tipping their four doors with the other this actually isn't the victory they were hoping for so while they're busy taking a Dorito chip and eating it and trying to prove that you're as sexist bigoted for hating Rey and simultaneously living in Luke Skywalker the fact remains that while there is a double standard it's less of a sexist one and more of a literary one George Lucas once famously described Star Wars like poetry that it rhymes this was a driving force behind a defense of the Star Wars prequels series and however one might feel about the prequels or this particular defense it's based on an ancient writing technique referred to as ring composition also known as chiastic structure which is a legitimately effective technique since it's essentially how creators build a relationship with their audiences pores built between writer and fan though it should be noted that this technique works best have used over a course of a long series rather than a single standalone product to put it another way the chiastic structure is the formula on how to use the stalter effectively why because whether he used a formula or not this is exactly what George Lucas might have been looking for with the mentioned desire for a poetic rhyming narrative just as poetry comes with various rhyming schemes such as a a BB a where the a lines rhyme and the B lines rhyme for example there was once a woman named Shannon who was once part of a fanon shuck blue of her head when Kyla fell dead and raela was no longer canon chiastic structure echoes a similar scheme but with lines of poetry replaced by major narrative chapters so you have the pattern a b c c b a and this could pertain to chapters of a single work or more ideally installments of a franchise to bring it back to star wars a structure hypothetically but go as follows had lucas actually used ring composition or at least use it properly a The Phantom Menace B Attack of the Clones C avenge of the Sith then C a new hope B the Empire Strikes Back and a return at the Jedi each later installment calls back to its matching letter you see it's supposed to be like poetry it rhymes in this mythical scenario returned the Jedi would call back to the Phantom Menace the Empire Strikes Back would call back to attack of the clones and a new hope would called back to Revenge of the Sith so for example had the ring composition been used effectively or at all you might have had the climax Revenge of the Sith feature Anakin Skywalker performing a last-ditch assault to blow up an enemy's super weapon you know like he did in the Phantom Menace and then a new hope would climax with Luke Skywalker blowing up the Death Star more importantly the Phantom Menace should somehow connect with The Return of the Jedi for example maybe the Phantom Menace could have concluded with a definitive into the Republic's power just as The Return of the Jedi concluded with a definitive end to the Empire's power either way the matically or structurally we end where we started and this completes the ring part in the ring composition so why mention all this because reading composition not only perfectly exemplifies a double standard I mentioned earlier it is a technique so ancient it's more commonly associated with religious texts than modern media which shows us that this double standard is not just a modern one or a preference but a tradition that still tellers have utilized for thousands of years but what is this double standard and does it prove that we are in fact watching movies wrong to sum it up in one word continuity through someone up and four it's the burden of continuity so what does that mean rules the first story in a series of franchises allowed the most creative freedom or at least a few astre striction z' upon release because ideally this initial installment is the one that sets the rules of the universe what can and can't happen but once the rules have been set and the facts of the universe defined it becomes canon which means that any story that follows must follow these rules and must adhere to canonically established events the only exception being a logical break or change in the rules for example if your story has established that certain magical Scrolls dictate the laws of the universe then it would be logical that having a character change what is written in one of these Scrolls would change the established laws of the universe one cannot for example just say two characters represent a dyad in the force and just call it a day without explaining to the audience what that means and why it's significant otherwise it just looks like a cheap and lazy way to write yourself out of a horror house of a mess this was also a problem in the Star Wars prequels another set of notoriously bad films just not nearly as bad as the sequels when Anakin Skywalker was marked as a chosen one with no real explanation as to how a chosen one works or how the force makes one and why as confusing as the Matrix trilogy could get at least they explained the significance behind their chosen one title ie said chosen when being a reoccurring anomaly in the program of the matrix and this changed Neos chosen one state is from just a lazy excuse to make him absurdly powerful such naturally gifted to an interesting plot point keep in mind that the hero of the original Star Wars trilogy Luke Skywalker was not a specified chosen one so while Luke may have been a gifted hero a chosen one plot point was never actually in play in other words being a hero and having a destiny there's not a chosen one make now the question that normally comes next the saving question that Disney Star Wars sequels had propelled to the forefront of popularity because until their arrival this question was only really ever asked by the very worst specimens of fan fiction writer is if it's fiction why do rules matter because these rules are the backbone of a story's universe they are the building blocks of the world for example a rule of our world is that humans need water to survive and so a common method was to build cities close to his source of drinkable water in Star Wars there exists a mystical power called the force those sensitive to the force can use it to manipulate the world around them a significant and terrifying power to be sure but even the force has its own limitations dictated by the established rules of the Star Wars universe but more importantly as rules can create the heart of a franchise rules also create the lifeblood of a good story tension let's step away from Star Wars for a moment and take a look at another series Death Note this series at its heart is a detective story which follows the epic cat-and-mouse contest of wits between the holder of the Death Note Light Yagami and the great detective hill normally detective stories use real-world rules to drive the tension and mystery which means a supernatural fantasy in most science fictional elements are left out if someone gets stabbed in the back there will be a murder weapon and a murderer who did the stabbing criminal commits crime detective follows the trails of clues until he can finally destroy the criminal with facts and logic Death Note is a detective story that adds in a supernatural element the holder of the note can kill anyone anywhere in the world as long as the holder knows the targets real name and face because the series is very real written one of the first things it does is to define the rules of the supernatural element what light is allowed to do and what he isn't allowed to do the rules are established in made canon and because Death Note is very well written each following episode respects the Canon and continuity of the previous episodes most notably the rules of the Death Note so when the great detective el begins to deduce these rules and begins to put plans into play to exploit the limitations of the Death Note tension begins to grow as you wonder what move light will make next why because it's true fictional stories allow the Creator to explore ideas that only live within the bounds of our own imaginations nevertheless when something illogical is introduced into a story the writer must define it but logic especially if like the Death Note this fictional supernatural element is central to the character or plot and this even holds true for the force while the force itself is quite malleable in Star Wars as some are quick to smugly point out even a supernatural element as ambiguous as the force has to be defined by logic within the context of the series there is one grounded solid rule to the force that has been true since the very first movie that the user no matter how naturally gifted must endure training in order to increase their power this apprentice rule helped introduce the Jedi that formed the basis of masters and pupils among force users and so the rule ultimately formed the basis of Luke Skywalker's journey because just as neo needed to learn to control the powers of the one in order to defeat the mechanical entity that ran the matrix Luke Skywalker needed to learn the ways of the force before he could defeat the Empire it showed us that Luke Skywalker might not be able to face the likes of Darth Vader but with hard work study and dedication he might one day match Vader's power from Luke to Anakin to Obi one to Ashoka tano Galen Starkiller Darth Maul Count Dooku and even Emperor Palpatine himself The Apprentice rule has not only been a core element to the Star Wars mythos but a foundational element of the entire franchise and let's not forget revin from the Knights of the Old Republic who might begin play as a level one who has a skill set identical to Rey knowing multiple languages technical skills natural force abilities etc but revin has the benefit of Jedi training not to mention the experience to oppose the Jedi Order and put together a massive fleet reven even has an apprentice and keep in mind that revin could be either gender in this scenario so when Rey is introduced in the force awakens and she gains a roster of powers she never ever earned with no canonically substantial explanation as to why it stands out as a vicious betrayal of the series essential core continuity a betrayal of what made Star Wars Star Wars the term continuity has developed a somewhat negative stigma often being connected to angry fans require continuity fail because someone's shirt is the wrong shade of blue on the same note adherence to continuity is not only a powerful creative tool as described by the structure of ring composition but an essential storytelling building block as noted by Death Note and The Apprentice Rule of Star Wars but to the eternal dismay of Rian Johnson the pompous pygmalion of Star Wars creators and the people who apparently love him so much they enthusiastically wear shirts that inform complete strangers that they are literal garbage continuity not only covers adherence to the rules established by a fictional universe but also plays an important part in story development what's the difference between the previously spoken about logical continuity and story continuity logical continuity follows our expectations for each story to stick with the universe's rules for example the necessity for a force user in Star Wars to require training before they can grow stronger story continuity follows our expectation to see plot points follow through the best example of this concept is the hero's journey or as Joseph Campbell originally called it the monomyth because throughout his study of ancient cultures from the stories of the Greek myths to the epic of gilgamesh to the journey of Jesus Christ and beyond this hero's journey is not only the formula that defines Star Wars Campbell believed it was also a pattern that was universal spanning millennia and cultural divides the single myth of humanity to quote Campbell himself a hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder fabulous forces are there encountered in a decisive victories one the hero comes back from his mysterious adventure with power to bestow boons on his fellow man although it isn't absolutely necessary to use every component of the hero's journey or even the journey in its entirety it not only remains an appealing narrative pattern that overcomes cultural differences and continues to survive the test of time it also gives a tangible look at a fundamental truth of storytelling our psychological need to see a completed cycle in other words once a journey begins and we see it build we need to see it end in a satisfactory way a way that justifies the journey we've followed so far a story in a sense is a chain of cause and effect but let's look at it another way the formula used by Pixar which actually came from the story spine by Emma Coates goes once upon a time there was and everyday until one day and because of that and because of that until finally the end line one introduces the main character line two introduces the world and the characters placed within it line three is the inciting incident lines four and five run the adventure and line six brings us to the finale for example in Kung Fu Panda once upon a time there was a panda named po every day he worked at his father's noodle shop until one day he was chosen as the Dragon Warrior and because of that he was allowed to train with the greatest warriors in the land and because of that he was able to discover his inner power until finally he was strong enough to defeat the villain and save the land it was established at the Dragon Warrior was the only one powerful enough to defeat the villain which seems to be why they were looking for the Dragon Warrior to begin with would it subvert expectations to spend the entire movie building Powe up as the hero only for the tigress to defeat the big bad villain instead yes could you do that because it's fiction absolutely but it would harm the story by making the role of the Dragon Warrior worthless in the context of the movie and it would make pose journey of growth and self-discovery absolutely meaningless there would be a logical disconnect and plot progression between lines five and six po would discover his inner power but there would be no final confrontation to put pose character growth to the test no way to see if all that training hardship and self-discovery paid off after all you are probably learning things when you study for an exam but it's the exam itself that proves how well you grasped and understood the material so why lie expectations would thoroughly be subverted the price of this subversion would be the test that would give meaning to Poe's entire arc in the now-infamous last season of Game of Thrones where our expectations averted when Jon Snow's archenemy the night King died at arias hands instead of his own with no final confrontation at all absolutely but the path Jon Snow traveled placed him as the opposing force to the night king his destiny led him to the Nights Watch whose job is to fend off attacks from the undead through his series of events Jon Snow became the commander of the Night Watch and did the impossible by uniting his men with the people beyond the wall as the Liege Lords of Westeros spent their time with brutal warfare Jon Snow's battle quickly became about opposing the army of the undead crawling its way to the Seven Kingdoms everything Snow had accomplished overcome and learned about himself including a return from the dead his entire journey not only placed him as an opposing force but a parallel one to the knight Kane in other words Jon Snow's final test of his growth and maturity the moment when both he and the audience learned the true nature of his character whether he had grown strong enough would have occurred during this final confirm tation that anger you felt that distinct feeling of betrayal as if the writers were the Brutus to you or Julius Caesar was completely justifiable why not because the writers did something different and not because they subverted your expectations but because they began snow's journey and you followed season after season and season after season you watched snow's character develop and mature as the one man holding together the charge against the night king believing and trusting that this journey was taking you somewhere and then in the moment of truth nothing just like the rules of a universe established how logic flows from mystical things a character's journey makes a similar promise the infamous backlash occurred because when the moment arrived the audience discovered that promise had been broken you had been lied to to summarize the writers had broken the cycle Jon Snow must face a night king and the true creativity would be in handling the outcome of the confrontation a good comparison will be JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit the story sets up the great dragon small as the main antagonist the low Baggins is the main character of the story and he begins his quest as a normal person not some great adventurer just like Jon Snow what my thick Bilbo Baggins his final test would be to slay the dragon completing the cycle by growing from timid homebody to fearless dragon slayer but that doesn't happen instead a man named bard slays Smaug just like someone else defeated the night king for Jon Snow someone else defeats Smaug for Bilbo Baggins so it might seem that these scenarios are at least somewhat comparable so why does it work for The Hobbit but not for Jon Snow because this is where the parallels end Jon Snow's goal and his final test was specifically to defeat the night king however Bilbo and the dwarves didn't initially intend to defeat Smaug the original terms were to quote cash-on-delivery up to it not exceeding one fourteenth of total profits if any Bilbo wasn't recruited as a dragon slayer he was recruited as a burglar the true end goal was initially to reclaim their long lost forgotten gold Bilbo's job was to burgle as many riches from under smaug's nose as possible Bilbo began his journey as a coward who would be perfectly content staying at his home for him bilbo wasn't meant to be a warrior he wasn't motivated by revenge or even gold in the end his ultimate motivation was pure wonder list in a thirst for adventure and Bilbo's final test was one of bravery had the coward a turned into courageous adventurer after all he had gone through could he face Smaug to quote from the book it was at this point that Bilbo stopped going on from here was the bravest thing he ever did the tremendous things that happened afterward were as nothing compared to it he fought the real battle in the tunnel alone before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait at any rate after a short halt go on he did as the story points out the moment Bilbo pushes himself to face small was the moment his cycle completed but a completion of the storytelling cycle isn't just psychologically satisfying it's also necessary for work to complete its message well that doesn't mean a story must have a life-altering moral or a tackle a social issue a good story must have meaning and should ultimately be about something but stories that do convey a moral remain great examples of the value of a completed cycle a great storytelling style that blends logical continuity in storytelling continuity is the practice of hoc owari which is an art of Middle Eastern storytelling that has a tradition of infusing a helpful moral into each tale specifically because it's believed that stories should have a point to quote an article covering the subject never want to tell nonsense or aimless stories of self heroism which traditionally is seen as a shameful act of boasting rather one to tell meaningful stories with universal wisdom Arabian Nights Scheherazade represents a decent glimpse into the haka Waddy tradition and one of the most notable stories in her roster is the journey of Aladdin the original story revolves around a boy who finds a genie in a cave and unlike the Disney movie instead of three wishes he gets infinite Aladdin does what any young man would do in his situation and uses has unlimited wishes to go from popper to prince and land himself a princess for a wife and then Aladdin eventually loses the genie of the lamp the impossibly extravagant palace he once lived in and his princess wife leaving him with nothing but a murder sleep aimed Sultan Aladdin now lamp listened destitute has forty days to recover the Sultan's daughter or he will be executed Letton of course wins in the end killing the thief and winning back his wife life and his lamb and then live to become sultan ruled for many years and aired a long line of kings to repeat stories should be about something so while Disney's Aladdin gives us the sage advice that lying is bad but not really the center moral of the original Aladdin is discovering that one's true value is enriches but the strength of one's character the story shows us that everyone including Aladdin himself is obsessed with wealth in extravagance but as the story continues and we see the evil magician / thief gain all of Aladdin's power including his grand palace and super model Prince's wife we learned that wealth actually tells us nothing about the quality of a person Aladdin's cycle begins with him in poverty and then one day he gains a wish-granting genie he uses this genie to gain everything he ever wanted indulging in his newfound power at this point no real obstacle has presented itself and nothing has been learned and so the cycle demands something change something to give the story meaning and so he loses the genie and is worse off than he started the great challenge is recovering what was stolen Aladdin had to put together a plan all on his own one without supernatural aid one that would allow him to outsmart a very intelligent and devious magician who possessed infinite wealth and near infinite power the moment Aladdin defeated the magician is the moment he learned the treasure is meaningless when compared to one strength of character the moral of the story is delivered and the cycle is closed people in Aladdin's position often dream about wealth and power Aladdin's tale shows us that wilt and power all well and good but do not let them define you like Aladdin tried to do and don't let them corrupt you like the magician allowed them to do and don't let them blind you like the Sultan who was so dazzled that he never questioned where Aladdin had come from or how he possessed such unbelievable wealth also let's not forget the fact that the story had established that one needed a genie to have the wishes granted and this remains true throughout the story respecting logical continuity if Aladdin suddenly gained the ability to grant his own wishes it would critically hinder the story's ultimate message and this brings us to the last Jedi's betrayal of Luke Skywalker the argument has been made that this version of Luke Skywalker is genius because it add layers of complexity to the Star Wars universe supposedly breaking down the idea of challenging the righteousness of the Jedi removing the traditional simplistic themes of good versus evil and bringing Star Wars into a more realistic in which or setting for a more adult audience and if you disagree with any of that then apparently you're a whiny man baby who needs to go up because Star Wars is a movie about space Wizards intended only for children fantastic but while rey brazenly breaks a logical continuity of Star Wars it's this new iteration of Luke Skywalker that most exemplifies a break of story continuity the Luke Skywalker of the sequel Disney trilogy is it Luke that has grown disillusioned with the Jedi Order and its legacy this fundamental change to the legendary Luke Skywalker was to say the least controversial some last Jedi defenders pinned this on angry fans who just wanted to see Luke walk out with a lightsaber and face down the whole first order and this is true but it isn't the whole story and that's the problem we don't get a whole story Yoda served the mentor role for Luke Skywalker but he wasn't the hero of another story the only Yoda we knew was the Yoda of the Empire Strikes Back the old hermit who trained Duke Skywalker on the other hand Luke was the hero of the original trilogy we saw him change from the idealistic farm boy to the disciplined Jedi who redeemed his villainous father his journey had finished his story cycle had completed now there's nothing wrong with putting Luke through a second story cycle there's nothing wrong with turning Luke into a jaded veteran their problem occurs when the Disney sequel trilogy uses the original trilogy as a jumping point making the lower of the original Star Wars central to the events of the sequels specifically the lore of Luke Skywalker why because the last time we canonical II saw Luke he had just saved the galaxy he was happy content then when next we see him he's turned into an emo hermit it's obvious that Luke had gone through another story cycle but we're only shown the end result to quote by the time I realized I was no match for the darkness rising inside him it was too late I went to confront him and he turned on me we later learned that when Luke says confront he means murder keep in mind that Luke sensed hints to Ben so those darkness during training however Luke doesn't mention anything else no definitive act of evil said before the confrontation just to suppose it growing darkness instead of specific were left with ambiguity and that's the problem men solo could have staged an uprising or began secretly teaching other students the way of the dark side either way forcing Luke Skywalker to confront him for the sake of everyone else this would keep true to the hero we knew Luke to be and pave a logical path to the cynical self-hating incarnation present in the last Jedi but we don't get that no reason to even remotely empathize or understand Luke's actions as to why he needed to take it that far just Luke wanting to punish Ben for crimes he had yet to commit and this is where the problem lies because it's even mentioned by Rey that Luke had once saved Darth Vader to quote yes your father was the most hated man in the galaxy he caused so much death and destruction for many years but you saw there was conflict inside him you believed that he wasn't gone that he could be turned but when it came to Ben solo Luke went from wanting to save him to wanting to kill him for no clear reason other than fear so we're left asking what changed Luke's so much that he went from redeemer of war criminals to a man who would murder his own nephew in his sleep keep in mind that thirty years have canonically passed between The Return of the Jedi and the force awakens to put that amount of time in perspective you could play out the entire Battle of Troy and the Odyssey and still have ten years to spare so all manner of stories and developments could have occurred between one movie and the next major flashbacks of Luke's life any tragedy or loss that changed him from idealistic to cynical could have been sewn into the movie as Luke explained or piece by piece at relevant moments just how Godfather two woven the origins of Vito Corleone to run parallel with the story of his son Michael Corleone to someone who had seen the original Luke and followed his original journey it was clear that something traumatic had happened something that would drive the kind-hearted hero to attempted murderer but we don't see that story instead the only answer we're left with is that the Luke Skywalker of the last Jedi is supposedly an honest portrayal of the once great hero that this was the natural progression of the character without a story cycle explaining why Luke underwent such a drastic change it remains as nothing less than a malicious betrayal of the just an attempt to degrade Luke and his story to prop up the empty shell of a main character who had replaced him and this is why we needed to see Luke Skywalker fight the first order or perform a similar action Luke had fallen his faith had shattered he left to live out the rest of his days on an isolated planet naturally if nothing else we would like to see a Redemption cycle not to recover from some indulgence of evil but to breathe hope back into the character even if we're generous forget about Luke's story and we just see him as a disillusioned old master similar to Yoda but more edgy in juvenile introducing a reluctant mentor begins a new story cycle one that begins with an old master who has lost his way then progresses with the master reluctantly teaching a wide-eyed idealistic student and ends with the master being inspired by his pupil leading to a new life you don't even have to leave the Disney stable to find an example of this Phil from Disney's Hercules was a legendary mentor to most of the greatest heroes in history but when Hercules finds him Phil had lost so many students and suffered so many losses that he'd quit the hero business Hercules begs him for training but it wasn't until Hercules was able to prove himself that Phil agreed to do so and by the time Hercules earned his divinity back Phil had reclaimed his faith he believed in heroes again Luke's cycle should have played out differently a cycle that would both satisfy most fans in a line with a message of the movie his circumstance was war the resistance had been beaten the last remnant had been cornered the point people often highlight and that the focus is how our heroes are not as perfect as we think they are but what often isn't pointed out is what should have been at the center of Luke's news story cycle looking at the Jedi and the idea of heroes in general as nothing but an illusion he once believed Ray's purpose could have been to breathe inspiration back into Luke like Hercules did to fill the cycle would then lead to a change in Luke's mindset because in the end it wasn't about how heroic are successful that Jedi really were it was about how inspiring the legacy had remained remember in the last Jedi the resistance had nearly been wiped out they had been battered and demoralized from their perspective the future would have seemed hopeless in a sense mirroring Luke's own mental state and this is why a suitable option for an end to Luke's story cycle would be a via and physical confrontation between the first-order and himself and not just because it would have been cool to see Luke battle the order with his masterful abilities like the one-man army he should have been then why exactly Deep Space nine s Captain Sisko's said it best when he too faced anihilation against an overwhelming enemy to quote I don't care if the odds are against us if we're going to lose and we're going to go down fighting so that when our descendants someday rise up against the Dominion don't know what they're made of or in the words of King Leonidas from 300 the world will know that free men stood against a tyrant that few stood against many and before this battle was over that even a god-king can bleed where luke's battle would have been very cool it wouldn't have been about the violence itself had Luke Skywalker moved forward as all others ran back and he stood alone against the entire first-order fleet then delivered a heavy blow with the force like Cisco and his descendants it would show the resistance what kind of fight was left on their side and even though Luke would die in the end a devastation he would bring to the first order would prove like Leonidas did desert sees that a seemingly invincible enemy can be wounded that even a god-king can bleed that maybe Luke had only been partly right that perhaps in the end the Jedi did ultimately fail but in the end heroism wasn't necessarily about achieving victory and it wasn't necessarily about being the perfect person or even performing heroic deeds but that heroes are heroes because of the inspiration those deeds words and sacrifices spark in others and if that weren't enough it would create a new myth for Luke Skywalker one that would have inspired way as she should have inspired him and that myth would have served as Luke's reminder to her that he was wrong and to never fall or he had fallen and the end of Luke's story cycle would close as he proves once and for all that the inspiration wasn't false that heroes do in fact exist and if one had doubts that heroic inspiration was part of the message they were trying to convey the ending sequence of the last Jedi specifically shows the next generation being inspired by the great stories of the previous one it's really too bad that the cycle had been broken because the creators were too busy trying to be brilliant so instead the message remains cynical and mire denial the message seemed to state instead that heroes aren't real that the good Jedi that everyone seems love only existed in legend and that Luke Skywalker the great hero only existed in myth and his realization actually concludes with heroes may not be real but the inspiration filled by the legacy however is which is likely why he arrived as a force projection in not in physical form when Yoda tells Luke but weakness folly failure also yes failure most of all the greatest teacher failure is he's telling Luke that he failed Ben's solo and that he should not now fail Rey in other words he isn't contradicting Luke's conclusions about the Jedi and the heroes of the past he's agreeing with them that the so-called heroes of the past may have been losers and failures but all the people's Star Wars fans had spent decades loving now in the end get to be lessons in what not to do for Rey in accordance to the cynical version of this message Luke didn't really need to be there he didn't need to be a hero he just needed to look like one heroes aren't real and your love for them is based on a lie thank you space wizard movie intended for children sadly this meant that Luke never truly redeemed himself his mindset remained more or less where it had been at the beginning of the movie still believing that the heroic Jedi didn't exist and the legacy along with the inspiration I gave was all ultimately a lie leaving Luke's story ultimately unfulfilled the movie just seems to dismiss the great deeds of not only the Jedi but Luke Skywalker just so Rey and company could be framed as the true heroes of Star Wars in other words the heroes of the past were no heroes at all and it isn't until now that the true heroes emerged as Luke Skywalker said the Jedi are romanticized deified but if you strip away the myth and look at their deeds the legacy of the Jedi is failure hypocrisy hubris at the height of their power they allowed Darth Sidious to rise create the Empire and wipe them out it was a Jedi Master who was responsible for the training and creation of Darth Vader and for many years there was balance and then I saw Ben my nephew with that Mikey Skywalker blood and in my hubris I thought I could train him I could pass on my strengths I went to confront him and he turned on me when I came to a temple was burning he had vanished with a handful of my students and slaughtered the rest they are blamed smoke but it was me I failed because I was Luke Skywalker Jedi Master a legend forget the past slander it if you have to given what we see the end of Luke's journey seems like little more than a blatant attack on the original trilogy and one last flogging of Luke Skywalker's character before his execution from ancient religious texts to The Hobbit to Game of Thrones - the Huq owari oral tradition - Pixar and even Star Wars the art of storytelling whether fiction or not built a universal tradition that unites cultures countries and even entire continents and one single undeniable truth a small literary double-standard that simply states that story should respect what had come before following logical continuity by respecting the established rules of a universe and respecting story continuity by respecting the established canon completing a story's cycle because a story's cycle is the story itself without a connected beginning middle and final resolution it stops being a story and becomes more like a joke without a punchline so maybe it isn't the fans or the viewers who are watching movies wrong instead maybe it's the writers who are writing movies wrong you [Music]

Channel: Literature Devil

Views: 125,058

Rating: 4.9325161 out of 5

Keywords: The Last Jedi, Disney Star Wars, Jon Snow, Night King, Game of Thrones Final Season, The Hobbit, Ring Theory, Ring Comp, Ring Composition, Ben Solo, Why people hate the Last Jedi, Game of Thrones, subverting expectations, Prequel series, Star Wars prequel series, failure is the greatest teacher, continuity, First Order, Kylo Ren, Death Note, Light Yagami, Chiastic structure, Detective L, creative writing, Pixar, Story Spine, Kung Fu Panda, Rey, Aladdin, scheherazade, Reylo

Id: cdAtM4oghmA

Length: 35min 4sec (2104 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 15 2020

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[u/[deleted]]

I'd say there were/are two "ground rules" in SW, not just one like he says:

-Not everyone has the ability to use the Force.

-But for those that do, you still need training and discipline to use it effectively.