Looks kind of dumb, so it's very Star Wars alright. (Off-Topic)

by Harmanimus , Wednesday, April 17, 2019, 09:55 (2045 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

I think this illustrates an impasse. I disagree with your reading of The Hero’s Journey itself (as presented here) as well as your readings of both Rey and Luke. I’ve reread your post a few times to formulate a response. I don’t think your arguments against Rey are supported by the films themselves, except maybe in some surface level readings. For example your continued use of absolutes (specifically) about her being right (which TLJ spends almost the entire movie showing us [and trying to show her] that she is not) leaves a sour taste to the discussion. You would be hard pressed to convince me you are giving her an unbiased shot.

However, I will say that your reading of why the Jedi failed is probably accurate. Even the stuff leading to Luke showing that he still cared for Vader. But that is part of what I mean by the characters being defined through failure. The thing about Luke is that at the end of RotJ, he accepts his failure. And only because he sees the path that denial of his failures will lead him down.

Regarding the backlash and capturing what Star Wars is, honestly I put TLJ up pretty high in capturing the essence of Star Wars. This essence not being limited to the modern canon. The biggest complaints (and we’ll sidestep the sexism - though a lot of the more vocal and vitriolic complaints were from that angle) stemmed around 30 years of one expectation of Luke as a character. TLJ allowed him to remain flawed and multidimensional, but it harmed an idol shaped like Luke Skywalker for a lot of people. But a lot of those complaints about the handling of Luke missed the point of OT Luke’s arc. So, what can you do.