Yes, literally nothing. (Off-Topic)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Saturday, April 20, 2019, 21:59 (2042 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY
edited by Ragashingo, Saturday, April 20, 2019, 22:21

I like your take on a lot of this stuff, but I did want to talk about this first point:

She even loses her temper and beats him in a duel.

Whoa whoa whoa! No. Watch that scene again. While Rey does get the upper hand in the end by wielding her lightsaber vs Luke's walking stick, Luke was clearly toying with her up until then. It was very nearly the "dueling with one hand while stifling a yawn with the other" trope. He easily blocks and dodges her first few attacks then hits her in the back. He fends off her next attacks and then catches her staff and disarms her, throwing her staff away from her. That is not Luke being beat. If he'd had a lightsaber he would have equally embarrassed her. I enjoy the heck out of that scene because it shows that Luke still has it. That he was still the master in the moments he allowed himself to be.

I think, in this case, you might be reading what you want to see into the scene. I see literally nothing in that scene to suggest that Luke is the one in control. If anything, he looks genuinely afraid. My read on that scene is that Luke is reluctant to fight, only really trying to defend himself, but then starts to see that Rey’s attacks are growing ferocious to the point where he is in real danger. She literally knocks him off his feet. Yes, he does use the force to cushion his fall, showing that he is not utterly defeated, but I see no evidence that he is toying with her. Like vs Kylo? THAT is what toying with an opponent looks like. But I don’t see anything in his scrap with Rey that suggests he is anything other than on the defensive, and possibly desperate.

Come on man, you have to concede something here! Movement by movement:

1. Luke uses the Force to grab his stick in time to block Rey's first attack. (Victor Luke)
2. Rey swings wildly, Luke ducks below her swing. (Victor Luke)
3. Rey swings back to the right, Luke leans backwards not even bother to block. (Victor Luke)
4. Rey swings overhanded, Luke sidesteps left and then slaps her on the back with his stick and then lowers his stick to a resting position. This look on his face is somewhere between "try again" and "you aren't going to beat me that easily" (What, besides playing with her do you intend to call Luke's actions here?!)

From here, the tide of the battle becomes more even as Rey gets angrier after Luke gets his shot in. Luke does not get in any more embarrassing blows for the next several movements and he is falling back instead of holding his ground:

5. Rey jabs, Luke blocks it aside.
6. Rey attack overhead, Luke blocks.
7. Rey swings across, Luke dodges.
8. Rey spins, Luke blocks.
9. Rey swings left, Luke blocks.
10. Rey swings right, Luke blocks
11. Wide shot... a couple of Rey attacks and Luke blocks.
12. Close shot, Rey attacks, Luke blocks.
13. Rey swings left, Luke blocks then grabs her staff, pulls it from her, and tosses it away. (Victor Luke. At this point Rey would be out of the fight. This is less play from Luke and more disarming a threat, but Luke is literally in control at this point because Rey is deprived of her weapon!)
14. Rey very quickly uses the Force to pull her lightsaber, she does not attack but takes an intimidating step forward.
15. Luke stumbles away from the clearly superior weapon and falls down only catching himself at the last second with the Force. This is not just a stumble from a more powerful weapon, though. This is Luke finally conceding that Rey is right. (Victor Rey.)

Now, this is a very complex scene. We're dealing with combat ability, Force mastery, stubbornness, and moral high grounds all in the space of ~20 seconds. But, Luke is clearly in the advantage in movements 1, 2, and 3. And in moments 4 and 13 he had Rey soundly beaten.

At this point in the movie, Rey does have the moral high ground here. It's why she wins the fight, really. She was coming close to (maybe?) turning Kylo Rey back to the light when Luke interrupted. Then, she was also trying to get the real truth out of Luke in regards to what happened between Luke and Ben. Luke gave her a big lie of omission earlier in the film. In Luke's version he was just standing there above Ben and Ben attacked. Ben lied to Rey, too. In his version, Luke came in with murderous intent and attacked.

Once Rey has Luke beat by wielding a lightsaber vs a stick, Luke is forced to admit his mistakes. And tell the whole story. He wasn't just standing there observing when Ben attacked. Instead, he'd activated his lightsaber, but regained control of himself when Ben, frightened and heart darkened, attacked.

Yes, Rey won the battle. But, also yes, when she and Luke were armed with relatively equal weapons, Luke didn't just defend himself. He twice embarrassed her in ways that would have ended the fight if he had intended to harm her. If you can't admit that, then... I just don't know what you are here for. I've enjoyed this entire thread... but this will be the end if you can't give me something here.

Video for reference:

I'll start by saying that theres no need for the self-righteous indignation. We're talking interpretations of a movie scene here, sharing our respective points of view. Believe it or not, I noticed all the same things you've pointed out in my previous viewings of the movie, considered them, and come to a different conclusion. So don't throw a hissy fit every time someone disagrees with you. That tune is a bit played out at this point :)

I'll start out by replying: Take a look in the mirror. All I did in my first reply was share my point of view. Your hissy fit over it, including bringing up my past posts as if they are somehow relevant, is facepalm worthy. Have you noticed you do that to me a lot? We disagree and you make vague references to posts from years ago? Sometimes, you're quite the broken record. Besides, your past ain't so peachy either, cupcake. Is a thread about Star Wars really where you want to get into all that? I'm game if you are. :)

(And yes, I made a Star Trek reference in a Star Wars thread... Should I have gone with "Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong." instead? :p)

Your blow-by-blow does nothing to prove your point. You're counting dodged attacks as sign of Luke's victory, only to concede the same outcome that I saw. I already said that Luke had no interest in a real fight, as is early dodges and counters show. His counters were designed to make light of Rey's attacks, but what Luke didn't consider IMO is that Rey's initial attacks weren't serious either. But the fight became serious, whether he wanted it to or not, and when Rey did fully ramp up her attacks, Luke was unable to repel her. Dodging a few early attacks means nothing if you lose the fight in the end, as Luke obviously did.

Maybe I shouldn't have used "victor" and should have gone with something more like "advantage." We don't disagree on the outcome of the battle. We disagree on who had the advantage during the battle. Luke clearly had the advantage during the two times I pointed out. He had it when he hit Rey in the back. He had it when he yanked her weapon away from her. I was also going to put something like (Tie.) (Tie.) (Tie.) after the several times where Rey attacked and Luke successfully blocked those attacks but it seemed a bit too repetitive.

Again, Luke did repel Rey's attacks, no matter how often you say he didn't. During the entire battle she never landed a single blow. Not one. Luke landed two. One of which was after the time you claim Rey got serious. (Or is Rey having her weapon taken away from her somehow a sign that she was winning?)

When you claim Luke literally never had control when he literally took control of Rey's weapon... well, I don't even know what to say anymore. Yes, you have an opinion. Yes, you disagree. But Having an opinion and disagreeing doesn't make you right. The facts are against you here, but you're taking the Luke Skywalker path of stubbornness. I give you top marks for the roleplaying.

And I actually completely agree with your assessment that Rey really did hold the high ground in that moment. She wanted to get the truth out of Luke, even if she had to literally beat it out of him. When luke saw that he had lost the moral AND physical battles, he finally realized he had no path forward but to tell Rey what had happened.

Yeah. And it's quite an interesting set of actions from our hero character, isn't it? It's yet another reason why I love the Luke & Rey stuff in The Last Jedi. Rey was about to literally smack Luke upside the head for being stubborn! It's also interesting, of course, that Rey confronts Luke based on nothing but the word of a galactic mass murderer. Kylo Ren isn't exactly the first person I'd trust to tell the truth. It wasn't but a few days earlier that Rey straight up tried to shoot him and yelled that he was a monster, after all.

This is a bit beyond the scope of our current topic, but not much: During our discussion, I've watched the end of The Last Jedi a few times now. When Rey shuts the door on her link to Kylo I take that to mean that he won't get a redemption arc. Do you think with JJ coming back to direct we'll see that change? If it does, I'll consider it something of a copout. What about you?