Written by: Dan Geer
It would probably be an understatement to say that Star Wars: The Last Jedi has had an “interesting” ride since its theatrical release back in December 2017. On one side of the spectrum, it received rave reviews from both critics and fans alike, while on the other side garnered some of the most vicious reactions from viewers. As time progressed, negative reception to this film seemed to bring more and more people over to the Dark Side to the point where fan reception is now pretty much split right down the middle. Some people really hate this film. They hate it with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. Others think it is one of the best Star Wars films of all time, praising it for being bold and doing something new for a change. Both sides will fight to the death for their position.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Star Wars fandom.
While there are all sorts of complaints about the film – with everything from flying Leia, to the apparent necessity of the entire Canto Bight plot – the one thing that really seems to have set the haters over the edge more than anything else is its portrayal of Luke Skywalker. This, above all else, seems to be the thing that makes the film so unforgivable for these people.
But are their perceptions valid? Is Luke Skywalker really not portrayed “correctly” here? Let’s dive in and see if we can’t pick things apart a bit and perhaps put this whole thing into perspective…
Let’s get one thing straight before we go any further: Luke Skywalker is not a god. He wouldn’t even answer “YES!” in the face of Gozer the Gozerian.
It seems that the fans, especially first generation original trilogy fans, tend to elevate Luke Skywalker on a pedestal. They basically deify him. Sure, he was the central character that we could all relate to because of his journey from being a nobody to a somebody, conquering his destiny like we all aspire to. The character was a great source of inspiration, as well as a symbol of optimism in that he believed the best in people, even in his own father who had long since been corrupted. He was the new hope we all dreamed of being in real life.
But does that make him perfect? Does that mean he will always make the right decisions moving forward?
It seems that people forget that Luke Skywalker is still a very flawed, very human character – just like the rest of us. It is what made him so relatable in the first place. Yes, he honed in on the Force and blew up the Death Star. Yes, he became one of the most powerful Jedi ever by the time we get to Return of the Jedi. Yes, he conquered temptation from the Emperor and redeemed his father. But he went through incredible, sometimes unimaginable trials getting there, stumbling along as he trained in the ways of the Force.
In fact, he nearly turned to the Dark Side.
One of the biggest criticisms people have of Luke in The Last Jedi is in how Luke starts off having already written off Kylo Ren, or Ben as we know him now, considering him irredeemable. People wonder how Luke could even consider killing his own nephew. But is this really so hard to imagine? People seem to forget that in Return of the Jedi, he nearly killed the Emperor, with only Vader preventing him from doing so. Afterwards, he nearly killed his own father, mercilessly swinging his saber at Vader until he beat him down and chopped off his mechanical hand, all at the temptation of the Emperor. Luke had to overcome the Dark Side instinct within that he has always wrestled with (which is another thing all of us can relate to as well, by the way).
For some reason, fans act like Luke’s temptation with the Dark Side is over at this point, that he would never struggle again with it. But is there any real evidence of this in the original films? Sure, he is a better man than he was previously, but the most we can say is that he probably won’t ever go that far again when tempted due to the sheer impact of his previous experience with his father and the Emperor.
And he doesn’t.
In The Last Jedi, despite making some mistakes, it is clear that Luke has merely matured in this particular instance. The case can be made that Luke really doesn’t go that far in The Last Jedi, as the evidence is all on screen. Sure, he felt Ben’s incredible power in the dark side, where it seemed he was irredeemable and would be the source of the galaxy’s destruction. But it was only in “the briefiest moment of pure instinct” that Luke thought maybe he could stop it by killing him. It was a very short-lived temptation that he quickly resisted and did not act on, because he knew deep down that he had been tempted like that before when he nearly killed his father. Luke knew he had gone too far with Vader, so he willingly resisted the same temptation here, not going nearly as far with Ben. He’s learned from that mistake because he knew that by resisting the Emperor, he was able to redeem his father.
Yes, Luke still was initially skeptical of Ben’s fate here, thinking him irredeemable, but something stopped him. He just didn’t know the full reason why he didn’t kill Ben at that point. He just knew it was wrong. Later on in the film, he then realizes that due to their history together, he allowed himself to be mislead in his initial judgement of Ben’s character. This is why he then reassures Leia that “no one’s ever really gone,” indicating to his sister that maybe someone, like Rey, can redeem Ben.
In the end, Luke’s attitude matures even more due to the growth he endured through failure. That’s a good thing. Luke is still a hero in The Last Jedi, perhaps an even better one than he was originally, having evolved past his own hubris. He now understands why he stopped himself from killing Ben. It just took Rey to help him realize that it was the same reason he stopped himself from killing his father. Ben is redeemable, just not through him this time.
The second, but intimately related point we need to address is his mistake to go into hiding. Even before Luke’s ultimate Jedi growth spurt mentioned above, we were still supposed to gather that during his time away from the Rebellion, he still thought he was doing the right thing in isolating himself on Ach-To and shutting himself off to the Force. He was absolutely convinced through his own experience with Ben, as well as the history lessons of Jedi past that, despite the Jedi Order’s ultimate desire to do good – it eventually leads to destruction. It seemed ending the Jedi and going into hiding was the only valid option to win the war.
Eventually, he changed his mind in the end by Force projecting himself into the battle of Crait to aid in the Rebellion once again. He boldly proclaims to Ben that “the Rebellion is reborn” and that he “will not be the last Jedi.” In The Rise of Skywalker, he even later admits to Rey flat out that he was wrong to go into hiding and not fight directly, which reaffirms the journey we witnessed in The Last Jedi.
So if we can justify the portrayal of Luke in The Last Jedi, why do so many have a problem with it? The issue really lies more with how long Luke wallowed around in misery. He probably should have been back in the game 100% after he watched Princess Leia’s old hologram, or at the very latest when he reconnected to the Force and felt Leia’s presence. He lingers onto his depression for a little too long. In that sense, it may have been a little too much for some fans to handle. I get that. Nevertheless, Luke eventually did come around and blew us away with one of the coolest new Force powers ever committed to the screen and paved the way for the Rebellion to win and the Jedi Order to continue. In the end, Luke emerged better than ever, and wound up being too good for his own mortal body to handle. His pure and enlightened goodness could not be contained anywhere except in the netherworld of the Force.
The Last Jedi isn’t a perfect film, and perhaps Luke’s return to the Rebellion was a bit too little, too late. However, whether Luke made the wrong decision or the right one – he always believed he was doing the right thing, and eventually he did. This, in my mind, should still tell the audience that he is still the same Luke we grew to love in the original trilogy, only now perhaps better than ever. He didn’t change into a different character. He was growing, and growth never happens without first wandering through the darkness. Despite his trials here, his temptations weren’t necessarily out of character.
How boring would it be if Luke was the same as he always was, and didn’t grow into something better? Luke went through an incredibly tragic time in his life that halted his role in the Rebellion for a while, but ultimately wound up serving a greater purpose in the long run. He was merely mislead by his feelings, immensely discouraged with his failure to raise Han and Leia’s son in the ways of the Force. It was really the first and only time Luke failed as a Jedi after the Battle of Endor all those years ago, so who can really blame him for his discouragement and the wrong decision he made? He was practically in shock of his failure due to the sheer rarity of it. And even then, we can see how he could perceive his flawed decisions to be rational.
After all we’ve been through with him, after all he has done right – hasn’t Luke earned our forgiveness for this one mistake? Isn’t this the type of mentality Luke would want us to adopt? Isn’t this the greatest lesson we can take away from it all? After all, even after Luke’s misstep in The Last Jedi, Vader’s record of mistakes still far outweigh any wrong Luke ever did – and yet Luke saw it in his heart to forgive him.
Luke deserves more than that from the fans. If anything, the man deserves more respect for not going full on Vader after all he’s been through. Sure, it may have been hard to sit there and watch him make that mistake, but we did not go through what Luke went through. Perhaps if we as an audience witnessed more of that, we would be a bit more sympathetic to his situation (hint, hint, Lucasfilm…), but it seems we know enough to give the man a break and at least make a valiant effort to empathize with the character’s journey here.
Give it a rest. The Last Jedi is better than you remember, Luke is still the hero we should all long to be, and we could all learn a very powerful lesson from his story.
