Sean O'Hara

Luke turned to the Dark Side at the end of Return of the Jedi -- he gave in to his fear and hatred and damn near hacked his father to death. Yes, he pulled backafter slicing Vader's hand off, but as Yoda said, "Once you start down the Dark Path, forever will it dominate your destiny." Luke didn't heed that, and in his arrogance he tried to recreate the Jedi. But there came the moment when he tried to kill Ben, and he realized that "Holy shit, I'm still prone to the Dark Side, and there's no telling what'll happen if I ever give in," so he cut himself off from everything to protect the galaxy.

If the story had gone any other way, it would've been a cop-out. This is why the EU always sucked -- Luke just went on to be a Jedi like Obi-Wan described in ANH without any repercussions for letting the Dark Side win him over during the Throne Room fight.

stvn1974

Too bad none of that is portrayed on screen at any time.

brayzie

Draven

It's almost like...maybe none of this stuff makes much sense so we shouldn't tear TLJ apart when inconsistencies and nonsensical issues are prevalent throughout the whole series?

brayzie

Brack

You can have inconsistencies and nonsensical issues only if your movie is at least entertaining or made the movie more interesting in some way. The pod race at least was at least neat to watch. The other stuff you mentioned served no purpose. That I think is the difference.

Sean O'Hara

Obi-Wan wanted Luke to kill Vader the same way Jedi have always killed bad guys in battle. But that's not what happened in the throne room. When Vader threatened to give up on Luke and turn his attention to Leia, Luke lost it. He went completely batshit and launched a berserker charge to kill Vader. According to everything Yoda said in Empire, that means he started down the Dark Path at the moment. That's why the Emperor started cackling with delight right then.

"Forever will it dominate your destiny" doesn't mean Luke is going to turn into a Sith. It means that the Dark Side is always going to be there, tempting him. It's like an addiction--if an alcoholic goes fifty years without drinking, they're still an alcoholic. Obi-Wan and Yoda were happy the Empire had been destroyed and hoped Luke could overcome the Dark Side. But that doesn't mean he would -- and The Last Jedi establishes that he didn't.

stvn1974

After reading this I hate The Last Jedi even more. Congrats.

brayzie

Brack

tanman

Personally for me though that's part of the problem. I know Star Wars as a franchise isn't perfect and has a bunch of flaws. But after the franchise was vigorously re-energized with TFA and Rogue One. I was highly anticipating TLJ to continue the march forward for Star Wars. Instead it made me question and reflect on if Star Wars as a whole is just not that good. It just ruined Star Wars for me.

But now I'm cautiously optimistic from what I've seen come out of Star Wars Celebration this year. And at least I know Galaxy's Edge will be an awesome experience.

tanman

On a positive note, it was nice to see the fans at celebration give a huge applause to Kelly Marie Tran and Ahmed Best. It's one thing to hate on a movie/character/director/actor. But if you just downright bully the real people behind it you're just a terrible person. It's good to see that it's just a few people that are like that and as a whole the Star Wars fan base is a positive community.

Big Boy Laroux

Especially when it's not really that actor's fault. Lucas wrote/directed/approved of everything he saw with Jar-Jar. How can we blame Best for that?

I still don't get the backlash on Tran, people were mad she simply existed. She had some sappy lines, but it's not like star wars has always been some amazingly written masterpiece.

TGM

Yeah, I hate TLJ but have no problem with Tran.

And Jar Jar is the absolute worst, but not for one minute did it ever cross my mind to blame Best. That one is solely on Lucas.

Mike86

Shannon Nutt

Those letters are a curse for Star Wars as "Hondo" is the worst character on Clone Wars/Rebels.

I agree about Dern though - such a great actress, and such a wasted character.

Jay G.

Did someone say Hondo?

tanman

Because she's a woman and the internet exists?

Seriously though as argumentative as we can be in this thread at least no one that I've seen has been like those lowlifes and attacking the people involved.

stvn1974

I am indifferent towards Rose as there were many other terrible decisions made when it came to TLJ compared to her character. I hated Jar Jar and Anakin from the Prequels but not enough to harass Ahmed Best, Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen online.

Draven

Big Boy Laroux

Oh I knew the "reason" people hated her - but I still don't understand or get it. But maybe that's because I consider myself to be a halfway decent human being.

coli

I always think the people that personally attacked Kelly Tran are relatively small amount of Social Media Trolls, as they are no different than a handful of drunken idiots at a Sunday Football Game (When you get 60,000 in a stadium, there's going to be a few idiots who can't control themselves). I wish the media didn't even talk about these idiots because it only feeds them to do this more because you are making them bigger than they really are. I know alot of people who didn't like TLJ or Rose, but NONE of them would attack her personally or about her race. The rise of social media gives life to the 1% idiots in the world, and the best thing to do is just ignore them, and definitely don't lump them as a good chunk of the fanbase.

JeremyM

I missed that. Somehow I also missed until my last watch that in TFA, Rey is climbing all over the interior of the crashed Star Destroyer when she's a scavenger, which pays off later when she is scaling the inside of the Starkiller Base.

JeremyM

Well said.

RichC2

Yeah, Social Media being reported as "real news" is the equivalent of a wide scale Boy Who Cried Wolf, and it's a mildly infuriating trend that I was hoping would be gone by now. Alas, no dice.