Opinion: In Defense Of Rian Johnson’s Luke Skywalker

Luke Skywalker, A Legacy Lost?

There is a disturbance in the Force! Star Wars: The Last Jedi is either loved or loathed by fans. It is currently sitting at an audience score of 45% on Rottentomatoes.com. The fanbase is practically split down the middle. There are many aspects of the film that have naysayers upset with this 8^th installment of the franchise. Though, one of the biggest complaints to come from the movie was the portrayal of Luke Skywalker.

Fans feel that Luke Skywalker was not given proper treatment in the 8^th film of the Saga. There is a petition on Change.org to have the Episode VIII stricken from the official canon. Henry Walsh, the creator of the petition, writes “Episode VIII was a travesty. It completely destroyed the legacy of Luke Skywalker and the Jedi. It destroyed the very reasons most of us, as fans, liked Star Wars.” Walsh ends his introduction of the petition with “Remove it from canon, push back Episode IX and re-make Episode VIII properly to redeem Luke Skywalker’s legacy, integrity, and character.”

Why do fans like Walsh feel that Luke was not characterized properly in this film? That question will be debated between the base for years to come. Though, truthfully, I believe he is the same character we met a long time ago.

Luke Skywalker From The Original Trilogy

When we first meet Luke, he is a farm boy from Tatoonie who lived with his uncle and aunt. Although he did not know at the time, these two people were risking their lives to keep him safely hidden on the planet. But Luke, being like most children at that age, felt that he was being held back. Selfishness is something we are going to be touching on a lot here.

We see him complain constantly about not getting his way. In one scene, you know the one, he complains to Owen about wanting to go to Toshi Station and pick up power converters. It’s funny that this is the very first moment we meet Luke. I believe that George Lucas wanted to clearly illustrate, right off the bat, where his maturity level it at. This one trait will follow Luke throughout his journey.

In The Empire Strikes Back, we are introduced to a slightly older Luke who has been fighting in the war for a couple of years. This Luke is still searching on who he is and what he needs to become. When he finally meets Yoda, he gets hits with the realization that he is impatient and selfish. Yoda tells him that he has been observing him all his life as “he looked away, to the future, to the horizon.” He tells Luke “Adventure. Excitement. A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless!”

Yoda was right, Luke IS reckless. He does not heed Master Yoda’s warning and heads off to Cloud City to help his friends and face off against his father. He pays a heavy price for this decision. This is the second trait that Luke will not turn away from. As you will see in the third film in the trilogy.

In Return of the Jedi, we see a mature Luke who seems like he has finally found his place in the world. We get a sense that he is starting to master his abilities and that he is becoming powerful. However, Luke’s selfish and reckless traits are illustrated to the audience once again as he believes that he could turn Vader back to the light-side of the Force.

Now, we all know how this turns out. Luke rescues his father, who in turn, destroys the Emperor, and frees the galaxy from the Empire. The two traits that saved the galaxy could have also destroyed it. He could have easily of bet all his chips and lost. The Emperor would have then had the two most powerful Jedi in the galaxy at his command.

Luke The Superhero

Since Return of the Jedi was released, fans have gotten to know a Luke Skywalker that differs from what we see in The Last Jedi. The Luke from what is now known as Legacy is a great Master who is always rising to the occasion to defeat any threat that happens to be challenging the galaxy. Very rarely are the traits that were so prominent in the original trilogy focused on. He has a superhero of sorts.

This is, what I believe, the major issue fans have with Episode 8’s Luke Skywalker. He is not the superhero that they have come to know from the Expanded Universe. With Disney taking a firm stance and only making the films, cartoons, and Disney era books and comics canon, they have removed any of the qualities that made Luke what he was during his ‘Legacy’ adventures and reverted to traits of a noble but flawed man.

Habits Die Hard

The audience got a Luke that is still selfish and reckless. I feel this is what bothered people the most about The Last Jedi. He has a good heart but still has not learned the fundamental lessons that Yoda was trying to teach him. He must unlearn what he has learned.

In the sequel trilogy, Luke starts an academy where he teaches the next generation of Jedi. One of his pupils, Ben Solo, starts to fall to the dark side. Instead of trying to save the boy, he had a moment of self-doubt and tried to destroy him. This causes Ben to turn his back on the Jedi way and destroy the academy.

Luke, distraught over the loss of Ben to Snoke and the devastation of his Temple, goes into hiding never to be heard from again. That is until the plot needs him to be heard from and has Rey seek him out. During the scenes with Rey, Luke talks about he severed his connection to the Force. This one action started a chain reaction of the awakening in Rey.

You see, the Force needs balance. With Luke severing his connection to the Force, this allows for the dark side to rise and for the force to become one-sided. This is unbalance to the Force. To combat that, the awakening in Rey brings back the balance of light and dark.

You see, Rian Johnson made sure that Luke embodied the characteristics of who we have come to know from the previous trilogy. The selfishness of leaving his sister and going into hiding. The recklessness of being responsible for Ben’s fall. These are the traits that make Luke who he is. This Luke is the same character that fans have come to know.

Final Thoughts

It is my belief that Luke’s legacy is not destroyed by this film, but in fact, restored. The expanded universe novels made Luke into a character that could not be related to anymore. They made him a superhero that fans expected to see on film. Rian Johnson just brought back the traits that made the character who he was at the start, a flawed but noble man.

In the end, Luke Skywalker left us the same way met him all those years ago, looking ahead to the future. We will see Luke again in Episode XI, and who knows, with all the backlash that Episode VIII received, maybe he will become that superhero that fans have been dying to see on film.

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