Not My Luke Skywalker: A Love Letter to the Sequels

Let me start this by saying whether you like or dislike the sequels, this isn’t an episode to doodoo on you, this is merely an episode that outlines my thoughts on Luke Skywalker and why it ruined the sequels for me, especially The Last Jedi. With all of the back and forth that the subject of the sequels provides, it is such a touchy and sensitive topic to discuss without offending someone. In this episode I’d like to outline my points of WHY I disliked it, and I’m not saying you have to agree with me, but maybe you’ll be able to at least see my point of view, just like I see yours as to why you loved it.

The thing about Luke that I really found inspiring as a little kid, was how stuck to his convictions he was. The entire galaxy knew Vader was a bastard. They knew he was a murderer, a tyrant, a planet killer, a monster to say the least. Despite knowing all this from just the films itself, let alone legends where Luke learned so much more about the evil that truly was Darth Vader, he was still the only person in the entire galaxy to see the good in his father, despite everything and everyone thinking otherwise.

Mark Hamill said it best, that Luke Skywalker would only go into exile for maybe a few months and then come back out of his depression to really kick butt, and he’d never leave his sister behind like that. I understand many of the arguments behind it all, I’m quite educated on the side which is in favour of the Luke that we got, saying things like how people change over time and how it made him more realistic. How it was inspiring to some men and women who were in a rut and not the hero they used to be. I get that. That’s literally just a Rocky story done in Star Wars. Guy isn’t good enough, whether because he needs to train hard physically, mentally, or become the person they used to be after a traumatic event. Realistic to what, realistic to a common fallacy where to become old is to become bitter. The issue I had with The Last Jedi is that it isn’t all those things that truly do make for an inspiring story, the problem was the underlying issue. What caused Luke to become bitter and depressed. What caused him to say the Jedi must end? To throw his dad’s lightsaber over a cliff and spend over 2 hours being a depressed old hermit only to redeem himself by literally dying. All of this was because he tried to kill his little nephew, his Padawan, in his sleep.

So, whether you love or hate the sequels, I hope you can at least come to respect my point of view, as someone born in the 90’s who grew up with not just the prequels, but the originals first. Luke Skywalker got me through a lot in life, his mere energy and positivity kept me going in many scenarios where I felt my own persona couldn’t take me. An anchor with values I trained my brain to emulate, to understand, to become. I hope you can respect my views, just as I respect yours.

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