The whole explanation of this scene (and by extension the plot point that the core of the ST hinges on) assumes Luke not only learned nothing from successfully turning Vader back to the light, but actively learned the opposite lesson.

This really pisses me off and Disney have to carry that shit.

The jedi of the prequel/originals are wrong about emotions/feelings and Lukes prove then wrong when he saves Anakin. But because of this fuck up writing now Lukes is a dumb removed who got luck in the originals and is doomed to failed like the others jedis. We already saw that in the Boba Fett series when he gives up on Grogu because "too much attachment" come on dude.

It’s not just “bad luck”, it’s bad writing. Luke didn’t just “wail on Vader” to get that “sweet hand vengeance”. He initially turned himself in believing he could convert his father back to the light. He only attacked after extreme emotional manipulation from one of the most powerful Sith Lords ever, during an active battle to determine the fate of all his friends, all they fought for, and the literal freedom of the Galaxy. That is a far reach from a moment of pure safety where he had a bad premonition and the “threat” was sleeping.

In both cases, Luke was doing his calm thing, acting how he thought a Jedi should, and trying to do everything the right way. In both cases, the forces of darkness were pushing at him, and in both cases he comes close to giving in to save lives but stops himself. With Ben, or really with Palpatine/Snoke (still hate that this was the direction JJ went in TROS) the fear part only lasts for a moment, but with terrible consequences. Luke had mostly learned. He wasn't the same person, but when confronted with the same pressures he'd struggled in the OT, he had a moment where it came close. I didn't find it out of character at all, just a case of not becoming a magical, perfect person after your period of most intense growth.

I think there's an argument that we simply shouldn't bring back iconic, archetypal heroes like that, but once the choice is made, it's deeply uninteresting to have to be saints. As a commentary on teaching and aging and how trying to live up to the legacy of the Jedi as he knew them, I thought TLJ Luke was solid.

The "sacred texts" showed us that he was never truly as disillusioned as he wanted to make out, and that there was still a kid somewhere inside that understood the power of legend and legacy, and it informed his decision to help how he did.

Different aspects of these movies hit people in different ways, and I'm not really thinking I'll convince many people either, but I'll push back on the notion that it was "just" bad writing. TLJ had a point of view and an agenda, and I came out of it refreshed and optimistic and was genuinely taken aback at the backlash.

If only Rian Johnson hasn't sidelined Finn, yet another way he fucked up TLJ

"Poe commits mutiny for the 12th time; learns nothing."

I've always said that the worst thing that 9 did was completely destroy any excitement for Star Wars in an instant.

Prior to 9 releasing, people didn't like 8 and were already souring on 7, but there was still discourse, people caught up on Star Wars news, people were excited for the new content.

After 9, the excitement dropped like a brick. It was the closure of a trilogy in one of the most profitable IPs in the world. There was still more content planned to come out soon iirc (the shows, and I think there was talk of more movies), so it's not like people stopped caring due to the lack of content. Nobody I knew was interested in discussing fan theories or analyzing the movies (except to rag on them, I suppose). It was as if millions of voices cried out in terror... And were suddenly silenced.

9 is just generic. It's mediocre. 8 is an active train wreck. God, I remember sitting in the theatre and being baffled by the opening 'conversation' between Hux and Poe. I legit thought it might have been another one of those fan vids that they show in the Alamo Theatre before the actual movie began, despite the opening crawl.

It's not just Jar-Jar. The amount of CG and green screen was off-putting given how good Lucas was at practical effects, and those more modern techniques have aged much worse in a much shorter time frame. The movies may be slow, but the action sequences are actually quite long, drawn out, and pointless (the third act of Attack of the Clones is especially bad). The fight choreography was also extremely different, with the simple, grounded light saber fights being replaced with silly back-flips and summersaults.

There are also odd story elements that seem to contradict the OT; why did Obi-Wan say Yoda trained him? How did the Jedi go from being a powerful peace-keeping force known throughout the galaxy to a myth in 20 years? Why did Leah claim she could remember her mother? (I'm sure Lucas came up with explanations for these things, but they still stand out.) All in all, they are a huge tone-shift from their predecessors, in both storytelling and filmmaking.

In contrast, the sequel films are able to emulate the original trilogy much more faithfully in terms of practical effects and set design. The real problem was, where Lucas over-developed his prequel trilogy for 30 years, Disney under-developed their sequels, with no plan for where the story should go. Abrahams created a basic retread of the first film, Johnson threw everything out in the second, and the third film was just desperately trying to write itself out of a corner. Those movies had no idea where they wanted to go, so they went nowhere.

Just like the prequels

Universally hated but then kids who grew up with it became adults

On top of this, get rid of Snoke and have Thrawn lead the First Order.

One of the things that made the Thrawn trilogy work was the way it played out the inevitable decay of the old Empire, even with a brilliant strategist at its helm. The rot went too deep and the ideology that drove the Imperial movement couldn't hold it together. Militarism wasn't enough to keep the imperial regions united, while the New Republic offered allure that couldn't be easily rebutted.

The movies couldn't conceptualize this imperial decay or recognize the New Republic as a powerful political force drawing the fractured galactic planets together again. They had to reset the state of the setting to "Bad Guys Strong, because Big Lasers and Ships" while the Republicans were once again weak, scattered, and on the run.

I might say you could salvage Snoke (as a reskin of Joruus C'baoth) and Sloane and Hux and Kylo Ren, cast within this desperate grasping to Retvrn To Tradition. Then rename "The First Order" as "The Last Command", implying they follow the last words of the now-dead Emperor Palpatine. And you can even lean in to the ghost of Palpatine and the echoes of fascism that do provide some lingering cohesiveness to the dying Imperial movement.

But these climactic space battles that are decided by One Brave Starfighter Defeating The Big Imperial Machine aren't able to resonate in the final series, because they don't answer the question of what comes next. At some point, the New Republic needs to be a thing we care about and the conflict needs to move away from "How do we beat the Empire?" and into a "How do we make the New Republic do better than the Old One?"

"Maybe we should have planned the trilogy" - JJ after RoS

Disney allocated a billion dollars to a trilogy of movies and didn't even ask for outlines of scripts first. I know JJ is "mystery box guy" and all but the amount of hubris to think they could just wing it on the strength of the IP is staggering.

"I hate powdered sugar.. it's poofy and hard to clean and it gets everywhere!"

Oh please, don't quote that ketamine-addled frog at me. The whole thing is his fault anyway, he fucked up literally everything he touched:

• First he opposed training Anakin at all. Because letting a kid whose Force sensitivity is off the charts run around unsupervised just after you've found out that the Sith are back is apparently a good idea...?
• Then he assigned him to wet-behind-the-ears Obi-Wan instead of a more experienced master who might be able to guide him better, despite knowing full well that Anakin was going to be difficult to train due to being too old.
• He didn't recognize Palpatine as a Sith lord despite frequently meeting him face to face.
• Failed to defeat Dooku.
• Dismissed Dooku's warning about a Sith being in control of the Republic as disinformation despite every word of it being true.
• Provided incredibly stupid, worthless, ineffective, and likely even outright damaging 'guidance' to Anakin in the throes of emotional turmoil.
• Decided that he and Obi-Wan should split up to fight the Sith individually instead of ganging up on one while the other was occupied, and then sent Obi-Wan after Anakin despite being explicitly warned that it wouldn't work.
• Failed to defeat Palpatine.
• Tried to stop Luke from going to rescue his friends, who would later prove instrumental in the defeat of the Empire.
• Tried to teach Luke the same "attachments bad" bullshit that he fed Anakin in order to get him to assassinate his own father; in the end, of course, it was precisely that attachment that proved key to victory. If anything, the Empire was defeated because Luke, unlike everyone else before him, didn't listen to Yoda.

So yeah. Every single thing this little green asshole ever said and did was wrong. If it weren't for him, the Republic likely wouldn't have even fallen in the first place. If Yoda says that the future is always in motion, the one thing we can be sure of is that the future is as solid as a rock.