u/Flat-Court-8512

It’s one of the many stupid things about this show. The empire should at the very least be watching the family like hawks after everything that’s happened. Why? Because Reva’s whole master plan hinged on kidnapping Leia to get Obi-Wan to come out of hiding, believing that Bail would call him for help due to the imperial archives indicating a past connection between the two, and it worked.

This all the proof the empire needs that Bail had the means of getting in touch with a fugitive Jedi all this time, and yet they never seem to do anything about it ever again because in episode 4, Leia and Bail are once again trying to get Obi-Wan’s help with something. Who does the show think it’s fooling when Obi-Wan tells Leia that no one can know that they’re associated with one another because it could endanger them both when the empire already knows this?

It’s literally the legacy of what the OT heroes spent 3 movies fighting for, and it gets nuked off the galactic map halfway through episode 7 before we can learn anything about it. What makes this really depressing is that this was obviously done because the people that made that movie wanted to remind us of the movies we grew up loving. Even if it meant resetting everything back to that very same rebels vs empire status quo our heroes fought to free the galaxy from, and because the prequel politics weren’t well received. Not to be overly dramatic, but it just kinda seems like a slap in the face to someone like me who spent many years wondering what kind of world Luke and his friends created after defeating the empire, and what movies about that would be like.

And as a result, it seems like certain content has been working to explain how the republic got to be in a position where it could easily be destroyed like that. Namely that after the defeat of the empire, the new republic heavily demilitarized as a sort of overcorrection to how things played out during the time of the republic in the prequels, but ended up becoming just as weak and ineffectual as the previous government. There’s also a whole book about Leia trying to get the republic to take action against the first order. They refuse on the grounds that Leia is just gonna needlessly bring the galaxy back to the days of the last war. You wouldn’t know any of that from just watching the films themselves. All the films tell us about the republic is that they support the resistance in some capacity, but apparently not enough to give them more than just some X-Wings, and I guess those bombers in episode 8.

The game’s obviously packed with them, and of course not every one of them is a homerun. But there’s usually a diamond in the rough or two for certain people. For me they were queen’s blood, and that space ranger game at the saucer. The latter I liked in particular because it was like playing an arcade game from the 80s.

Yeah, Poe mutes his communications with Leia when she orders him to disengage after the evacuation is complete. But are we suppose to believe that Leia doesn’t have a line to any of the other people in Poe’s squad? Was it really just not an option for her to tell any of them or all of them to not follow Poe’s lead and come back?

There was plenty of time for her to get a message like that out. It takes Poe roughly another few minutes to deal with the dreadnought’s turrets and fighters after he mutes Leia and before the bombers show up. This is why I think Leia deserves at least some of the blame for the so called bomber disaster. I mean, it’s not unheard of for a commanding officer in a Star Wars story to give an order to retreat during a chaotic battle. But there’s no indication Leia even tried this beyond ordering just Poe to come back.

Fans of the sequel trilogy and of TLJ in particular say that this was a great way to send Luke off because he lives up to his status as a legend he previously didn’t think he was worthy of, and inspires people in other parts of the galaxy in the most nonviolent Jedi way possible. That certainly seems to be the implication with the final scene with broom boy on the casino planet. But besides that broom boy epilogue scene, it’s never really made clear just how impactful Luke’s heroic act was on the larger galaxy.

Setting aside the logistics of how the story of Luke’s final confrontation with the first order would have spread, this isn’t something that’s ever really carried over into the next movie. There’s no throwaway lines about how other systems have been resisting harder than before ever since Luke did what he did on Crait. Nor is it mentioned that this motivated a bunch of people to join the resistance. The resistance itself doesn’t seem to be in that better of a position than they were at the beginning of the trilogy.

In fact, it seems like Lando was way more inspirational in this regard because he’s the one who somehow gets people from all over to fight back against Palpatine’s fleet.

I don’t know what to say other than that I’m speechless that anyone could watch these movies and come to that conclusion, and you just know that the only reason this argument is made is because it’s a desperate attempt to debunk the criticisms that Rey is a Mary Sue. There’s just simply no arguing that Rey did way more with the force in her first movies than either Luke or Anakin did in theirs.

All those two did with the force when they were first introduced in their respective trilogies was use it to assist their piloting exploits. Luke with the Death Star battle, and Anakin with the podrace and arguably the space battle over Naboo. That was it. At no point do either of them inexplicably pull mind tricks or force pulls out of their asses like Rey does. Nor do they beat one of the main dark side villains in a straight up fight.

And to circle back to the piloting thing, both Luke and Anakin are established to have prior experience in piloting fast moving vehicles in dangerous situations. Luke says that the Death Star trench room will be just like beggar’s canyon back home, and Anakin has podraced more than once. But Rey? What kind of experience does she have to justify her flying during the dog fight with the TIE-Fighters? All we get in terms of an explanation is that she’s flown some ships, but has never left the planet. She literally admits to Finn that she has no idea how she got them out of that jam. The obvious implication being the force was guiding her.

Sequel fans talk about how this was the perfect way to end Luke’s story because he gets to inspire the galaxy by living up to his status as a legendary hero that he previously resented, and does so in the most nonviolent Jedi way imaginable, and blah blah blah. Which would all be fine and good if we had any idea how other parts of the galaxy felt about it beyond just the Canto Bight kids. It seems like Lando was ultimately the one who got everyone to fight in the next movie.

Speaking of which, we don’t even get any throwaway lines in episode 9 on how Luke’s actions have galvanized other systems to resist the first order, and that they’ve been putting up staunch resistance ever since or anything like that. This gets particularly glaring if you know anything about Colin Treverrow’s scrapped episode 9. For a story that feels more like a proper sequel to TLJ, not even that version gives much insight on how inspired the galaxy supposedly was by Luke’s heroics because the plot basically would have been the resistance trying to get a message to the wider galaxy that they all need to take the fight to the first order.

How many times have you heard that lovely strawman when criticizing Luke in the sequel trilogy? You just couldn’t handle that Luke was portrayed as a complex human being instead of someone who fulfills your childish power fantasy, or some other crap like that. Me personally, I was never under the impression that Luke was gonna be like Starkiller from the video games. I simply thought he was gonna be someone who passed on more useful wisdom and guidance to new generation. You know? Kinda like what Yoda told Luke to do in ROTJ, and what he admonishes Luke for not doing in TLJ?

Even with Luke being some dejected hermit who doesn’t want to train Jedi anymore, there were still ways for him to be more of a mentor to Rey. Before TLJ came out, I thought Luke would perhaps do a better job elaborating on where the Jedi Order of old went wrong, as opposed to the simplistic and reductive version he gives to Rey about how they allowed Palpatine to take power.

And lastly, Luke really should have been more curious as to what might lead Rey to the dark side. He should know from his experience with Ben Solo that just having raw, unfathomable power doesn’t make you susceptible to falling to the dark side. It was a combination of feeling betrayed and abandoned, as well as being telepathically talked to by Palpatine/Snoke for many years that caused Ben’s turn. I don’t think it would have been unreasonable for Luke to have similar concerns like that with Rey.

I’ve been told that this isn’t something that’s worth getting hung up over because Vader’s reasons for joining the empire were never elaborated on in the OT. So why is it a problem here? So it got me thinking on why that is, and it occurred to me that because we knew so little about Vader’s background, there weren’t really any factors that would make you go wait what the same way you would with Kylo. The movies never really make it clear what he does and doesn’t know about Vader

Because Kylo was born to a family who spent the better part of their lives fighting the empire, wouldn’t he have grown up hearing stories about how bad the empire, and by extension, Vader was? So what could have gotten Kylo to come to the conclusion that Vader is someone worth looking up too. And of course, there’s the matter if Kylo knows that Vader turned away from the dark side at the end of his life. If so, how does Kylo square that away when he prays to Vader’s remains to show him the power of the dark side?

It would have been so easy and simple to just write into the movies that Kylo was bitter that the new republic and Luke’s Jedi weren’t doing enough to bring order and justice to a galaxy that badly needs it. That they should take a more militaristic and ruthless approach to the matter. Something like that would go a long way in explaining why Kylo sees Vader as a role model because that was more or less how Vader handled things in his lifetime. Some would say that’s subtext that’s already in the films, but I think it should have been actual text imo.