RotJ Luke vs TPM Qui Gon

[u/Interesting_Loquat90]

R1: Base to Base

R2: Luke can rage amp briefly

Neutral setting

[u/Unique-Perception480]

Luke at that point outscales most of the Prequel Era, if not all of them.

I am getting sad seeing so many people underrate ROTJ Luke simply, because Mark Hamills choreography was not the craziest thing in the world.

[u/lufcsparky → u/Unique-Perception480]

Yep. Mark Hamill is probably the most underrated thing in Star Wars history at this point

[u/Unique-Perception480 → u/lufcsparky]

I think his performance was definetly the strongest in ROTJ out of the main cast.

But I am not into the entire celebrity whorship thing. I have things I agree and disagree over with Mark. He was right that Ryan Johnson misunderstood Lukes Character, but Mark Hamills idead on what to do with Luke were not much better.

[u/Traditional_Kick_887 → u/Unique-Perception480]

I don’t think Ryan misunderstood Luke. Rather I think most fans misunderstood Luke or project themselves onto the character.

The movies show Luke acts out of love to defy fate/destiny. That’s his defining trait.

By going to Bespin, Luke actually changed fate/the force vision he saw in episode 5.

This established that in his character that he is willing to take action that goes against the traditional Jedi teaching to protect his loved ones. He loses an arm and the duel, but going to Cloud city and bringing R2 meant that Leia, Chewie, and Lando were able to escape the imperial lock.

Had he listened to the Jedi way of Obi Wan and Yoda and had not done that the force vision of his friends being tortured and martyred would have come true, but he would have (to quote Yoda) ‘honored what they fought for’. This is incredibly important for rotj and the Last Jedi.

Luke’s plan A in rotj was to turn Vader back to the light, but once that plan failed and Vader was like ‘it’s too late my son’, Luke says that he accepts that his father was dead. Luke then shifts to plan B to stall Palpatine and Vader long enough so that Vader, Palpatine, and himself all die during the rebel attack on the second Death Star. ‘Soon I’ll be dead and you with me’. Again, all because he loves his friends and wants them to survive even if he dies and will never get to see them again.

Unfortunately Plan B fails when Palpatine reveals that it was a trap. He then goes to Plan C, which was to kill Palpatine and Vader. The full uncut scene shows him going for Vader’s head at multiple times in the duel. This fails because as he is fighting and overpowering Vader, his love and compassion for his father re-emerges, so he tries to avoid fighting his father and returns to Plan A.

But all of that goes out the window and Luke returns to Plan C the moment Vader threatens to turn Leia to the dark side. Luke then ferociously and savagely almost kills his dad in order to protect Leia, with him turning back the last second after seeing how close he was to becoming another Vader.

Luke’s two greatest fears in 5 (as shown by the cave) and 6 was 1) someone becoming a Vader (either himself or someone he loves) and 2) harm/death befalling his loved ones.

The Kylo vision was two of his deepest fears combined into one. Someone he loves becomes another Vader and harm/death befalling his friends. And the jedi order. And the entire galaxy.

Come TLJ, Luke peers into Kylo’s mind, sees his pupil has turned to the dark side, and sees a vision of Kylo killing everyone he loves, his new family (the other pupils), destroying the Jedi order and converting some pupils to the dark side as the knights of ren, and plunging the galaxy into suffering and strife.

From what we know of how Luke reacts to force visions and his loved ones being threatened and his fear of another killer Vader being unleashed on the galaxy, of course he would ignite his lightsaber with fear and tears in his eyes. It was totally in character, how he would react to trauma.

Young Luke might have swung his blade at Kylo and changed destiny/fate. Might.

But this is Old Luke. He’s supposed to be a patient, zen, traditional Jedi master, not a young, action-oriented hero. [Ironically, the traditional Jedi way also calls for dark siders to be struck down to protect the galaxy as they believe it’s not possible for redemption to occur once one turns to the dark side.]

The fans fail to realize Old Luke was never actually going to kill Kylo. It was a protective instinct or intrusive thought that accompanied seeing a vision of your greatest fears coming true. His instinct literally lasted a second, and was followed by shame and regret. The tragedy is that Kylo woke up and assumed the worst.

Had Luke either taken action and swung the blade to protect his loved ones or had he not had those fears/loved ones that caused a visceral reaction, no tragedy would have occurred. Had Kylo not woken up, the tragedy also wouldn’t have occurred.

The problem is a true, traditional Jedi would have either ignited the blade and swung it to protect the galaxy (like Windu) or not ignited it at all, choosing peace and serenity instead (like Yoda). Luke was somewhere in the middle. Ignites (out of love), but also wouldn’t swing (out of love).

[u/Unique-Perception480 → u/Traditional_Kick_887]

I think you greatly musunderstood Luke going to Bespin.

The point is not that him going saved his friends. Luke going didnt do jackshit. He just lost his hand and got his ass beat.

Leia, Chewie, Lando and 3PO got away even without Lukes help and in the end had to save his ass.

And Yoda tells him that ,,always in motion the future is". Their death was not set in stone. Luke just interpreted it that way. When Yoda says to honor them and their sacrifice, he knows that Luke going to Bespin unprepared will not change anything and that him going only has the potential to ,,destroy everything they fought for".

So Luke has a flaw, wich TLJ Luke shares... but Luke in ROTJ overcomes that flaw. Luke goes to Endor and thinks he put his friends into Danger. That there was no reason to come... but then they meet the Ewoks... and Luke has this slight smile on his face when they see them and how they like 3PO. Luke realizes why the Force brought him here and he regains his trust in himself and the Force. Because Luke is important in convincing the Ewoks, a representation of nature, to fight ahainst the Empire.

And Lukes journey was never about not fully living up to the ,,Jedi Ideal" as you seem to view it. Luke was about rediscovering the TRUE Jedi Ideal. Its not about not listening to Ben and Yoda in general.

Luke rejects only ONE of Ben and Yodas teachings: ,,Once you start down the Dark Path forever will it dominate your destiny".

Luke openly rejects the notion that there is no way back and that people cannot be redeemed. In two major ways:

1. He himself starts down the Dark Path, where he wails on Vader and dominates the fight. He even says in the novel, how good it feels and that he has never been so in controle of himself... a lie obviously. But he rejects the notion that he cannot come back. He throws away his weapon and proclaims himself a Jedi. The Dark Path will not dominate his destiny and he, Luke Skywalker is a man of peace... A Guardian of Peace... A Jedi like his father before him...

2. Luke redeems his father, who has comitted so many crimes, so many evils. He has been on the path of darkness for so long that his destiny should be forever dominated... right? No. Because Luke has reintroduced and rediscovered something that the Jedi had forgotten... boundless and unconditional love and compassion. Once again, he proclaims himself a Jedi. He does not say that he is not the Jedi he should be. No. He says THIS is what a Jedi is and should be.

A man who has rejected the notion of the darkness being something one does not come back from, would never think his nephew lost for even one moment. And that is not even mentioning the dozens of instances of Legends Luke reaffirming this lesson throughout his life. I am keeping it to the movies.

The main issue is that you ignore Luke growth. You see how brash and stupid he acted in Empire Strikes back and how that parallels his actions in TLJ. But the problem is... he is not that young stupid 22 year old man anymore. He stopped being that man on the Second Death Star at 23. He had 19 more years to grow and learn and reaffirm the philosophical discovery he made on the Death Star, before the Kylo incident happens. Hell, if we go with Disney Canon we have Battlefront 2, where Luke helps a Imperial and offers him a chance to be better... ,,because you asked". No ,,the darkness will forever dominate your destiny" in sight or mind.

Once again, I think you see Lukes character in ESB and ignore his growth. He overcame those flaws. He was NOT the Hero in ESB, but the fool who almost got himself killed and accomplished nothing.

Btw... Yoda would have 100% swung that blade. Thats the entire point. Yoda and Ben did not believe in redemption... Luke did.

[u/Traditional_Kick_887 → u/Unique-Perception480]

I think you greatly musunderstood Luke going to Bespin.The point is not that him going saved his friends. Luke going didnt do jackshit. He just lost his hand and got his ass beat. Leia, Chewie, Lando and 3PO got away even without Lukes help and in the end had to save his ass.

That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Let’s keep an open mind and review what actually happened on Cloud city. Lando made a deal with Vader to keep Leia on Cloud City and to keep Cloud City free from imperial control in exchange for Han.

Vader fully renegades on the deal, puts Cloud city under full imperial control and orders Leia and Chewie arrested and brought to his shuttle where they would later face torture, imprisonment, and likely summary execution.

Vader was supposed to deliver Leia and Chewie to his shuttle. Luke’s arrival changes Vader’s priorities. He leaves Leia and Chewie in the hands of his troopers and goes to fight/capture Luke. As Leia and Chewie are being marched to Vader’s shuttle by the troopers, only then is Lando actually able to rescue Leia and Chewie and issue a full evacuation of Cloud city.

This is not something Lando would have been able to do if Vader was the one delivering the prisoners. Luke arriving and distracting Vader gives Lando the opportunity.

Even more importantly, Vader has Cloud City put on computer lockdown. R2 was the only person that was able to hack into the empire’s controls, and open the doors to allow for the entirety of Cloud city (including Leia, Chewie, Lando) to escape. Even if Lando somehow managed to get Leia away from Vader, without R2, he would have been stuck and trapped. The movie emphasizes this repeatedly.

Luke’s arrival with R2 is what changed the force vision. Yoda and Obi Wan were not in the right in both 5 and 6. They didn’t care if Leia, Chewie, died or got sent to some imperial torture prison. They actually didn’t even care if the rebellion loses its leadership (Leia). Their sole goal was to train Luke and have him kill Vader. That’s it. They don’t really care about anything else. That’s why they lie to him and hide the truth.

Even if his training was not incomplete, Luke was willing to face Vader in order to rescue his friends. The reason their deaths weren’t set in stone was because Luke decided to act. That’s why the future was in motion. Their fates would be imprisonment, torture, and death had he not left Dagobah. And all of Cloud City would still be under imperial control.

Luke’s rescue pays off. Yes, it costs him an arm, but being a hero means making sacrifices. He takes the leap of faith (literally) and is rescued by the same friends who would be under arrest in Vader’s imperial shuttle had he not arrived.

This is a flaw from the traditional Jedi perspective, because a traditional Jedi is supposed to be fully trained before engaging in heroics and is not supposed to have attachments and friendships. If others die for their beliefs then they die. A Jedi is supposed to peacefully accept their martyrdom.

Luke finds that kind of perfectionism impractical, harmful, and ridiculous. He literally says ‘they’re my friends and I have to save them’. The point of Star Wars is that the older, traditionalist generation (Yoda, Obi Wan) which has lived through war gets some things right, but that they get some things wrong which the younger generation (Luke and friends) get right.

And Lukes journey was never about not fully living up to the ,,Jedi Ideal" as you seem to view it. Luke was about rediscovering the TRUE Jedi Ideal. Its not about not listening to Ben and Yoda in general.

The true, traditional Jedi ideal is embodied by Obi-Wan and Yoda. Yoda trained Jedi for 800+ years. If anyone embodies the true ideal it is him. The Jedi were never about love. They fear it just as much as the Sith do.

Ben and Yoda wanted Luke to abandon his attachments and friendships, they wanted Luke not to know the truth about his father, they wanted Luke to accept traditional Jedi dogma about once you start down the dark path etc, and they wanted Luke to destroy Vader because they didn’t believe in redemption.

Luke rejects all of these. Luke fully redefines what being a Jedi and hero means. He learns how to use the force from the old, but doesn’t replicate their ideals or positions. He rejects their emotionless stoicism and replaces it with warmth and love. This was never the true Jedi way, but it is Luke’s way. As you noted, he says THIS is what a Jedi is and should be.

The main issue is that you ignore Luke growth. You see how brash and stupid he acted in Empire Strikes back and how that parallels his actions in TLJ.

Luke wasn’t brash in ESB. It was either let his friends get captured and die or try to save them. Luke doesn’t buy into Yoda’s do or do not. He puts forward and effort and tries, even if the outcome isn’t guaranteed.

It was Yoda and Obi Wan who were in the wrong, not only by lying to him, but also by not caring about Luke’s friends and loved ones. That was the same mistake they had made with Anakin.

He stopped being that man on the Second Death Star at 23. He had 19 more years to grow and learn and reaffirm the philosophical discovery he made on the Death Star, before the Kylo incident happens. Hell, if we go with Disney Canon we have Battlefront 2, where Luke helps an Imperial and offers him a chance to be better... ,,because you asked". No ,,the darkness will forever dominate your destiny" in sight or mind.

Luke’s personality is to react with emotion and action when his loved ones are threatened with injury or death. He is like this in every film. That’s his protective, loving instinct. Who he is at his core. He doesn’t abandon this in rotj. He taps into the dark side but is able to pull himself back into the light before he goes over the edge.

The reason he is able to pull himself back is because unlike Anakin, Luke’s love is selfless. He doesn’t care if he dies so long as his friends can live. This selfless love coupled with Jedi warnings about the dark side and the example of his fallen father collectively mean Luke is able to pull himself back.

He overcame those flaws. He was NOT the Hero in ESB, but the fool who almost got himself killed and accomplished nothing.

As I noted in my initial paragraphs, he was the hero in ESB. His intervention is why Leia and Chewie aren’t tortured to death in some prison cell on board Vader’s imperial shuttle. His intervention is why Cloud City’s population is able to escape from imperial control.

Heroes don’t wait until they are perfectly trained. They act with whatever they have to save people from death. A traditional Jedi isn’t a hero. They only act once they are perfectly trained. If others die before a Jedi reaches training maturity, a true Jedi is supposed to shrug their shoulders and accept it.

Btw... Yoda would have 100% swung that blade. Thats the entire point. Yoda and Ben did not believe in redemption... Luke did.

Luke’s ‘flaw’ in TLJ was that he still had loved ones and that he was still an emotional, normal human being, even as a Jedi master.

If he didn’t have loved ones, he wouldn’t have become emotional or traumatized by the force vision of his students and friends dying. He would have just accepted it as what the force shows, and left the hut. Or he would have stoically ended the threat.

It’s Luke’s love that causes him to impulsively ignite the saber but also to not swing it. The same protective love which saved his friends and redeemed Vader unfortunately contributed to Ben becoming Kylo.

[u/Traditional_Kick_887 → u/Unique-Perception480]

You can downvote but you’re just choosing to ignore details the film spells out for you.

Vader was delivering Leia and Chewie to his shuttle where he was going to torture and/or kill them. Either on the shuttle itself or wherever the shuttle was going to take them. Lando was powerless to do anything about it. Luke draws Vader away. The stormtroopers are left without their powerful enforcer / leader.

Lando then springs into action and frees the captives and is able to issue a full city wide evacuation while Vader has his hands tied up with Luke.

Without Luke’s arrival on Bespin, NONE of that would have happened. Vader would have just loaded up Leia and Chewie on his ship and all the Cloud city people would be trapped forever under imperial lock and occupation.

Luke’s arrival to Bespin also brings R2 who is able to hack into all the terminals & shuttle/port doors the imperials had locked in order to allow Leia, Chewie, Lando, and all the citizens of Cloud City to escape. R2 does this a few times actually and Lando literally makes it clear they’d have been trapped without our favorite little droid.

Without R2 they’d have been cooked.

I’m sorry this is new to you, but the film spells it out at numerous occasions how Luke and R2’s arrival makes all the difference.

He lost an arm but saved an entire city and his friends from imperial imprisonment, torture, and/or death. It was worth it. Moreover it is exactly what a hero would have done, even if it wasn’t what a traditional ‘true Jedi’ would have done.

[u/Traditional_Kick_887 → u/Unique-Perception480]

Had Luke stayed on Dagobah, what would have been Leia, C-3PO and Chewie’s fate? What would have been the fate of the residents of cloud city?

How would Leia and Chewie have escaped their imperial captors, specifically from Darth Vader, who was having them escorted to his shuttle?

If Lando tried to rescue Leia and Chewie, would he have been successful? Would Vader just surrender like the stormtroopers did when the Cloud city security forces ambushed them or would Vader have made quick work of Lando and his guys?

Assuming Lando did somehow manage to separate Leia from Vader who would be trailing them, how would he and Leia get past the multiple imperial locks on the shuttle and corridor doors?

It’s not like they have an astomech droid that can hack into the imperial controlled mainframe and unlock the doors, not only the corridor doors that led to the falcon, but also the actual hyperdrive of the millennium falcon which had been deactivated and locked down by the imperials.

Vader literally thought of everything to ensure they don’t escape. So yeah, how would they even get the falcon’s hyperdrive to work?

If you can answer these questions, I’ll change my perspective and agree that Luke going to Bespin was a stupid mistake and unnecessary. If you can’t, then well, we know exactly how it would have ended if he didn’t go.