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Rian Johnson developing a fourth Star Wars trilogy... Oh my..


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2 hours ago, Holko said:

All the catching up wouldn't have been "required" if 9 didn't try to undo 8 and redo it with a bunch of bullshit.

 

What a weird take. It's Episode 8 that swerved into weird bullshit directions, ignoring or disrespecting everything that came before, failing to tell a good story on its own terms and leaving nothing interesting to do in future installments. Oh and it also completely wastes an amazing cast. Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, Gwendoline Christie, Laura Dern and Andy Serkis all could have done amazing things with a screenplay that gave them literally anything interesting to do. But no. Each of them is just completely wasted.

 

28 minutes ago, saulocf said:

Let’s all be grateful to how much The Mandalorian saved the saga. After episode 9, that was quite the feat

 

Mando didn't "save" anything. At this point, it would take something truly special to do that.

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9 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:

 

No argument here when it comes to Christie, Dern, Serkis... and yeah even Boyega and Isaac (though at least his role was bigger than in the first film). But I thought Ridley, Driver, and Hamill had a LOT to do in this film, and they all did it very well. I'm amazed to see even a TLJ-hater lump those three in with the rest.

 

Yavar

 

Agreed 100% . I understand Snoke had already served its purpose, but really wished we could've seen more of Serkis in the role. I thought he was absolutely gripping in every scene he had in TLJ

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10 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

Ultimately I don't really care, it's a fun mess and I'm just glad they knocked them out and John Williams scored them. I'm just a simple JWFan and that was my only real investment. It was so cool and unexpected that he did it, someone pinch me. 

 

The worst sin of the sequel trilogy is that I genuinely cannot enjoy John Williams' scores. All of the misquoting of Luke's theme (I'm never calling it the Star Wars theme), the constant use of the force theme, and the mess that is the temp tracking, music editing, and scrambled thematic material make them absolutely unbearable to listen to. 

 

Not to mention the only new themes that capture my attention are Rey's theme, The Starkiller, and I was going to list a third theme but I completely blanked because the new material is just that uninteresting. Kylo's theme is so short and derivative I can't get any enjoyment in the way Williams uses it, the Resistance theme is quite frankly too cheesy for me, and the rest I can't even remember the melodies to so they're not even worth mentioning. 

 

It's clear to me in listening to the sequel trilogy's music that Williams was done with Star Wars after the prequels. I hate the prequels more than the sequels, but I remember almost every single solitary note from Revenge of the Sith, but I could not tell you any moments post The Force Awakens musically that stood out. 

 

Episode 3 was a perfect finale score for the franchise, even leading in beautifully into the original trilogy with Leia's theme and "The Throne Room" reprises being the perfect send-offs not only for the prequels, but Star Wars as a whole. I don't even remember if Williams did anything special for the End Credits for The Rise of Skywalker. 

 

Rian Johnsons' not doing another Star Wars trilogy? Alright. The franchise's soul has been gone from every film release post 1983 so he sure as shit wasn't going to change that considering how The Last Jedi turned out. Hopefully some of the new Star Wars games can breathe life into the franchise again just like they have since Star Wars Galaxies. Jedi: Fallen Order came close so I have far more hope for that medium than any other. 

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39 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:

 

No argument here when it comes to Christie, Dern, Serkis... and yeah even Boyega and Isaac (though at least his role was bigger than in the first film). But I thought Ridley, Driver, and Hamill had a LOT to do in this film, and they all did it very well. I'm amazed to see even a TLJ-hater lump those three in with the rest.

 

Yavar

I thought Hamill's acting was good, I just wish it wasn't in service to being the focus of an un-intelligent takedown of the monomyth
 

 

2 minutes ago, superultramegaa said:

 

The worst sin of the sequel trilogy is that I genuinely cannot enjoy John Williams' scores. All of the misquoting of Luke's theme (I'm never calling it the Star Wars theme), the constant use of the force theme, and the mess that is the temp tracking, music editing, and scrambled thematic material make them absolutely unbearable to listen to. 

It's really funny how I could replace the word 'sequel' with 'prequel' and no one would bat an eye

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5 hours ago, A. A. Ron said:

It's Episode 8 that swerved into weird bullshit directions, ignoring or disrespecting everything that came before, failing to tell a good story on its own terms and leaving nothing interesting to do in future installments.

It's Episode 7 that completely undid the OT, didn't do anything new and unique, just redid parts of the OT, didn't give depth to its new characters, and left stuff like why Luke is gone to be explained later.

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5 hours ago, superultramegaa said:

All of the misquoting of Luke's theme (I'm never calling it the Star Wars theme), the constant use of the force theme, and the mess that is the temp tracking, music editing, and scrambled thematic material make them absolutely unbearable to listen to. 

 

I'd mention the use of the Tarnhelm music for the description of the waning of Valhalla, but Holko would have my guts for it...

 

Relying too much on the theme associated with the Force is definitely an issue of those scores, though. The repitition is so great that it makes banal out of the glorious.

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5 hours ago, superultramegaa said:

the constant use of the force theme

Yeah, somehow the sequels are missing some common theme to accompany emotional moments. The original trilogy and the prequels all have that. In seven there is Rey's theme, then Rose's theme in nine the friendship theme, which are all very specific for a certain context. So, the force theme is used or even worse in nine "Luke and Leia" in the scene of Lando and Janna. This is for me the only flaw of the sequel scores, missing an own theme for these moments. Often, I think, it would have even been better, if Williams had used "The Jedi Steps" in some of these scenes instead of the force theme, especially in eight or "Finn's Confession".

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17 hours ago, Bespin said:

This new trilogy was simply announced too quickly after "The Last Jedi" was released...

 

Don't forget, it was announced BEFORE TLJ came out. They were so sure it was going to be the best Star Wars movie ever to everyone that they jumped the gun here too. 

 

https://www.starwars.com/news/rian-johnson-writer-director-of-star-wars-the-last-jedi-to-create-all-new-star-wars-trilogy

 

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Luke's good where he is, in the final steps of the hero's journey that movies often forget.

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5 minutes ago, Holko said:

Luke's good where he is, in the final steps of the hero's journey that movies often forget.

 

i have no problem with his arc in TLJ....i just can't fathom blaming RJ for it (TLJ has plenty of flaws)

 

What did people want?  Luke just saying "yeah i'll help" right away?  Where's the conflict.  Unfortunately TLJ is about Luke way more than it should have ever been.  We didn't need Luke anymore.  It was all to make us feel warm and happy with another original character.  But that's the fault of TFA....it relied far too much on fan-service.  Which is why conceptually, the prequels will always be better.

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1 hour ago, Bellosh said:

 

TFA and JJ decided to hint at Luke being a recluse in a far away system.  Unless JJ & RJ decided on this before TLJ????  I don't follow most of SW so I wouldn't know, but I doubt it.

 

RJ handled Luke EXACTLY how the character was portrayed at the end of TFA, and handled it well.  Whether you agree or disagree with how, that's ON TFA!  You don't all of a sudden hint at a character being miserable and alone on a planet and then midway through he becomes 'return of the jedi luke'.  Regardless, his force projection was an incredible send off to the character that TFA MADE!

 

IMO, Luke should HAVE NEVER BEEN IN THE SEQUEL TRILOGY.  He should have just been mentioned as the Jedi 'god' he truly was.  He should have been a myth to all these new characters.  The sequels shouldn't have had ANY original characters.  It should have gone it's own way without relying on old characters to make us feel good in our movie theater seat.

I've always thought about it in a similar manner

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Thinking about it, I think my biggest problem with the sequel trilogy (beyond ending with one of the actual worst movies ever made by a mainstream studio) is that ultimately they weren't about anything really.  Even the worst MCU movies are always about something (like Thor: The Dark World is about complicated family relationships and how to process losing a family member, whether you think it does those things well or not!).  RJ certainly attempted to make it about something more than JJ, but if anything that just makes the trilogy even worse.

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5 minutes ago, Stu said:

Thinking about it, I think my biggest problem with the sequel trilogy (beyond ending with one of the actual worst movies ever made by a mainstream studio) is that ultimately they weren't about anything really.  Even the worst MCU movies are always about something (like Thor: The Dark World is about complicated family relationships and how to process losing a family member, whether you think it does those things well or not!).  RJ certainly attempted to make it about something more than JJ, but if anything that just makes the trilogy even worse.

And it also sort of rendered everything from the OT depressingly moot. In fact, I get an impression with every new story they add, in whatever medium, that whatever happened in the classic trilogy feels oddly unimportant in the grand scheme of things. 

 

Karol

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I get that, although I'd consider it a separate issue.  Like the Mandoverse, even if you think having all these shows detracts from the OT, does at least have overarching themes that get reinforced across various storylines.

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14 hours ago, Bellosh said:

 

TFA and JJ decided to hint at Luke being a recluse in a far away system.  Unless JJ & RJ decided on this before TLJ????  I don't follow most of SW so I wouldn't know, but I doubt it.

 

RJ handled Luke EXACTLY how the character was portrayed at the end of TFA, and handled it well.  Whether you agree or disagree with how, that's ON TFA!  You don't all of a sudden hint at a character being miserable and alone on a planet and then midway through he becomes 'return of the jedi luke'.  Regardless, his force projection was an incredible send off to the character that TFA MADE!

 

IMO, Luke should HAVE NEVER BEEN IN THE SEQUEL TRILOGY.  He should have just been mentioned as the Jedi 'god' he truly was.  He should have been a myth to all these new characters.  The sequels shouldn't have had ANY original characters.  It should have gone it's own way without relying on old characters to make us feel good in our movie theater seat.


This isn’t true, JJ had no intention at the time of making Luke as someone who ran away from the conflict because he lost faith in the Jedi and cut himself off from the force

 

It was Rian Johnson who requested that JJ’s initial plan of having floating rocks surrounding Luke when Rey meets him, be changed so he could write in that he had cut himself off from the force

 

Is it true JJ made Luke a mystery box for someone else to figure out? Yes. Is it true that JJ necessitated the way it was done in TLJ? Hell no.

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But if you think about it. If Luke was on the island and just using the force all the time, the First Order would've found him already. Either Snoke or Kylo Ren could've used the force for that.

 

So it makes sense that he cut himself of from the force, otherwise he would've already been found.

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I agree, it was JJ who painted RJ into a corner where he had to justify why the hell Luke decided to exile himself on a secluded island, abandon all his friends despite knowing their plight, and explain how Snoke/KR/The FO hadn't already located Luke years prior (on account of how force-sensitive he is).

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9 hours ago, DarthDementous said:


This isn’t true, JJ had no intention at the time of making Luke as someone who ran away from the conflict because he lost faith in the Jedi and cut himself off from the force

 

It was Rian Johnson who requested that JJ’s initial plan of having floating rocks surrounding Luke when Rey meets him, be changed so he could write in that he had cut himself off from the force

 

Is it true JJ made Luke a mystery box for someone else to figure out? Yes. Is it true that JJ necessitated the way it was done in TLJ? Hell no.

 

I definitely disagree.

 

Can i ask you though, with actual sincerity....how do you think RJ should have handled Luke with what was hinted at the end of TFA.  I'm not trying to build a straw man argument here, I'm just honestly curious.  I'm not looking to combat each point.

 

again, i'm not a crazy fan of TLJ, haven't even seen Rise of Skywalker.

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2 minutes ago, crumbs said:

 

Do yourself a favour: keep it that way.

 

as soon as i knew the emperor was back....i immediately lost every ounce of excitement.  I couldn't believe it to be honest.

 

THE SCORE IS LOVELY THOUGH!

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I had been fully keeping up with the leaked story at r/StarWarsLeaks and just kept praying they were false.  I'd still love to know who the source was or at least which company they worked for (my bet is still Bad Robot).

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2 hours ago, crumbs said:

 

Do yourself a favour: keep it that way.

 

I remember losing my mind at the theater at how this movie was picking the most boring choice everytime something was made to happen

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5 hours ago, Bellosh said:

how do you think RJ should have handled Luke with what was hinted at the end of TFA

One of the rumors I remember before The Last Jedi came out, was that right at the start of the movie the first orders traces Luke to Ach To and Luke and Rey fight Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren. Id much prefer something like that to hermit Luke!

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8 hours ago, Bellosh said:

 

I definitely disagree.

 

Can i ask you though, with actual sincerity....how do you think RJ should have handled Luke with what was hinted at the end of TFA.  I'm not trying to build a straw man argument here, I'm just honestly curious.  I'm not looking to combat each point.

 

again, i'm not a crazy fan of TLJ, haven't even seen Rise of Skywalker.


I think it should’ve been handled by having Luke be on that island as a part of this long isolated journey he has been on to gather more knowledge to ensure that he actually learns from the mistakes of the past, so he doesn’t have another situation where the Jedi temple self-destructs itself

 

He feels bad that he walked away from Han and Leia during their time of grief but does it because he believes it’s better to not get bogged down in lamenting what he lost and instead move forward to get ahead of the forces of evil - that is the Jedi way after all

 

Something that Luke does constantly and is an actual weakness for him is willingly going off on his own, and it would be interesting to explore how that affects him when it’s for an extended period of time. That way it retcons the look Luke gives Rey at the end of TFA into being brought back down to earth temporarily as he’s forced to face the world he has largely been ignorant of, which brings back feelings of guilt. Luke cares about his friends deeply, and he has to wrestle with the conflict of his moral duty as a Jedi and his strong personal attachments - can the two actually be reconciled?

 

There you go, a conflicted Luke that’s far more in line with the character established in the OT and isn’t someone who has given up because he failed once

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11 hours ago, DarthDementous said:

There you go, a conflicted Luke that’s far more in line with the character established in the OT and isn’t someone who has given up because he failed once

 

But also a lot less conflicted.

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50 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

But also a lot less conflicted.

What? Inner conflict isn’t just a number you can assign, how can you say my proposed approach is necessarily less of one and why does that even matter?

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9 hours ago, Docteur Qui said:

I think you're right that you can't measure in degrees of conflictedness.

 

But I prefer to think in terms of what's compelling to watch. Luke searching for answers for how to fix the past and inadvertently abandoning his friends doesn't hit me as hard as Luke deliberately abandoning his friends because of the guilt he feels for a fleeting moment of primal and war-like violence. The shame he displays - not only as a result of the moment, but also in how he selfishly justifies the abandonment - is compelling to watch. It's a commentary about how when we (as individuals and as a society) mature our binary ideas about right and wrong become only more muddled and difficult to navigate. The greatest triumph of Luke was removing the burden of shame and redeeming himself with a final, powerful act of nonviolence to counter his earlier struggle, and stand for what is right in the face of the oppressive forces of war and hatred. That, to me, is a story worth telling, especially now.

 

Again, I get why people didn't like it. But it worked very well for me, and helped to push the boundaries for legacy franchises beyond hammering the nostalgia button.

That sounds great for literally any character that isn’t Luke. It’s also absolutely not what was in the film, the inciting incident has nothing to do with a ‘fleeting moment of primal and war-like violence’, it has to do with Luke putting 100% confidence in a vision and momentarily seriously considering about doing the equivalent of killing baby Hitler. In that way he’s actually worse than the Jedi Council he tries to take the high-road on, they never seriously considered prematurely killing anyone

 

A huge issue with using Luke for this arc is the fact we haven’t seen his character since ROTJ. There’s nothing less compelling than critical character development for 30 years of someone’s life happening entirely off-screen. It’s part of what makes it so hard to reconcile it as the same character, and that’s also another tear in the immersion that stops investment. This could’ve worked with some kind of transition, but it’s such an ill fit for the circumstances that the only reason I can see them still going for it is because Luke is at the heart of the OT’s mono-myth that they want to attack

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To Kylo he did attack him, but ultimately it shouldn't matter to Luke what his interpretation of the event was and shouldn't blame himself, because people don't just become war criminals and decide to commit genocide in a minute when their uncle comes to visit them at night with a flashlight.

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4 hours ago, Docteur Qui said:

 

Luke literally calls it a "fleeting moment", it's in the text. He experiences a disturbing vision, draws his saber, but then the moment passes and all that is left is the shame. The brevity of the moment is what is important - his emotions and primal instincts completely take over in a split second, and a split second later he sees reason. It's a very human moment but obviously quite heightened (read: space opera).

 

 

I disagree, we don't need to see what's happened in the 30-year gap because that's not what the story is telling us is important about his character. The last time we saw Luke he had an almost identical moment: when taunted about corrupting Leia by Vader (who at this point he has already committed to redeeming) he is overwhelmed by anger and violently attacks him. It's a shocking moment in that film, and it obviously has stayed with Luke. His reaction to the vision of Ren is a deliberate echo of that moment and demonstrates the lifelong struggle that is mastering our primal emotions, and that is precisely what the text is telling us is important about Luke's character in this particular story. The shame he feels in this moment is infinitely compounded, the subtext is that this time he should have known better, especially as a trained Jedi. The fact he didn't actually attack Ren like he did Vader doesn't matter, certainly not to Ren.

The ‘fleeting’ part is not what I intended to disagree with in terms of what is in the movie, so let me change tack and ask two questions so it gets more to the core of where my issues are

 

Do you think it makes sense for the character of Luke to harbour zero doubt towards the vision he had when he reached into Ben’s mind?

 

Was Luke in a similar enough circumstance to when he was on the Death Star II in conflict with the Emperor and his father as he was when he was in that room with Ben sleeping, to be able to say that his actions are comparable?

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Ultimately, if you start psychoanalysing Luke's actions to the 'nth degree it doesn't hold water anymore, but in the heat of the moment, I thought it was plenty effective. Holko will wring my neck, but in the Todesverkundingungscena does it really make sense for Siegmund to contemplate killing Sieglinde in her sleep? If you pause the piece and start psychoanalysing it to death, probably not. But in the moment, its a stupendous dramatic turn of events.

 

Not to put too many superlatives on The Last Jedi's treatment of this storyline: even here, I think there was a lot more there to mine. In particular, I think it would have been much more powerful for the movie to end with "yes, it is time for the Jedi to end." But, still, that part of the movie works more than not.

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Rian Johnson could develop an entire new trilogy based on a spaceship who's stuck in space with an empty tank.

 

It's a think twice situation.

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14 hours ago, Chen G. said:

Ultimately, if you start psychoanalysing Luke's actions to the 'nth degree it doesn't hold water anymore, but in the heat of the moment, I thought it was plenty effective. Holko will wring my neck, but in the Todesverkundingungscena does it really make sense for Siegmund to contemplate killing Sieglinde in her sleep? If you pause the piece and start psychoanalysing it to death, probably not. But in the moment, its a stupendous dramatic turn of events.

 

Not to put too many superlatives on The Last Jedi's treatment of this storyline: even here, I think there was a lot more there to mine. In particular, I think it would have been much more powerful for the movie to end with "yes, it is time for the Jedi to end." But, still, that part of the movie works more than not.


I can only speak for myself, but it was not a case of needing to look deeply into the psychology for the character and the circumstances he was in to see this as a baffling choice. The OT had assembled a series of character traits that Luke either had from the start or gradually acquired which together formed the basis of his character, and it's with those expectations that I regard what he does in the future. If the text doesn't give adequate explanation for why someone is acting 'out of character' in that context, then it immediately pulls me out of it. I also want to clarify that in some cases 'acting in character' would mean acting irrationally, so this isn't a case of people must be rational robots all the time

 

I have absolutely no idea about anything in Todesverkundingungscena but somehow I doubt that Siegmund both exhibits the same character as Luke and is in the same position as him. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but if I'm not then it's a bizarre point because I'm certainly not against any character doing what Luke did, I'm against the choices Luke made based on his past experience and what the core of his character was established to be

You have hit on something important at the end there though that gets to the core of why I think the movie is ultimately pointless and why it's so frustrating compared to Knights of the Old Republic 2, or hell even the Prequels. The movie posits through Luke that the Jedi are fundamentally flawed and do more harm than good, therefore they should cease to be. What are these fundamental flaws exactly? I'll let Luke speak for himself:
 

Quote

"...If you strip away the myth and look at their deeds, the legacy of Jedi is failure. Hypocrisy, hubris...at the height of their powers, they allowed Darth Sidious to rise, create the Empire, and wipe them out. It was a Jedi Master who was responsible for the training and creation of Darth Vader."

 

First off, most of this information is not new to Luke. Obi-Wan essentially told him what happened to the Jedi in ANH, with the added piece of the puzzle being that the man Obi-Wan trained and Vader were one and the same, which he had accepted by ROTJ. Luke condemns the Jedi for being hypocritical and full of hubris for...getting defeated by one of the most cunning and powerful Sith to have ever lived? We know there's more to that story because of the Prequels, but in the context of the movie and Luke's understanding of what happened it's a caricature that places the blame for their defeat solely on the Jedi. The next best example for embodying the issues of a Jedi would ironically be Luke himself, except he now actively shuns the Jedi which makes him a horrendous example. This means Luke's criticism is ultimately a projection. It's a failing of individuals, not one of a system. The movie can't put together a better alternative for the Jedi because it hasn't demonstrated an understanding on what the systemic issues were in the first place. The closest we get is the scene where Luke demonstrates to Rey that the Jedi do not have a monopoly on the Force, which again frustratingly is nothing new to Luke and not even true as a belief of the Jedi he knew personally because Yoda showed him this lesson in Dagobah all those years ago. Which is why the Jedi continue on through Rey completely unchanged at the end of the film, which makes for an utterly self-defeating critique of the Jedi and makes it look like Luke is avoiding responsibility for his actions even more by projecting all his issues onto an order of Jedi. An order of Jedi that had been dead for years by the time he met its remnants that held very different ideals to when the Jedi Order was active in the Prequels. Luke, a character that has never been previously shown to dodge responsibility for his actions by blaming someone or something else (except for at the most when he was still a farm-boy teenager), even willing to put himself out there selflessly for the sins of others.

It honestly makes me question how much leeway people are willing to give before a fictional construct no longer feels like the same character. No transition points for gradual and deliberate change even retroactively, all critical character development completely off-screen in a space of three decades (for contrast the OT covers only half a decade of Luke's life where he undergoes already significant change), and new traits that actively contradict many of the old ones. What more does it take to be able to say that they're just not the same character?

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