The Tragic Humanity of Luke Skywalker
This article features insanely massive spoilers about Star Wars: The Last Jedi. If you’re one of the eight people who still haven’t seen it, still decide to read this article, and get mad after I warned you about them, then frankly, that’s your fault.
No, seriously, I really cannot stress enough how much this article spoils the movie.
It feels strange to say this about the eighth entry in a decades-spanning space opera about the ultimate triumph of space-good over space-evil, but Star Wars: The Last Jedi is, at its core, a movie about failure, and over the course of its 153 minute runtime, this is proven true time and again, in new and exciting ways. The protagonists fail, their nemeses fail, and in the end, so too do the galaxy’s myths fail. Nowhere is this theme of failure more evident than in the film’s portrayal of Luke Skywalker, and the destruction of his nascent Jedi order. Now an elderly recluse like his mentors Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi before him, Luke wants nothing more than to live out his remaining days cut off from the rest of the galaxy, the heroic destiny he desperately craved as moisture farmer on Tatooine reduced to a mere footnote in the ongoing annals of galactic conflict.
Rian Johnson’s interpretation of Luke is a portrayal of the character that’s immediately at odds with what we’ve seen before, and definitely with what fans were expecting following J.J. Abrams’s (perhaps overly reverent) The Force Awakens. Hell, I myself mentioned just a few weeks ago in conversation with Eddie Losoya how excited I was to see Luke Skywalker finally throw down as a Jedi Master. While The Last Jedi eventually treats the audience to an example of Luke’s mastery of the Force during his climactic showdown with his fallen apprentice, Kylo Ren, this demonstration of Luke’s ability is less “overwhelming force of nature” and more “stoic acceptance of his failure.” And while this is a great realization of Yoda’s one-time admonishment to Luke that “wars not make not one great,” it flies in the face of what most fans were expecting from full-fledged Jedi Master Luke “I brought down the Galactic Empire almost singlehandedly” Skywalker. Yet, it’s precisely by undercutting fan expectations that Johnson, and actor Mark Hamill are able to build everything leading up to that moment into the most human portrayal of Luke Skywalker since he first stepped out into the blazing Tatooine sun(s) to whine about Tosche Station and power converters.
The Luke Skywalker of The Last Jedi is a failure. At least, that’s how he views himself. Following a crisis in confidence that ultimately led his apprentice, Ben Solo, to adopt the moniker of Kylo Ren and destroy the reborn Jedi Order in its infancy, Luke has sequestered himself from the galaxy-at-large. Perhaps even more troubling, Luke has also cut himself off from the Force entirely. He spends his days waiting to die on an island in the middle of an ocean, on a planet forgotten by history, drinking weird green alien milk and sulking. It’s a portrayal that’s left a lot of fans immediately angry, but one that I think is essential to the basic theme of this new trilogy.
Kicked off by 2015’s The Force Awakens, the whole point of the Star Wars sequel trilogy is ostensibly to pass the torch to a new generation of characters and fans alike, and while of course, as a fan of the original trilogy, it can be hard to let go of what we love, at a certain point, we have to acknowledge it as a necessity. Kylo Ren himself gives voice to this idea midway through the film when he tells Rey, “Let the past die. Kill it, if you must.” In order to bring Star Wars to a new generation, we have to end what’s come before, and for Rian Johnson, that means killing the heroic myth of the unimpeachable Luke Skywalker that J.J. Abrams so laboriously built up in Episode VII. To escape the shadow of the original trilogy we have to see Luke Skywalker not as the legend we want him to be, but as the person he actually is.
Still, while this destruction of myth and flight from reverence is a necessary step, that doesn’t mean it’s an easy transition to make. Fans have spent 35 years waiting to see Luke Skywalker in action again, and the previous film in the saga spent the better part of two hours furiously stoking those expectations, building up the Skywalker myth with an almost religious fervor. Even Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker himself, is famously quoted as telling Rian Johnson at the beginning of production, “I pretty much fundamentally disagree with every choice you’ve made for this character,” so it’s not unsurprising to see the same reaction from fans. To see some 35 years of expectation thrown out so unceremoniously, even in Luke’s first moments on screen, is a jarring experience, to say the least, but it’s one that’s necessary for Johnson to tell a compelling story and expand the universe while still remaining true to the core of a beloved character. For one, that immediate defiance of expectation leaves the viewer off-balance from the start, and establishes a degree of unpredictability to a story whose path we’d all otherwise already predicted. If The Force Awakens has a flaw (and, while I still love it, it is most assuredly a flawed work), it’s J.J. Abrams’s slavish adherence to the original film’s template. To so boldly discard convention this early in the sequel signals immediately to the viewer that, in Luke’s own words, “This is not going to go the way you think.” (A lot of the dialogue in The Last Jedi has a very metatextual flavor to it.) It’s an interesting perspective on the character, and takes the story in a direction I certainly didn’t expect, but then, it’s also not completely unprecedented for the middle entry in a Star Wars trilogy.
Honestly, Luke’s immediate portrayal as cantankerous, hesitant, and haunted shouldn’t come as this much of a surprise to fans; the same character traits also exist in Episode V’s portrayal of Yoda, another former Jedi Master undergoing a self-imposed exile. (Star Wars is nothing if not cyclical and self-referential.) Upon their first meeting in the swamps of Dagobah, Yoda’s first appearance as an off-kilter, old prankster causes aspiring Jedi Luke no end of trouble. When Yoda is finally revealed to be the Jedi Master-in-exile Luke has been searching for, his persona shifts to a more serious nature, a reflection of the trauma from which he was still recovering. As with Rey and Kylo Ren’s mysterious connection, Yoda is similarly hesitant to train Luke, afraid of what his power might become if he is corrupted by his father’s dark influence. And like Yoda, Luke’s facade exists simply as a mask behind which to hide his fear and the guilt he feels over his failures. The only real differences are really that the audience knows who Luke is immediately, and that Luke isn’t testing Rey at first; he genuinely wants to be left alone. Only a timely intervention from R2-D2 is able to convince Luke of his responsibility.
However, Luke’s great failing is also much more personal than Yoda’s. While Yoda’s trauma stems from his inability to prevent the Jedi Order’s precipitous fall from grace at the end of the Clone Wars (though I personally do not care for much of them, I am not interested in re-litigating the validity of the prequels at this point, thank you), Luke is traumatized by a very personal moment of weakness in which he attempted to kill his nephew, Ben Solo, after seeing a vision of his possible future as the murderous Kylo Ren. Although it was a momentary lapse in judgement, Luke’s actions were the final straw in sending an already conflicted Ben over the edge, ultimately leading to the destruction of Luke’s Jedi Order and the First Order’s subsequent rise to power. As I’ve said, what’s so interesting about this arc is that Luke’s decision is ultimately portrayed as a moment of completely understandable human weakness, a moment in stark contrast to the legendary paragon of light the audience has no doubt built up in their imagination. In what we must assume is as close to the definitive version of the events as we’re going to see (The Last Jedi definitely has some Rashomon DNA mixed in among its numerous Kurosawa influences), we see Luke standing over a sleeping Ben, face contorted in pain, as he grapples with the decision to kill his nephew to prevent the possible rise of another Vader. But after igniting his lightsaber, Luke hesitates, and in that split-second realizes that killing Ben is not the solution to the problem he’s foreseen. But it’s too late. Ben wakes up to find the most powerful man in the galaxy standing over him, blade in hand, and before Luke can explain, Ben attacks in self-defense, bringing the walls of his hut crashing down on top of Luke. When Luke wakes up, he finds Ben gone, and his Jedi Order in ruins. Those who weren’t slaughtered have fled with Ben, and Luke realizes the future he had so dreaded has come to bear, all because of a single moment of weakness.
Of course, this isn’t the whole story. Supreme Leader Snoke had been manipulating Ben’s emotions through the Force, nudging him to embrace the darkness and inherit the legacy of his grandfather, the one-time Anakin Skywalker. But still, Luke blames himself, and seeing his worst fears realized, vanishes into his own self-loathing. Not the most heroic choice for a legendary Jedi Master, to be sure. But that’s entirely the point: in most good stories, our heroes are defined not only by their heroic qualities, but by their tragic flaws, which generally stand in opposition to that which makes them, well, heroes. The process of overcoming these flaws is what makes for interesting storytelling, and so it makes sense to structure our narratives around these struggles. While the Star Wars sequel trilogy is ultimately the story of Rey and Kylo Ren’s struggle to find their role in an increasingly complex galaxy, in order to effectively pass the torch to these characters, a transition must take place, by which the narrative arcs of the surviving original characters are given a satisfying conclusion. (This may be more of a result of fan demand than of storytelling necessity, but go ahead and try to divorce those two concepts with the Star Wars fanbase, why don’t you?) In some cases, the sequel trilogy has done that by reiterating character arcs from the original trilogy (i.e. Han Solo transitioning from scoundrel to hero of the resistance again in The Force Awakens), but movies, and sequels in particular, take us to much more interesting places when they take the opportunity to interrogate what we love about these characters, and show us a side of them we don’t expect. This is exactly what Rian Johnson does with The Last Jedi’s interpretation of Luke Skywalker.
In the original trilogy, Luke Skywalker’s major flaw is that he is brash and headstrong, traits which, in Episode IV, are part of what propels him along the path to becoming the hero of the Rebellion. But Luke must first learn to calm down and trust in the Force, and in so doing, is the only Rebel pilot capable of destroying the Death Star. As the trilogy continues, Luke’s headstrong actions and unwillingness to listen to reason start to cost him more dearly, beginning in Episode V, when he abandons his training with Yoda to rescue Han and Leia from Darth Vader. In a confrontation for which Luke is not prepared, the self-appointed hero is left questioning everything he knows after being maimed in a fight with the evil Vader, whom he then learns is his father, and ultimately finding himself in need of rescue by Leia. Subsequently, in Episode VI, while having learned to exercise more caution and consideration than before, Luke still takes unnecessary, often violent, risks, and during the climactic confrontation with Vader in the Emperor’s throne room, almost loses himself to the Dark Side of the Force in his desperation to end the Galactic Civil War. It is only by confronting and acknowledging his flaws that Luke is able to cast aside his fear (and his lightsaber), and truly embrace the Light, finally becoming a Jedi, like his father before him.
Although this brashness seems to have at least somewhat informed Luke’s actions in the intervening years between Episodes VI and VII, it is thankfully not a conflict we see rehashed in The Last Jedi. If anything, Luke has grown too cautious, too fearful following Kylo Ren’s ascension. In the 35 years since his confrontation with Emperor Palpatine, Luke has changed. He is no longer the headstrong young man he once was, nor does he see himself as the mythical figure spoken of with whispered awe in The Force Awakens. Luke sees himself as a man who has tried and failed to live up to his legendary reputation and as a result is no longer able to see the point in trying. When Rey comes bearing his father’s lightsaber, Luke examines it for a moment, before casually tossing it away. Its only meaning to him is as a painful reminder of a past he’s trying to forget, and a legacy he failed to live up to. This incarnation of Luke Skywalker is traumatized and haunted by his mistakes, his years of slavish devotion to ancient Jedi doctrine having amounted to exactly the situation he had hoped to prevent; in his own eyes, Luke’s actions are directly responsible for the creation of another, possibly worse, Darth Vader. His flaw is that he has lost faith: in himself, in the Jedi, in the Force itself, and in the capacity of people to do good. While he does eventually reluctantly attempt to train Rey, his half-hearted effort and inability to open up to her only serves to push Rey closer to Kylo Ren and his alluring offer of answers about her past (and his pecs!). It is only through the efforts of Yoda, appearing to Luke through the Force, that Luke is finally able to recover from, and learn from, his failures. “We are what they grow beyond,” Yoda tells Luke. “That is the burden of all masters.” And after enduring so long the burden of expectation, self-imposed and otherwise, Luke, though not completely absolved of his mistakes, elects to return to the galaxy because of Yoda’s simple admonishment: he cannot waste his life wallowing in past failures. Ben (and later Rey) grew beyond Luke’s ability to train him, yes, but this was a foregone conclusion. Luke must simply learn to live with the outcome of his actions, no matter how difficult that may seem.
It is at this point that Luke is finally able to find the strength to overcome his trauma and shed his self-image of the man who failed to live up to the myth. Luke, though powerful, is simply a man — a flawed and imperfect man who nevertheless still has the capacity and responsibility to defend the weak and downtrodden. When he shows up on Crait in aid of the Resistance, the Luke we see is not the same Luke we met at the beginning of the film. He’s grown as a character and shed the shackles of his past, both as a Jedi, and as a person. Filled with a newfound confidence, Luke’s newly clean cut appearance reflects the image of the Jedi we came to know before Kylo Ren’s betrayal. Notably, when he ignites his lightsaber for a final confrontation with his fallen apprentice, it is not Luke’s personal saber, but rather the blade of his father, Anakin Skywalker, which he had previously so callously tossed away. (Much like his physical appearance, this is also a clue to Luke’s presence on Crait as a projection of the Force; Anakin’s lightsaber had previously been destroyed in a duel between Rey and Kylo Ren.) Luke has finally come to terms with his place in the galaxy. And while his attempt to re-establish the Jedi Order as it existed during the days of the Old Republic has failed, Luke finally understands that the true heart of the Jedi doesn’t lie in the Order’s dogmatic adherence to rules and traditions, but rather in the simple spark of hope that exists in every being in the galaxy. A spark that the legend of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, will stoke into the flames of rebellion. And after distracting Kylo Ren long enough to allow the remnants of the Resistance to escape, Luke’s projection fades away, and, exhausted from the effort of projecting himself a galaxy away, Luke dies peacefully on Ahch-To, warmed by the light of its twin suns before disappearing. Luke has become one with the Force, joining the ranks of Obi-Wan and Yoda before him, a true Jedi Master at peace with the knowledge that his personal failure is not the end, and that the spark of hope can never be extinguished. The dogmatic Jedi Order of old may finally come to an end with his death, but Luke, in spite of all his misgivings, his failures, his arrogance, will not die the last Jedi.
This article originally ran December 2017, on Narrativity.com.
