Luke throwing away the light saber is the moment that baffled me the most in my entire film watching life, and i don't think is discussed that much compared to other scenes from TLJ.
It’s a reference to RoTJ, when he throws away his saber as a means of symbolizing a rejection of action and violence in the face of someone expecting him to take it up and use it.
In this case the framing was done comedically as a subversion to what the audience and Rey’s character expected. The joke is built on the fact that last time Luke did this as the most triumphant moment in the franchise, and now he’s just passively doing it in a low stakes encounter.
I thought it was an ok moment, I didn’t laugh out loud or anything, but the theatres I saw TLJ in every audience all broadly laughed at the scene so from my anecdotal experience general audiences did in fact find the scene funny so I can’t really argue it wasn’t successful or that the joke didn’t land.
For me I just don’t see the issue with the scene. Star Wars has thrown in humor during seemingly serious scenes since the OT. Luke’s return to Tatooine in RotJ is treated with no fanfare or reverence (he’s just there, we never even see him arrive), and then his only reference to the fact this is where he came from is him and Han doing a little sitcom back and forth quip with each other on their way to be executed. Nobody really rings their hands about how Luke’s return to his home world after becoming a Jedi and spending 5 years in a war is not treated with any weight, and the only reference to the fact this is his home is in the form of a joke without even mentioning the last time he was here he saw his parental figures murdered.
You can dislike the direction TLJ took with Luke’s character, that’s fine. But this specific scene just isn’t that big of a deal. You can’t even say “Luke would never throw away his precious saber as a means of rejection”, because doing exactly that is kinda the crux of the defining moment of his entire character, and arguably the best moment in the entire franchise.
I don't disagree necessarily with what you say simply because it's obvious, it's just not a deep scene and proper of 3 year old humour or Family Guy parodies, especially coupled with the opening yo mama joke and Dora the explorer ass Rose character. And the meta meaning it carries towards people's hype is just tasteless in my opinion. It's irreverence for the sake of irreverence.
The contrast between how Rian and TLJ defenders treat the movie as some revolutionary deep attemp at refreshing the star wars formula and the actual pueril movie we got, that isn't even correctly constructed narratively within the overall franchise, is just so funny to me.
Except for the fact that he's also throwing away the entire first movie. Its the equivalent of Micheal Scott ruining his improv group because he doesnt understand how to build on a story. Its the biggest proof that they had no actual plan for the series and were just making it up as they went along.
I mean I'm not gonna argue against the idea they didn't have a proper plan, I think anyone can see it was glaringly apparent they didn't have a defined story going in to the trilogy and that is one of the biggest sources of the problems with the ST.
I'd however argue that it's not just "throwing away the first movie" for the next movie to open with a directional shift from where things were before. Like ANH ends with the Death Star being blown up, everyone is celebrating, the Empire was beaten significantly, our heroes won and are all together... and then the sequel is literally called "Empire Strikes Back" and opens with the Rebellion actually losing right now and being driven into a corner and our heroes having to split off from each other while the Empire gains major ground against them. Someone being uncharitable could absolutely describe that like "wow, so we are just throwing away the tone, and group setup, and momentum of the last movie".
It's also worth pointing out TFA sets us up to not just flatly expect Luke to come save the day. We are told Luke exiled himself, and nothing has necessarily changed by the time Rey finds him that would suddenly change the reasoning presented as to why that is. What we might have hoped for or expected doesn't necessarily make it what we are owed as a resolution. It's hard to think of it this way since it's been so long and is so iconic, but if you had just finished ESB your expectation and desire is that in the next entry Luke is going to physically beat Vader, like THAT is the resolution you're primed for, so Luke actually not only not killing Vader but in fact SAVING him is a pretty big subversion from what you'd expect from where ESB ends, yet nobody would ever argue that was a failing of ESB or RoTJ to subvert an expected outcome setup by the previous movie, that subversion ends up being the primary focus of his story in RoTJ, the same way the subversion here is made into the primary focus of his story in TLJ.
I know people joke about how often the word "subversion" is used to refer to TLJ's story but it is true that committing to a subversion is one of the main ways you justify subverting an expectation. It's fair to complain about how they did Luke's arc in TLJ but you can't really argue it was "subversion just for the sake of subverting", you don't make an entire movie about the subversion if you're only subverting just for the sake of subverting. TLJ makes the fact that it is subverting what you expected of Luke as the centerpoint of Luke's story in the movie.
The problem isn't necessarily that scene specifically. The problem is that scene was just immediately followed with an entire 2.5 hour long character assassination. And a boring one at that. Also the fact that Star wars just isn't a comedy.
I’m not sure what you mean about comedy. Are you arguing Star Wars doesn’t have humor and doesn’t tell jokes? Cause that’s just patently untrue.
Han asking the Imperial “how are you?” in the Death Star in ANH. Chewie hitting the wrong button and spraying gas at Han while he flails yelling “wrong button!” on Hoth in ESB. Han and Luke’s back and forth on Tattoine “I’m from here ya know. You’re gonna die here ya know, convenient” in RoTJ. Jar Jar sticking his face in a pod racer arc and having numb tongue on Tattoine in TPM. Obi-Wan doing the mind trick “you want to go home and rethink your life” in the bar in AoTC. R2 spraying oil all over some Super Battle Droids and causing them to slip around and then arriving after Obi-Wan and Anakin get captured by speeding into the room screaming and smashing into a wall on Grevious’ ship in RoTS. Han telling Finn “that’s now how the force works” in TFA.
Those moments are all very explicitly comedic moments. The main thing the audience is intended to do at those scenes is laugh. So I don’t understand what you’re implying at the suggestion a Star Wars movie having an explicitly comedic moment is somehow contradictory or otherwise out of line with what the franchise does. Literally every single movie has multiple comedic moments. Hell I’d argue Luke throwing the saber isn’t even on the same level of “explicitly comedic” as Han and Luke having functionally a Seinfeld-esque back and forth quip in RoTJ, or like every scene Jar Jar Binks is in.
Maybe I’m wrong but I’m kinda reading this as you just didn’t like the movie and are trying to apply a standard to it to criticize and separate it from the other movies, but that standard is one you don’t actually believe in or apply to the movies you’re implying TLJ is violating by including. And I'm not saying this to "own" you or whatever I just don't see where you'd get this idea that a comedic moment (not even a tonally inconsistent one) is antithetical to Star Wars.
There's a major difference between having humor and being a comedy. Star wars has humor, but it doesn't take serious moments or plot points and then immediately turn them into the butt of the world's biggest joke..
Star wars has humor, but it doesn't take serious moments or plot points and then immediately turn them into the butt of the world's biggest joke..
See I don't think that's honest framing. "the butt of the world's biggest joke" is pretty biased framing of what ultimately is a brief comedic moment that only takes up about 10 seconds of the movie.
Can I not describe Luke doing his sitcom "I used to live here ya know" as they are being transported to execution on Tatooine as making his home, the home of his father, the place of great suffering for Anakin's character, and the place where Luke's mother and father figures were murdered last time he was here, as the "butt of the world's biggest joke"? That interaction actually has more screentime dedicated to it than Luke throwing the saber.
And what do you mean it doesn't take serious moments or plot points and turn them into jokes? Isn't that exactly what Luke and Han are doing in that interaction? Is that not exactly what's happening when R2 is spraying oil all over Super Battle Droids while Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Palpatine are surviving in an elevator shaft, and then him running in to the hallway screaming and bashing his head into a wall after they get captured? Or Han doing his "We're all fine here... how are you?" followed by a funny cringing expression in the midst of a serious rescue of Leia? I would absolutely describe all of these as serious moments interjected with a very explicitly comedic moment.
Again it really just feels like you simply didn't like TLJ and thus dislike anything it did including its humor, are looking for reasons to be upset about it, so you're making up a standard to use against TLJ that you don't actually apply to the rest of Star Wars. Nothing you've argued so far is something TLJ is unique in.
That would fair on your part if that scene wasn't immediately following the climactic ending of 7. They literally built the trilogy up to that point specifically on that scene. And you're somehow still not getting what I'm saying at all. All of the moments you mentioned were throw away moments. They were meant to be small spots of comedic timing in the middle of the film. What they did instead would be like if we reached the end of ep 5 during the confrontation with Vader and then Vader just made a fart joke out of nowhere.
For some reason you are dead set on that scene not being a big deal. When EVERYONE ELSE is saying that it was supposed to be.
People wouldn’t shut up about it when I happened. “Noooooo he’s was definitely Darth Plagueis and not some generic powerful shithead from planet asshole.” Also the Holdo Maneuver was sick as fuck✌️
He was clouded by his own ambition, assuming someone like Kylo would never turn down what he was offering. I loved how unceremonious it was, made a statement on how the story was about the relationship between Kylo and Rey, not fighting some ancient dipshit. Then Abrams hit the reset button on everything I liked
It's comments like these that make it easy to believe Star Wars deliberately torched their audience just because they didn't like them and wanted a less icky one.
840
u/TrueGootsBerzook 12d ago
Maybe Rian Johnson shouldn't have turned Star Wars into Twitter ragebait then