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Again, this is conflagration of what was presented narratively in the 80s with the techniques available then along with the idea the characters wouldn't likely be revisited.

 

The PT altered the perception of what a Jedi would be both narratively by giving their powers an upgrade, and technically by stunt coordination out of a martial arts world instead of a classic European bang your swords together style.

 

We've had decades of fx laden superheroes doing amazing things in films to color the idea of what someone with superhuman powers can do.

 

And again, no one designs a hero in an epic mythic narrative to be "just okay" at their peak.

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I don't disagree with any of that, and I wouldn't describe Luke's powers as "just ok" (he is very powerful). I should have written something else instead of "that powerful" (not going to edit my post again), meant "most powerful" I think. Partly because of depiction, but also because I prefer the idea of loose tiers of Force users that can be defeated by anyone else on their tier on a bad day (or hubris), with the most powerful one being the one that rarely (if ever) has a bad day and often wins via forced errors (more tennis). Hence the sports psychology comparison.

 

But if Luke is the most powerful / all powerful, I don't think I want to see that depicted and would like to see people keep coming up with new ways of avoiding it. I think the depiction of superpowers in SW has always been slightly understated compared to other movies / franchises (Force users can't fly, the action is literally grounded, and using the Force is exhausting or costly in other ways) and I prefer it that way.

 

Also more interested in the dramatic aspects of any duels anyway. So in TFA I had no problems at all with Rey defeating Kylo because of what it meant for each character and how it might define their relationship in the future. Seeing how Kylo would react to being defeated / having a rival after spending most of TFA literally killing his past unopposed had me really excited for TLJ. Compared to that, Rey's parentage was just a non-thing for me.

 

(I'm on the autistic spectrum and the biggest problem it causes for me is executive dysfunction > the worst writer's block you can imagine. So imagine looking at a screenplay for a two billion dollar movie - if you want to be that rich / famous - in your head all the time, but having it vanish every time you go near a computer keyboard or a piece of paper. I'm often faced with a choice of writing something imperfect by my standards / having little resemblance to what I "see" in my head or writing nothing at all, so whatever I do write is often sprinkled with errors.)

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I don't know that he was all powerful in ROTJ, more that he was on the cusp of it. He proved Yoda and Ben wrong by turning Vader. That implied greatness, hence the expectation that from there he'd only grow-- which leads to the ST Luke problem.

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I think they've done a good job of handling it then (that problem), first by search-for-Luke, then having Luke fail (or think he's failed, recurring theme of lots of people blaming themselves or others for Kylo instead of accepting that he might just be a wrong'un), and then the death-via-projection thing.

 

I'm actually surprised that JJ (the man who gave us Tribble blood and planet-to-planet teleportation in Trek) saw the need for restraint.

 

(sorry for the constant editing, wonky brain tonight)

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In retrospect it's funny that any of us wondered what Rey's lightsaber would look like. JJ made such a big deal out of that lightsabre in TFA, having it call to Rey. RJ exploded it, but made sure to show Rey with the pieces in her hands as Leia says "we have everything we need."

Why did any of us ever think it would be something different? It's so plainly right there and yet somehow we are all surprised.

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Maybe as Rey is searching and learning she ends up at Obi-Wans old shack on Tatooine, where it all started, she finds that chest and opens it and there are like fifty Anakin styled lightsabers in there, then we discover that the truth from a certain point of view was that Obi-Wan handed them out to every blonde boy that came by his house. [/palpatine laugh]

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Here's my pitch for Ep. IX:

Buncha stuff happens, and just when things look darkest for our heroes (at the 1:57 mark) in flies Lando with old Wicket and a huge Ewok armada! Lando explains in blatant exposition how the Ewoks evolved quickly as a tech society after the Battle of Endor and now half of them are cyborgs.

Ewoks and Lando (who is married to an Ewok) save the day, roll credits.

I don't want to toot my own horn, but the trailer confirms everything I wrote last July in this very thread was right!
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I have to say CaptainBleh has a point in that I remember seeing the OT in the 1980s and early 1990s before the EU and PT, and I never got the feeling back then Luke was all-powerful. Or Vader for that matter, because I saw him as a slave to the Emperor. Luke was special, and had a destiny for sure. Back then Luke was the ONLY jedi, so I suppose by default he was the most powerful jedi at the time, but it didn't even occur to me he was an extremely powerful jedi.

 

The point of Luke being important--THE gravitational pull of the galaxy (which includes the expectation of his being unlike any who came before him)--comes from a number of obvious set ups and dialogue: from the conversation in Kenobi's home in ANH, Vader noting how strong the force was with that pilot in the Death Star trench, to being capped off with ESB, where Palpatine flatly warns that Luke is not only strong in the force, but could destroy them.

 

Remember, this is Palpatine and Vader--the powerful rulers of a galactic empire, yet the emperor is clearly afraid of Luke and his potential. One man. Not his rebellion, but one man. What does Kenobi warn? "It is you and your abilities the Emperor wants..." At no point are we led to believe Luke was just another Jedi--just another student or trainee. From the dialogue, he's got something even his two powerful masters did not, so that only leaves the conclusion that Luke was--or on his way to being all-powerful.

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I'm not trying to be an argumentative dick here (I don't HAVE to try), but I honestly always interpreted most of those lines from the OT differently

- Not sure what specifically you're referring to in the Obi-Wan hut convo

- Vader noting The Force is strong in him during the trench run - sure - among a bunch of muggle pilots, The Force is strong in him.

- And Palpatine's fear of him I always thought was about what he had forseen. The Force works in mysterious ways and these guys never know exactly how the things they see in their visions will play out. He saw that Luke could destroy them and maybe he feared that Luke was super powerful. We know that Luke didn't overpower them, he turned Vader. Palpy didn't see that coming.

- even the line about "you and your abilities", I mean, they think the Jedi are all gone. Palpatine wants to rule forever, Vader's getting old. If there's another Force user out there, Palpatine wants him. That's how I always read it.

 

As I said before I could be totally wrong. I'm not trying to dig my heels in on it, I just don't see anything blatant that says Luke is abnormally powerful. They sure spelled that out about Anakin in the PT and OT, that one's for sure. But I just never had that impression about Luke.

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