At the moment I have quite some time in the evenings, therefore I will continue the series about TLJ.
8. Rey’s first lesson / „It’s time for the Jedi to end“
In the last post, I stopped when Rose was introduced into the movie. Thankfully, there were some minutes with Luke and Rey before that damned Canto Bight subplot started. So, let’s talk about that first in this post…
After Luke turned Rey down and demanded that she leaves the island, he finally agreed to teach her three lessons. The first lessons starts in the morning, when Luke leads Rey up a mountain on the island. They reach a building on top, which I suspect is a building of the old Jedi. There is some sort of balcony attached, which contains a large rock which Rey uses as a seat. Luke tells her about the force, that it is an energy that binds the universe together, and not a power that „Jedi have that lets them control people and make things float“ as Rey suspected – thank god, at least no midi-chlorians. Then he demands Rey to close her eyes, breath and reach out. And Rey does literally what he told her: she raises her arm and reaches out. Apparently, that’s not what Luke intended so he tickles her with a blade of grass and finally slaps her with it when she states that she feels something. Actually, I’m very torn about that scene. Rey used the force in TFA already, for example when she demanded that Daniel-Craig-Cameo-Stormtrooper to unbind her, drop his gun and leave her cell. No need to raise her hand back then, so why should she now do that? On the other hand (haha!), even grandmaster Yoda had to raise his hand when lifting someone’s X-Wing from a swamp on Dagobah as well as Darth Vader has to raise his hand when force chocking someone. So, there seems to be some connection between raising a hand and using the force. However, even if I personally find it questionable that Rey raises her hand, that’s not my problem here. My problem is, again, that Luke Skywalker would not do such things. Luke was portrayed as kind of introverted and serious, not someone who would joke around about using the force – especially not after having lost Ben Solo to the dark side and a whole bunch of other students to whatever fate. However, I guess it’s that humor-thing again, maybe I’m just too old to get that kind of humor. On the other hand, I laughed my ass off while watching Guardians of the Galaxy I & II … and Rocket Raccoon is really not an introverted and serious character!
Anyway, after that Luke made it clear to Rey what he had in mind, she then reaches out to the force for real and some serious shit, which I admittedly do not understand, is happening. At first, Rey senses an omnipresent balance: life & death, warm & cold, peace & violence, … But then she tells Luke that something is beneath the island that is calling for her. Luke tells her to resist the call and kind of freaks out when she does not. Apparently, what called for Rey is the dark side possessing a cave on the island. Thankfully, that’s not like in The Empire Strikes back, when a cave on Dagobah called for Luke and he had to face the dark si… hey, wait a minute! That’s exactly like in Empire! Screw you, Rian Johnson!
Granted, the outcome of the situation is a little different here, because Luke was able to resist the dark side on Dagobah whereas Rey did not even try to resist the call, but the set up is exactly the same. However, Luke is totally freaked out and states that he saw this raw strength only once before in Ben Solo and it scared him not enough back then, but it does now. I don’t get what this is about… is such great strength only possible for users of the dark side? Does that imply that the dark side is stronger than the light side? Doesn’t that go straight against that whole balance thing that Luke talked about only a few moments ago? Either way, I’m confused…
… and tired. Therefore, enough for today. I will need my full strength when going over that Canto Bight bullshit!