Please do. I’m genuinely curious. I also have more thoughts on this topic incoming, so keep your eyes peeled.

@Moose05 I actually am already working on a post about arcs of characters. I may just work this in somewhere.

Congrats to you @Shield of the Jedi on another splendid analysis!

The thing that strikes me about this is that it partially explains why Luke’s journey can be a challenge to swallow. The Refusal of Return and The Magic Flight are only explored in minimal detail, while the steps following are fleshed out greatly. For those who struggle to connect the dots, it creates a dramatic disconnect between the character they think they know and the character they see.

Of course, this isn’t necessarily the films’ fault, it’s just the reality J.J. Abrams had to contend with when writing The Force Awakens 30 years after the original trilogy and having to sell the movie to a new generation, and these decisions forced Rian Johnson to go out of order in The Last Jedi to flesh out these parts of Luke’s story in greater detail.

It works well enough, but is still very minimalist, and we all know how much entitled Star Wars fans crave and demand detail.

But the alignment of Luke’s path with the full Hero’s Journey means that his story in The Last Jedi is built on well-established classical storytelling tropes, and has a strong mythological pedigree. The bedrock upon which his story in the film is built is about as solid as can be, borrowing imagery and beats from stories like the Arthurian legend to create one hell of a character arc.

@Shield of the Jedi Thanks for this precise analysis of “the hero’s journey.”

If there is anything that I could add, it would be this: Luke’s “Temptation” is not simply overcome and resolved after his failure on Bespin.

Assuming that there were more drastic and far-reaching consequences for Luke’s premature sortie from Dagobah to rescue Han and Leia, what Ben Kenobi condemns as the “quick and easy path,” Luke’s “recklessness” brings about more than just a loss of limb and lightsaber as well as lost time with Han in carbonite. What we have already seen from “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi” is a manifestation of how Luke’s temptation and confrontation with the dark side is repeated in his premature, albeit ultimately true judgment of young Ben Solo’s troubled mind. However, even though reflected upon as as a failure by Luke himself, Luke could have taken the “quick and easy” path again by striking down Kylo as he slept. And yet, he did not.

Regardless, true to Luke’s character, the shame of his failure was rooted in his love for Han, Leia, and their son. I’d like to believe that his First Temptation, and what Yoda and Ben Kenobi had to say about Luke “becoming an agent of evil” if he abandoned his training on Dagobah, was replayed in his mind over and over and over. And unable to face his family, it took “another,” the other foretold by Yoda and Ben Kenobi, Rey through Leia, to awaken him from his complicity in shame and regret and remember his loved ones.

What is truly beautiful about this “Second Temptation” is the call of the Skywalker Saber, lost in the clouds, falling into the hesitant, but ready hands of a scavenger. And having awoken to himself and facing failure, Luke re-learns Yoda’s first lesson of the role of the Jedi: a Jedi “uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.”

As Luke confronts Kylo, he ultimately confronts his First Temptation yet again, which is, in my opinion, a major reason for why Luke appears on Crait with his father’s blue laser sword instead of his own green saber.

At least, this is how I have interpreted it.

I think the issue some fans such as myself feel is the execution of Luke Skywalker’s refusal of return. Him almost killing his nephew, and then abandoning the Galaxy to the wrath of Kylo Ren and Snoke which is partially his fault feels so out of step when in the OT and basically all other stories he’s in portray him as always wanting to take action to do the right thing, and show him deeply committed to protecting his loved ones.

Personally I assumed and would’ve preferred to see Luke be in exile at the first Jedi temple looking for knowledge about how to bring Kylo Ren back to the light and defeat Snoke, when Kylo had made the choice to join the Dark Side for the sake of his own ambition. Then Rey shows up wanting to be trained as a Jedi. Luke would obviously be extremely reluctant to train her because his previous students had all either been killed or joined the Dark Side. But Rey would could have shown that she had only the best intentions and reminded Luke of himself when he was younger, and perhaps Yoda could’ve come back and gotten Luke fully on board with training Rey. Then he would have trained her and she goes on to do whatever she does in the rest of the trilogy. There still could have been a refusal of the call that would’ve lined up with Luke’s characterization in the OT and continued the heroes journey. It’s just the execution of the story and the details of the characterization that I and I think many others take serious issue with.

I have been needing this post

We seriously need an In-Depth Analysis Hall of Fame! Great post, it inspires me to what the structure of such a powerful story holds and how one can interpret it. You bet your life, I'll be directing movies with this article in hand!

I think it’s interesting that Demo mentioned Luke’s commitment to protecting his loved ones, since “the end of everything (Luke loved) because of what (Kylo would) become” is one of the things that Luke specifically cited in explaining his failure.

So it appears that the issue here really isn’t the execution, it’s at the very minimum a failure to fully understand the execution, a failure to give proper weight to things said in dialogue, and a failure to make inferences based on what we already know about the character. His actions in the throne room in Return of the Jedi are particularly relevant, but that’s been discussed ad nauseum here.

The disconnect between Luke’s portrayal in the original trilogy and the way the public sees him is particularly relevant as well.