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#TheLastJedi notes: in "The Empire Strikes Back," Luke finds Yoda, but doesn't know it: Yoda appears as a cackling gremlin, frustrating Luke and revealing Luke's true nature by showing how he treats someone he thinks is inconsequential.
Luke isn't cruel, but he's short and impatient, so eager to progress with his training and return to the fight that he takes Yoda at face value. It's the first of several tests Luke undergoes on Dagoba, and he fails by not treating Yoda with the respect due another person.
He fails all his tests on Dagoba. He fails by taking weapons into the cave and giving in to violence. He fails to lift the X-Wing. And he leaves Dagoba to rush back to a fight he's not ready for. He learns a lot, but fails repeatedly and is routinely humiliated by a puppet.
When the movie reveals Yoda is the puppet, the audience is shamed along with Luke. It's hard to remember the first time I saw the movie, over 30 years ago, but the moment you realize you've misjudged Yoda is an education for you as much as Luke.
Admiral Holdo, in The Last Jedi, is also a test: for Poe, yes, and also for the audience. Just like Yoda, she's not what one expects a leader to look or act like. And when Poe talks to her, you can see he assumes she doesn't know what she's doing.
Just like Yoda, she tests the audience, too: @rianjohnson has Holdo adopt the mannerisms that many on the internet associate with a specific brand of feminism. She has purple hair, doesn't wear a uniform or manly clothes, she emasculates Poe and doesn't listen to him.
The twist, of course, is that Poe is misjudging her, and many in the audience are too. She's a smart, brave, self-sacrificing woman, with good reasons for everything she does, and a good plan that she's sticking to.
Poe learns his lesson. But many of the people on Twitter I've seen are failing to learn theirs. Hidden behind claims of "unrealistic writing," they act like Holdo only exists to humiliate Poe and further some agenda.
They never say that about Yoda in Empire Strikes Back.
They never say that about Yoda in Empire Strikes Back.
If ESB had come out today, they'd probably rip it to shreds. They'd criticize Yoda being a puppet, the way he embarrasses Luke, the fact that Luke never gets a "win" the whole movie. He just gets repeatedly spanked.
They'd probably also point out that Han, Chewie, Leia, and 3PO "accomplish nothing" in their mission. They run around for two hours and fail repeatedly, get captured, and then Han gets sold to a bounty hunter.
And don't get me started on what they'd say about Han, who embarrasses himself repeatedly in the movie. He breaks the hyperdrive, parks his ship in a monster, has to pretend to be garbage to run away. And the whole way, Leia says cutting things about him.
Don't get me wrong: *I* think all that stuff is great, and brilliant writing. But there's no daylight between TLJ and ESB, they're teaching the same lessons, but dudebros on the internet are failing to learn them.
Maybe they just can't stand that moment of shame, the moment Luke or Poe realizes they've let their preconceptions blind them. They hit that wall and instead of growing from the experience they have to say it was "bad writing."
Anyway, if you liked this, thanks! Here's another Star Wars thread I did today: https://twitter.com/StorySlug/status/1206949716245798914?s=20
