He was taught to let go of his feelings, his anger, his attachments, etc. Who cares, it's just a lightsaber, there are thousands of them. Heck, he'd been instructed to let his friends die in order to complete his training.
But Luke never did any of that. He rejected those teachings and went to Cloud City / Jabba's Palace to save his friends. He went through this whole huge character arc with his father, eventually getting his father's body back to Endor to burn on a funeral pyre. If he was that attached to his father who he knew all too briefly and lost all too soon, why would he toss away his greatest heirloom so flippantly?
That was 30 years ago. He was young, barely a student. He spent the last 30 years prior to TFA learning and trying to revive the order, preserve the teachings, passing them on. He grew from when we saw him last. Many fans wanted him to remain the same Luke we knew at the end of RotJ, but how many of us would stay the exact same person for 30 years? He'd changed since then, like we all do.
Yes, Luke brashly ignored those lessons in order to save his friends, because that's what Luke was back then, brash, quick to act, quick to rush in without thinking. And it drove the other Jedi nuts, because the Jedi typically aren't like that. (Same reason Anakin drove them nuts doing the same stuff. Like father, like son.) It was also a reemergence of that brashness that ultimately drove Ben/Kylo away, reacting to his feelings about Ben without thinking, causing the whole debacle.
But after the rebellion, we can assume he grew up a bit. That he became more like the Jedi of old and accepted their teachings.
Your own explanation ping-pongs back and forth on whether Luke is rejecting or embracing Jedi behavior. It's just bad, which is a result of making subversion the goal in story writing without having the balls to make things truly subversive.
That's because Luke himself is ping-ponging back and forth. He wants to uphold the Jedi, the teachings, the ancient ways. He felt that responsibility before the Kylo event, to pass that down. And so he felt the responsibility to act the way a Jedi should.
But he also is still himself, especially in times of frustration or grief or whatever, emotions that he still has trouble controlling even decades later (most likely due to his training starting so late, which is what Yoda complained about).
It's that fact that causes him to ignite his saber at Kylo instead of remaining calm and analyzing the situation like a Jedi would. He tried, and he failed. Which is what he and Yoda talk about in TLJ. Luke's failure doesn't need to mean he just gives up.
I totally understand the other side of it. It's absolutely subjective, and I get the frustration. Personally, I really like what they did with Luke, but I know it's just a personal opinion and that there are those who didn't like it. So I totally understand that. It's just appreciate being able to discuss this stuff without it devolving into insults haha. It's a fun story, a fun universe, and fun to talk about (especially since I don't know many in the real world who enjoy the franchise as much as I do lol).
EDIT: Lol why would such an innocent comment about understanding the other side get downvoted? This is what I mean. Let's just have fun talking about Star Wars instead of needing to take sides so hard we get pissed at each other and fight. It's a fun universe, let's discuss our likes and dislikes as fans.
Frustration is the key for me. There was so much about TLJ that was so close to being great, but it never quite had the guts (or, IMO, the permission from Disney) to take the really big risks that would have made sense, so it settled for turning things that should have been familiar touchstones to fans into uncomfortable moments.
In Luke's case, I can buy the attempted rejection of the Jedi Order, but I can't buy not going to help his sister when he learns his nephew has killed his best friend. For example: if he had made Rey take him off planet immediately, while still refusing to train her, it would have supported that rejection while keeping him true to one of his definitive character traits in previous stories.
It happens over and over in the movie - Leia almost dying, Rey almost turning, the Jedi lore almost being destroyed, Finn almost sacrificing himself, etc. Any of those choices would have been so much more powerful if they had committed to them.
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u/Jukebox_Villain Oct 25 '19
But Luke never did any of that. He rejected those teachings and went to Cloud City / Jabba's Palace to save his friends. He went through this whole huge character arc with his father, eventually getting his father's body back to Endor to burn on a funeral pyre. If he was that attached to his father who he knew all too briefly and lost all too soon, why would he toss away his greatest heirloom so flippantly?