Majoru Oakheart
Adventurer
On a side note, I've thought about the way Luke is portrayed in TLJ, and as someone who has suffered from depression, I can only say that, given the circumstances, I don't think Luke's behavior is really that incomprehensible (or out of character). For one thing, he's no longer the spunky youngster he was in the OT. For another, he'd allowed himself to believe he was as infallible as the stories made him out to be, so when his world literally came crashing down around him, it would've been devastating. And because he not only cut himself off from the Force but also from everyone who cared about him by running away and hiding, he had no one to bring him out of that depressing sphere he'd put himself in. No Han to talk him out of it, no Leia to kick some sense into him, no Yoda to make fun of him ... I know what it's like to be all alone with just the thoughts in your own head.
It's not at all surprising to me that when Rey finds Luke, he's a defeated man who just wants to die. I've been there. And I don't think it takes him "too long" to claw his way out of that pit.
The problem is that I don't want Luke to be just another person who gets caught up in depression. I want the Jedi to be larger than life heroes. I think of them as the Holy Paladins. The ones chosen by the Force to be better than everyone else. They stand up for right. I think of them the same way I do Superman.
No one worries about Superman succumbing to depression and taking a day off. Part of his character is that he is above that, he's dependable. He's stronger than normal people.
That's how I view Luke. As a larger than life figure who doesn't have to worry about the problems of normal people. He's above that. He sees the future, he knows the will of the Force, which is destiny and luck itself. I could see him temporarily falling into a bit of a funk. But the full blown depression we got just seemed like the sort of thing that shouldn't affect Luke. As Luke himself said, he had become a Legend. To me and to a lot of other people. Legends don't get brought down by mundane things.
Of course, that's the point this movie is trying to make. People made him out to be a Legend. But he wasn't one, he was just a normal person who happened to have the Force. The movie was a message directly to people like me that said "You take this too seriously. We don't. Get used to it."
I didn't want him to become a Force projection. I wanted him to get into his X-Wing and blow up a bunch of ships, then to face Kylo in real life and beat him back so he was forced to retreat. I then wanted Luke to survive until the next movie so that he could finally teach Rey properly and actually pass on what he had learned, like Yoda told him to.Also, once he reconnects with the Force again, he can see into the future. How do we know he didn't see that appearing on Crait would be the most efficient way to help the Resistance? What difference could he have made by appearing as a Force projection in Snoke's throne room? How could he have saved more people when the Resistance was still out in space?
I wanted the story that started in the previous movies to find an actual ending.