Of course he grew, no one's claiming otherwise, but he didn't become a wise Jedi on-screen in any of them. He was still a hot-headed risk taker in RotJ, as evidenced by the continual set of risks he ran from Jabba's Palace through Endor to the confrontation with Vader and the Emperor. None of that was what a calm, collected, and centered Jedi Master would choose to do.
The argument you're making here doesn't deflect from the fact that Luke of teh OT isn't how you (and others) keep trying to portray him: as someone who would never have a moment of weakness.
From what I got in the movie was that between ESB and RotJ, Luke basically got 95% of the way to being a Jedi. He learned to be at peace, to plan instead of being reckless, and he realized that winning meant converting his father, not killing him. So most of his growth was completed. He went on the mission knowing he would be captured and that he would be brought before Vader. He wanted to in order to convince him to come back to the Light Side.
This was a complete turn around from his failure in the cave where he saw Vader and pulled out his lightsaber immediately to kill him. We see Luke in that movie not acting out of hatred or fear. He literally walks into the place he fears the most in order to save someone, not kill them.
As I said in the previous post, he lets his anger take over briefly...but it passes. He has won and become a Jedi. He is strong enough to not have moments of weakness in the future now. He got the last 5% of the way to becoming a full Jedi.
Torn down?
How so? The Jedi Order is still going on, the New Republic still exists, if badly hurt, and there's still a chance that the son of Han and Leia will turn back to the light (I'm not sure what I hope about this, honestly). Did you really want a trilogy where everything was as awesome as you imagined it, with Han and Leia being happily-ever-aftering and Luke being a kick-ass Jedi Master at the head of a new Jedi Order? What, praytell, do you think would the conflict be? With all of the superheroes around, what could possibly function as a suitable crisis? Invasion from outside the galaxy (obviously EU sarcasm is obvious)?
There's no Republic anymore. The Senate and all their ships were destroyed. There are individual planets left who used to belong to the Republic, but it's gone. They make that clear in TLJ. The First Order will take over the entire galaxy in a matter of weeks according to the movie, since there's no one left to resist them.
The Jedi Order doesn't really exist. The Jedi Order implies rules, a power structure...and more than one Jedi. There's one person out there who can use the Force who has a bunch of books on the Jedi philosophy. The Jedi Order is destroyed. But she isn't even a Jedi yet.
As for problems. Lots of problems can show up even with the Republic intact. There are like 100 books each with problems in them while the New Republic exists. You could have an attack from another Galaxy, yep. You could have part of the Republic breaking away and doing a civil war...though that's likely too much like the prequels. You could have some hidden dark side users becoming essentially terrorists and they have to stop them. You could have the First Order show up, but rather than have the ability to destroy the entire Republic in one shot, you could have had a huge war between large fleets.
You could have Kylo run off with his Knights of Ren and have a cool battle between them and all of the Jedi Luke trained. There's lots of stories that can be told.
To tell a hero's story, the hero has to fail at some point. They have to face that failure and overcome. We can't have the cast of the OT be perfect from the get go, they needed to be in crisis to tell a compelling story. Anything else leaves them as utterly fake.
They don't HAVE to face inner conflict. Writing theory tells us that there are 3 types of conflict: Man against Man, Man against Nature, and Man against Himself. You can have a compelling story where all of the growth comes from the conflict between someone and their enemies. A large number of movies do it all the time where the main character doesn't really "grow", they just survive and win against whatever is against them.
These characters already finished their three part journey in order to find their flaws, stumble because of them and then finally overcome them. You are suggesting that they need to give them back the same flaws they learned to overcome just so that they can overcome them a second time. We've seen that already. Let's do something else.
So, Han's crisis is his son. He rises to the occasion by reaching out to Ben, and dies for it (and I'm pretty sure he knew that was a likely outcome, so double points). Leia's crisis is the Republic. It has to be in jeopardy for her to have something to fight for. She rises to the occasion and doesn't back down. Luke's crisis is himself, as it's always been. And he rises to that occasion and shows that he's truly earned the title Jedi Master only at the end of TLJ, where he accepts himself finally.
Han's crisis was that he didn't care about anyone other than himself. He treated everyone like pawns, he only cared about money. He learns to care about the galaxy, about the Rebellion and about Leia. He learns people and connections are important. That's his story arc. That's how he grew in the 3 movies.
So, the new movie picks up with Han having given up on his family. His son betrayed everyone and ran off and he left, breaking their family even more. He no longer helps with the cause and has gone back to just making money for himself. Literally everything he learned in the old movies was brought back to the starting point. His character growth was reversed...just so we could see him do it again.
Leia fought to destroy the Empire so she could establish a new Republic. Her growth was mostly external but her defeat of the Empire IS one of her moments of growth. The other ones were learning to care about Han and her brother and learning that working together was the best idea. So where are we left? The Republic she worked to create is destroyed and she no longer has Luke or Han. Her moments of triumph are still fighting for the Republic, looking for Han, trying to reunite her family and seeing Luke again. Those are only triumphs because they ripped them away so they could reestablish them again.
Luke is the same way, he goes from being impulsive, reckless, quick to anger, and naive to calm, collected, thoughtful and mature Jedi. Where are we in TLJ? He's gone back to being whiny, quick to anger and is quick to decide to kill Ben and quick to decide to run off and die by himself. He doesn't even consider himself a Jedi any longer. 30 years later he's forgotten everything he learned and has gone back to being the Luke with all the flaws we saw in the first movie.
So, no, the OT isn't burned down, because what was built in the OT wasn't those institutions, but rather characters -- characters who were and are flawed, and yet still show up for the job. I love Luke far more now than I ever did, because he was flawed but still showed up. Han, too. His death coming from walking towards pain and danger instead of running away was awesome -- a really summation of the movement he started in E4. And Leia, Leia is the least changing of all of them. She always fought, and she's still fighting, and I am deeply saddened that we'll never see the culmination of her arc the way it should have been. I have a feeling it was moving towards her giving the fight to others to carry, to finally resting.
Luke was flawed before...but he showed up on Cloud city when his friends needed him. He was flawed before but showed up to confront the Emperor in RotJ. He's done that. Watching him do it again is pointless. Han learned to show up when he returned to help them at the end of ANH and joined the Rebellion full time instead of running away, which is what he was doing before and during ANH. He shouldn't have to prove that he can show up. He already did that. Leia was always fighting. True. She WON, however. That's was the culmination of her storyline. Now she had to lose so she could fight all over again. But we've done that already.
The characters were flawed and they grew past those flaws. That was kind of the point of the first 3 Star Wars movies.