For the people that were not happy with the Luke storyline, what would you have preferred? I'm thinking if he would have left with Rey and trained her on the way and confronted Kylo and then gets killed. Wouldn't it have been just the same as Obi Wan?
Well, any synopsis could never do justice to what you see. More than that, any summary could be good or bad, depending on the result.
Personally, what I was anticipating was that we'd see both Rey and Ren go through their training at the same time. So we'd be switching back and forth between Rey on the island and Ren under Snoke. We've seen bits of Jedi training and what not on the big screen, but sith training is still something that hasnt been in the movies. I realize that I guess Snoke isnt Sith because it says so in a production booklet or something. I say meh and we can make him a sith if we want.
So the focus would be more on Ren and the sith training perverting what we know of the Jedi sensibilities. So Rey would learn something and then we'd go to Ren learning the flip side of the coin. For me this would mean following the logical conclusion of Ren killing Han in FA and his conflict between light and dark is gone.
All throughout the training Luke is warning her about Kylos power and such, but she keeps saying "I already beat him" or something similar. As the movie goes on, this is a point reiterated once or twice. Luke is warning her, and she's saying she already beat him.
This would take a bit more time, so you couldnt have a "Rebels on a slow chase" storyline. Although I suppose you could eventually just lead up to that, it just happens at a later time period and we dont need the canto blight sequence.
At any rate, my prediction since FA was that Kylo would kill Snoke, but pretty much as the culmination of his sith training which requires killing your master. Except now, he says "Fuck all this rule of two" and his knights of Ren now become his sith apprentices. So instead of 2 sith, a master and student, you have like 7 or 8. Or he keeps questioning Snoke about the rule of two yada yada to mirror Reys own slight rebellion against her master in not listening about Rens power. But Rey doesnt kill her master, obviously, but thats what Ren decides to do because dark side.
So, inevitably Ren and Rey are forced into some kind of altercation. What I was hoping for, and in no way expecting, was they each get their respective "cool" sequence where they show how awesome and powerful they are, but not against each other. Maybe Rey can take out one of the knights or something. Who knows?
Then they do meet. And I thought the best thing they could have done was just have Kylo completely murk her ala MacGregor/Aldo. Just a couple of steps and complete starch her and even cut off an entire arm, thereby solidifying a few things:
A) Shoulda listened to your goddamn teacher
B) Ren
really is that powerful
C) It makes his handicap in FA all the more apparent.
D) But most importantly now you have a viable threat in the 3rd movie, which is sorely lacking now since Rey is basically every bit as powerful as Ren after about 3 days of force use and shadow boxing with a rock.Generally speaking, classic story structure needs to protagonist to suffer defeat around 2/3rds of the way into the story after everything going their way. That sets up the suspense of the climax. As of now, theres zero suspense as far as any altercation with Ren and Rey which is a huge mistake for the 3rd movie of a trilogy.
Now, as far as Luke goes, theres all sorts of things they could do. you could keep the bones of the narrative of his guilt intact. Honestly, they dont even need to kill him. His death in TLJ was the most arbitrary thing in any of the movies. But if they decide to do so, you can still give him something. Maybe he saves Rey, fighting off Ren and all the Knights. Maybe he manages to beat a few, but the overwhelming number of Sith is too much and he eventually pulls a Kenobi and just lets it happen. Maybe instead of a pile of clothes it makes a flash of light that blinds them long enough for Rey and someone else to get away. I dunno, its all off the top of my head.
The point is, would that be a more "predictable" way to go? Sure, I'll buy that for a dollar. But theres a difference between unpredictable and satisfying.