"I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you."
The title of the episode was a clue. The final instalment of season 2 of The Mandalorian, 'The Rescue', was a suggestion of more than just a mission to save Grogu from the clutches of the Imperial Remnant led by Moff Gideon. It was a chance to see the one and only Luke Skywalker back in action.
As cameos go, it was dramatic. The Jedi Master's assault on the Empire's Dark Troopers (there are far too many capital letters here; Lucasfilm should go easy on the proper nouns) was reminiscent of Darth Vader in Rogue One, a figure cloaked in black cutting a swathe through fearsome enemies made into little more than tin cans by the power of a Force-wielding master. There was even a nice little nod to Vader's action in crushing the throat of one rebel when Luke used the Force to crush an entire Dark Trooper. As demonstrations of power go, it was pretty awe-inspiring. Here, we see the power of a true Jedi for the first time in The Mandalorian. As good as Ahsoka's appearance earlier in the season was, she didn't quite have that raw power of Luke's appearance.
Plus, as viewers of The Clone Wars and Rebels know, she's not really a Jedi. She's a Force-wielder for the light side, but she's disaligned from the Jedi Order following events of season 5 of The Clone Wars (although her use in season 7 may suggest she's back in the fold, even if Rebels suggests she isn't quite, despite mentoring Kanan Jarrus and the still-missing Ezra Bridger). Luke Skywalker most definitely is aligned with the Jedi Order; as he says in Return of the Jedi: "I am a Jedi, like my father before me."
Twitter wasted little time in using this genuinely brilliant cameo to bash Rian Johnson and The Last Jedi. This, they suggested, was the real Luke: using his powers to reduce dread enemies of mere mortals to so much scrap, no doubt about the rightness of his mission to train new Jedi as he took Grogu away from Din Djarin. All hail Favreau and Filoni, saviours of Star Wars! If only, if only they had been in charge of the sequel trilogy.
They're entitled to their opinion, even if it's completely wrong.
The real Luke Skywalker is the idealist in A New Hope. He retains that idealism throughout the original trilogy. That spark of hope and determination not to let it go fuels him throughout and leads to him redeeming Darth Vader, by grasping hold of the good that is Anakin Skywalker and refusing to let go. But the real Luke Skywalker is also the embittered man of The Last Jedi, a recluse who has failed entirely to end the evil in the galaxy far, far away. The two are not incompatible; in fact, the one leads directly to the other and the Luke we see in The Mandalorian - powerful, confident in that power, unwavering in his mission - provides a critical bridge between the two.
Just to deal with the elephant in the room: I like The Last Jedi. I think it's a genuinely good piece of Star Wars media precisely because it doesn't go in for fanservice. It redefines much of what Star Wars has been about, and acts as a paradigm shift in the storytelling of The Force Awakens in the same way The Empire Strikes Back acted as a paradigm shift for the storytelling of A New Hope. You think you know this universe? Well, you don't. It's a bigger, subtler thing than you ever imagined, and things aren't going to go the way you think. The big problem with The Last Jedi is The Rise of Skywalker, which ripped up much of what had been set up to do something different to appease the moaning fans, and managed to make a bit of a hash of finishing the sequel trilogy.
One big thing we get from The Last Jedi is that our heroes are human (apart from Chewbacca, but that's because he's a wookiee). For all his chosen one powers, Luke is still a person and not a superman. He has the same psychological weaknesses and strengths as us all. There is no doubting his ability to make X-Wings levitate and read the future using the Force, just as there's no doubt about my ability to sit in front of a computer and annoy fandom. Where Luke fell down was nothing to do with his ability as a Jedi. It was entirely to do with that most human of all failings: overconfidence. Emperor Palpatine would laugh at this after Luke's rebuke in Return of the Jedi, particularly as it led to him forsaking his friends in favour of solitude.
The Luke we see in The Mandalorian is a Luke not long after those events. It has only been five years since the destruction of the second Death Star over the Forest Moon of Endor (again, that issue with proper nouns, Lucasfilm). Canonically, Luke is about 29/30 years of age. He is in his physical prime as well as growing as a Jedi. It is his mission to rebuild the Jedi Order for the good of the galaxy. When he appears on Gideon's cruiser, searching for Grogu, it is to fulfil this goal. So far as he is concerned, the big threat to the galaxy is gone; it's telling that we don't see him pay any attention whatsoever to Moff Gideon, the big bad of The Mandalorian, because so far as Luke is concerned Gideon just isn't a threat in any way, shape, or form. The man who has been the cause of so many problems for Din Djarin, Bo-Katan and company simply doesn't register on the radar of a Jedi Master, because he is so inconsequential. After all, the threat to Din has been swatted aside without really breaking any kind of sweat. We saw how Din struggled with one while Luke dispatched an entire platoon.
And this is where Luke's downfall can be found. His confidence that very little can touch him other than his great fear of the dark side leads to hubris. For a time, the dark side appears to be defeated. Nothing can prevent the rebuilding of the Jedi Order. Until, of course, the rise of Snoke and the seduction of Ben Solo.
Luke is not infallible, and that's the lesson he never learned. He had never needed to feel doubt in his mission because it never existed. Once the Empire had been defeated at the Battle of Endor, the dark side was no longer a threat and Luke could sit, safe and sound, in the knowledge that he was now the greatest power in the galaxy. He could gather Force-sensitive children, just as the Jedi had before the rise of the Empire. He could rebuild and train and preserve peace.
One thing that The Last Jedi makes explicit is that Luke has studied the original fall of the Jedi Order and found that it was entirely because of their hubris. What we see in The Mandalorian is the failure of Luke Skywalker to apply the same lessons to himself. Applying retrospective logic, he's also failed to heed Obi-Wan Kenobi's lessons about training Jedi.
What all of this means, when put together, is that Luke's characterisation in The Last Jedi is close to perfect. It is only after his discussion with Yoda's Force ghost that he begins to realise his own mistakes, not only in training the new generation of (now deceased at the point of a lightsaber) Jedi, but in his retreat from the galaxy. He does retain that idealism, but it's been hidden behind a cloud of mistakes and doubt about his mission. Like anyone who has never failed, Luke doesn't know how to deal with it when Ben Solo turns to the dark side. He sees the fault as his own and sees himself as the danger, learning from the previous fall of the Jedi that the Jedi themselves cannot be trusted because of their arrogance and hubris. It's this we see in The Mandalorian: all-powerful, assured in that power, ready for a fall.
As much as seeing Luke in all-powerful awesome mode is fantastic, it actually makes his character arc all the more believable and all the more compelling. Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau have not stuck two fingers up at Rian Johnson at all; instead, they have added a layer to an increasingly complex character who is much more human for his failings, and a much better character for it.
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