There are so many things wrong with that movie, and the so-called “theme of failure” is a great example. People only grab onto it because one of the characters comes about as close to turning and saying it directly to the camera as he can. If you look at what happens, it doesn’t make any sense to call that the “theme.”

• Poe makes nothing but correct choices and gets shit all over for it. Where’s the failure and the lesson for him?

• Finn… fails to find the master coder and ends up learning that… there are evil people on both sides… and this lesson causes him to recommit himself to one side in particular? Except at the end where his very rational, necessary act of self-sacrifice is randomly (impossibly) sabotaged, resulting in what should be the death of the entire resistance except that the cave with no back door has a secret back door? Utterly incoherent and has nothing to do with failure.

• Rey does not fail at anything she attempts, ever. She is given multiple unearned victories, in fact.

How does this “great theme” apply to any of our three primary characters? It doesn’t. The movie says it does, but the movie says a lot of things that make no sense upon examination, and this is just one more. Even if you say “actually, it’s not a theme, it ONLY applies to Luke,” then that isn’t something you can apply to the defense of other parts of the movie. Not to mention that the failure and the lesson only work if you have a character that isn’t Luke Skywalker in anything but name.

There are so many things wrong with that movie, and the so-called “theme of failure” is a great example. People only grab onto it because one of the characters comes about as close to turning and saying it directly to the camera as he can. If you look at what happens, it doesn’t make any sense to call that the “theme.”

• Poe makes nothing but correct choices and gets shit all over for it. Where’s the failure and the lesson for him?

• Finn… fails to find the master coder and ends up learning that… there are evil people on both sides… and this lesson causes him to recommit himself to one side in particular? Except at the end where his very rational, necessary act of self-sacrifice is randomly (impossibly) sabotaged, resulting in what should be the death of the entire resistance except that the cave with no back door has a secret back door? Utterly incoherent and has nothing to do with failure.

• Rey does not fail at anything she attempts, ever. She is given multiple unearned victories, in fact.

How does this “great theme” apply to any of our three primary characters? It doesn’t. The movie says it does, but the movie says a lot of things that make no sense upon examination, and this is just one more. Even if you say “actually, it’s not a theme, it ONLY applies to Luke,” then that isn’t something you can apply to the defense team of other parts of the movie. Not to mention that the failure and the lesson only work if you have a character that isn’t Luke Skywalker in anything but name.