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In The Last Jedi, we get many scenes of Luke being generally negative towards the Jedi, The Force and pretty much everything.

In a later scene, Rey and Luke have a conversation in which Ray says the following and it appears, from Luke's reaction, that her assumption is correct.

Rey: You've shut yourself off from the force.

However, Luke still appears to be using the force in his daily routines. For example, he uses a spear pole to jump across a large gap and land on a very narrow ledge and then using the same pole spears a large fish, which appears to happen on his first try. It is then implied that he gets back across the gap using the same method, potentially with the fish.

Is there any evidence that he did completely shut himself off?

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    He didn't have to use the Force to fish. He did it so nicely because he's been doing this for years.
    – Petersaber
    Commented Jan 2, 2018 at 12:30
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    @Petersaber I sincerely doubt that using a 200-foot pole as a spear to hit a moving, living target less than two feet long in waters with fairly heavy currents is something you can learn to do in any number of humanly realistic years. Luke has only been on the island for perhaps a couple of decades (if even that); you’d need centuries to get anywhere near the skill he displays in that fishing scene.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jan 2, 2018 at 14:35
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    Are you kidding? Luke used to bullseye womp rats in his T-80. Spearfishing is child's play.
    – Clint Eastwood
    Commented Jan 2, 2018 at 15:11
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    @ClintEastwood When he wasn't shut off....
    – TheLethalCarrot ♦
    Commented Jan 2, 2018 at 15:12
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    The fish he catches is more like 5 feet long and the pole is more like 50 feet. And anyway, he must have been using a trap, because the place he speared the fish was the same place where he left the pole. It looked like all one motion done in the same place - swing across, pick up the pole, impale. I also got the impression from the swing and the ledge that the gravity must be weaker than normal on Ahch-to.
    – J Doe
    Commented Jan 3, 2018 at 0:40

2 Answers 2

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Yes

enter image description here

Despite living on an island drenched in the Force, Luke has cut off all connection to the mystical energy field

(TLJ Visual Dictionary)

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  • The next panel is also quite relevant
    – Valorum
    Commented Jan 2, 2018 at 14:39
  • @Valorum - the hut one?
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Jan 2, 2018 at 14:50
  • That he's unaware of the fate of Han / Hosnian
    – Valorum
    Commented Jan 2, 2018 at 15:01
  • @Valorum - how is that even remotely proof either way? Han wasn't Force Sensitive, and therefore Luke never had Force sense of him personally (unlike Leia sensing Han and Luke both).
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Jan 2, 2018 at 15:02
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    Given the context (the text directly above) it's pretty clear that they're referencing two events from elsewhere in the film series; Leia sensing the death of Han and Obi-Wan sensing the destruction of Alderaan. It's only because Luke has cut himself off that he doesn't sense these things.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jan 2, 2018 at 15:07
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I saw the crazy crag fishing as something taught to him by the caretakers of the Jedi temple. I've seen people in real life do some crazy things like that, where The Force doesn't exist.

I think we can build an implicit case that he was fully cut off. In A New Hope, we see Obi-Wan greatly affected by the destruction of Alderaan, despite not being there. The larger destruction of the Hosnian system in The Force Awakens would have been far easier to sense. We're not shown Rey feeling it, but she had to have felt it (this was just after the scene with her Force vision), and made the connection (since it's kinda a major thing in-universe).

Knowing this, we can extrapolate two possible scenarios, scenarios that Rey clearly considered herself

  1. Luke felt it, but did nothing
  2. Luke didn't feel it

#1 is deeply troubling, because it means Luke cared nothing at all for the havoc The First Order was wreaking. Rey is trying to figure out why Luke has remained secluded, and if #1 were true, then she was wasting her time. A Luke who felt that, and still couldn't bring himself to do anything was not worth trying to bring back. As she watches him, however, she comes to realize that #2 is true. Luke is completely ignorant of what's been going on. Hence she notes (more for her own benefit) that Luke has cut himself off.

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  • Luke cared nothing at all at the havoc The First Order were creating in TLJ. Also "a Jedi only strives to maintain the balance" and "Will you be here tomorrow to protect them".
    – TheLethalCarrot ♦
    Commented Jan 2, 2018 at 14:43
  • He learned spear fishing on his travel, not from the natives.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jan 2, 2018 at 15:02
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    "in real life ... where The Force doesn't exist." [citation needed]
    – Kapler
    Commented Jan 2, 2018 at 17:53

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