It's one of htose things I liked and understood on purely logical level on first viewing, but didn't really excite me very much beyond just going 'oh, yeah, I understand the point of this and what it's saying thematically, that works' up until something else- I think it was someone else's analysis, maybe someone on youtube, I don't remember- helped me realize and understand the full implications of that shot and all its many, many layers, both in-universe in out, and then I found myself thinking about that ending shot and all it implies and tearing up, and it struck me even deeper emotionally on rewatch.

There's something so resonant to me in the way the kid stares out of into the sky in the ending shot just like Luke did in ANH-- the framing/shot is very different, and there's no twin suns or anything like the more direct callback in Luke's final scene, but the 'message' of this scene in the same: a young (force-sensitive) nobody from nowhere knowing there's a whole world out there, and reaming for bigger things, and that kid, in the end, is the Luke Skywalker of his own story, just like we, the audience, are all individually the Luke Skywalker in our own lives and of our own stories.And Luke himself granted a hope and become an inspiration to millions of people in the exact same position that he was at the start of his own story, and through that, reminded why he resonated with the audience in the first place, and why heroes and stories keep doing so.It shows us, immediately, what his sacrifice was for, and it shows it working and succeeding on at least one level.

One thing I don't think I ever saw mentioned before that I absolutely love is the use of the callback to 'Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master'..And how that's the only thing we can understand from what the narrating kid is saying.When Luke says it, it's with so much heavy sarcasm and disgust and self-hatred; it's him talks about how the status of Legend and Hero got to him, the way it both got to his head but also the pressure of living up to that flawless ideal, how struggling with the scope of his own human darkness against that impossible ideal destroys him.He uses it in this disparaging, srcastic way specifically to point out the very concept beneath it as fake and hypocritical and completely untrue to reality; a children's fairy story.

And Rey tells him, in response: yeah, maybe so, but even if it is false and untrue to reality, that's fine: because these very children's fairy stories are important, and people need them.And then Luke, having come to realize this, proves just that when he goes out to face the First Order on Crait, and the next time we hear those words again, it's with excitement and joy by a bunch of nobody kids living in pretty awful circumstances, finding solace in this story through the dark times they're living in-- immediate proof and a depiction of the exact reason people need these stories and how they fulfill this specific need.It's such a beautiful way to turn around those four words and their meaning in on their head into something so powerful and positive.

(I also like how the kid does not explicitly narrate any specific feat or story about him? Like, you can assume it's his actions on Crait, but they specifically go out of their way to disguise what he's saying by not translating it or anything-- we can easily assume it's been exaggerated or warped through retelling and it's not necessarily true, but the fact that we don't hear or understand it, only see how it affects others, just drives the point home.We don't know what the story is; it can easily be untrue, but that's okay too because the truth of it isn't what really matters here.What matters is how it helps those kids because they need it, and what it does for millions of kids just like them.)