Although Luke Skywalker’s training with Yoda only lasted about a month in the Star Wars saga, he still managed to unintentionally call out the Jedi’s hypocrisy well before the sequel trilogy did. Luke Skywalker is an atypical Jedi in both Star Wars Legends and the current continuity, having grown up as a moisture farmer with a relatively normal life rather than the restrictive lifestyle of the prequel-era Jedi. As a result, Luke has a history of pulling off seemingly impossible victories by approaching them with sentiment and faith that only showcase the hypocrisy of the older Jedi Order.
The best example of what separates Luke Skywalker from the prequel-era Jedi is his victory in Return of the Jedi. With seemingly no other option than to kill his father, Darth Vader, Luke defies the wishes of both his Jedi mentors and Emperor Palpatine by appealing to the good within Vader, bringing him back to his previous identity of Anakin Skywalker. Luke won without killing Darth Vader, relying on sentiment over strength and fighting abilities, while a prequel-era Jedi would have simply killed the Sith Lord and subsequently fallen to the dark side.
In the Legends-era Star Wars Tales story “Slippery Slope,” by Scott Lobdell and Sean Gordon Murphy, Luke Skywalker is tracked down by the bounty hunter Milko during his training on Dagobah. Despite their role as peacekeepers and enforcers of balance, the Prequel Era Jedi would have killed such an enemy without a second though, bringing more death and violence to the galaxy. But while Luke swiftly defeats the mercenary, he doesn’t kill his assailant. Luke allows Milko to escape, despite the need to preserve the crucial secret of Yoda’s hiding spot. Luke knows that Milko’s embarrassing defeat makes it impossible for him to reveal this knowledge without ruining his reputation, so he avoids needlessly killing him, much to Yoda’s surprise.
Luke’s behavior in this Star Wars Tales story is consistent with his future in the Legends continuity, where rather than rebuilding the same Jedi Order that failed to stop Palpatine, he establishes a new and improved New Jedi Order, whose philosophies and lifestyle are far healthier. In current canon, Luke repeats the mistakes of the prequel-era Jedi Order but eventually comes to realize their hypocrisy after his generation of Jedi is destroyed by Ben Solo, now Kylo Ren. Unlike his Legends counterpart, canon Luke realized the errors in the old Jedi ways too late, carrying on their legacy of hypocrisy, but he gives Rey the opportunity to create a better Jedi Order after the First Order and the reborn Emperor Palpatine are defeated.
In Star Wars Tales, Luke suspects that his encounter with Milko was a test fabricated by Yoda, which might have been the case, given the Jedi Master’s lack of worry over a bounty hunter discovering his hiding place on Dagobah. Yoda’s surprise at Luke’s actions, however, shows that the aspiring Jedi acted in an unexpected way that showcased the failings of his emotionally-detached predecessors. While he did so unintentionally, Legends' Luke Skywalker exposed the hypocritical behaviors of the Star Wars prequel trilogy Jedi by instinctively choosing a better way, shocking Yoda and proving his potential to create something better than what the Jedi had been before.