Throughout Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977), Luke Skywalker is implied or outright stated to be a superb pilot. Biggs Darklighter calls Luke "the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim territories" in a deleted scene; we see that Luke seems confident in the briefing room scene before the attack on the Death Star; and of course, Luke survives the battle and fires the torpedo that destroyed the station. When I saw the movie for the first time, I remember thinking that there would probably be more Star Wars movies and we'd get to see Luke in more space battles.
And sure enough, in The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980), Luke flies a snowspeeder into battle and seems a pretty deft hand at the task. On the other hand, he also crashes his X-wing later in the film. And Luke doesn't engage in any kind of dogfight in Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand, 1983).
So after all the buildup of Luke as the greatest pilot ever in the first film, we only get to see him pilot the iconic X-wing into battle once. That just seems weird to me now, almost 50 years later.
