When Disney first revealed the villain of its Star Wars sequel trilogy, Kylo Ren, fans were initially excited. He had a cool name and a cool mask and a cool lightsaber with a crossguard. They had hope that he could be the new Darth Vader. However, as the movies came out and switched hands between directors with different creative voices, the fan response to the character became more and more divided.
Some found him to be interestingly conflicted, while others found him to be an unthreatening loser. Here are 5 ways that Kylo Ren was initially promising, and 5 ways the unplanned sequel trilogy let down his character.
10 PROMISING: Adam Driver Is A Fantastic Actor
Adam Driver is one of the finest actors of this generation. He’s shown that with performances in Paterson, BlacKkKlansman, Marriage Story, Silence, Inside Llewyn Davis, and many more terrific projects.
Driver’s performances always feel authentic and nuanced, and he’s pulled off a wide range of emotions in a number of very different roles. With the right material, he could’ve turned Kylo Ren into one of the greatest movie villains of all time. Unfortunately, he wasn’t given the right material.
9 TRILOGY LET HIM DOWN: His Arc Was Directionless
When Disney started making the sequel trilogy, they got Rian Johnson working on the second movie before J.J. Abrams was finished making the first movie. As a result of this hectic process, the sequel trilogy always felt like it was trying to run before it could walk.
Abrams pushed Kylo Ren in one direction (telegraphing a redemption arc), then Johnson pulled him in another direction (making him irredeemable), and then Abrams came back to yank him more or less back in the direction he started with (forcing a redemption anyway). This meant that Ben Solo’s arc was a directionless mess.
8 PROMISING: He’s Han And Leia’s Son
Although The Force Awakens played it off as a cheap plot twist, Kylo Ren being the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa made for a really interesting setup for the villain. With a more thought-out arc that was actually planned ahead of time, the story of Leia returning to political rebellion to fight her evil overlord son, a couple of decades after fighting her evil overlord father, could’ve been really interesting.
However, the first two entries in the sequel trilogy didn’t do much with this, and then The Rise of Skywalker overcompensated with a random vision of Han forgiving his son for murdering him.
7 TRILOGY LET HIM DOWN: He Never Felt Like A Real Threat
From his very first appearance, Kylo Ren didn’t feel like a real threat. He didn’t win any of his lightsaber duels, he was constantly being shown up by his subordinates, and his endless temper tantrums took away all of his dramatic power.
There’s a case to be made that that’s just the character and he isn’t the threat he thinks he is, but that doesn’t work if he’s the story’s main villain, because it means he won’t be very effective.
6 PROMISING: He Was An Interesting Parallel To Rey
As the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa, two of the founders of the New Republic, Ben Solo was born with a silver spoon in his hand. Hailing from the Skywalker bloodline, he was destined for greatness. Just as all the other Skywalkers Star Wars fans have come to know throughout the years.
Rey, on the other hand, was a desert scavenger who never knew her parents and didn’t have any dreams beyond affording her next meal. On a conceptual level, Rey and Ben paralleled interestingly with each other.
5 TRILOGY LET HIM DOWN: His Development Sometimes Contradicted Itself
Kylo Ren’s arc was started by J.J. Abrams, developed by Rian Johnson, and concluded by Abrams, and the two directors seemed to just pick and choose which of each other’s plot developments they wanted to work from.
For example, in The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren rejected his master and killed Snoke, assuming his role as the Supreme Leader of the First Order. But right at the beginning of The Rise of Skywalker, he seeks out a new master in Palpatine.
4 PROMISING: The Mask Presented An Opportunity For Symbolism
The fact that Kylo Ren chose to wear a mask – not for medical reasons, like Vader, but because of an identity crisis – presented an opportunity for real symbolism. It could’ve even drawn on the samurai movies that initially inspired George Lucas’ creation of the saga.
However, every development with the mask felt contrived. The mask was destroyed in The Last Jedi and then pieced back together in The Rise of Skywalker. This didn’t seem like a decision made with character in mind; instead, it seemed to have tie-in video games and action figures and LEGO sets in mind.
3 TRILOGY LET HIM DOWN: He Became A Casualty Of The Palpatine Gimmick
Resurrecting Palpatine to replace the painfully derivative Snoke as the big bad of the sequel trilogy was one of The Rise of Skywalker’s defining gimmicks. Ian McDiarmid’s laughter at the end of the first trailer made for a brilliant marketing tactic.
But Kylo Ren was one of the casualties of this gimmick. If Snoke was one of Palpatine’s unnatural creations, then Kylo Ren seems even dumber for getting tricked by him. It wasn’t as unusual as the revelation that Rey is Palpatine’s granddaughter, but it was still pretty disappointing.
2 PROMISING: He Was A New Kind Of Villain
Although his masked appearance had some early critics calling him a rip-off of Darth Vader, Kylo Ren actually emerged as a different kind of villain. Instead of being a clone of Vader, he was a misguided kid who wanted to be like Vader. He put on a cool mask and took over the galaxy because he admired his fallen grandfather.
It did sort of negate Vader’s arc, because Ben Solo remembers him as a villain and ignores Anakin Skywalker’s redemption, but the idea of an angsty, Holden Caulfield-esque kid being the villain was intriguing.
1 TRILOGY LET HIM DOWN: His Redemption Was Predictable AND Didn’t Feel Earned
Ever since he first showed up in The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren was destined to have a redemption arc. The writing was on the wall. Rian Johnson subverted expectations in The Last Jedi by suggesting that Ben Solo was beyond redemption, but then J.J. Abrams came back to helm The Rise of Skywalker and undid Johnson’s work to give Kylo Ren a redemption anyway.
So, not only was the ending of his arc predictable; it also didn’t feel earned from a narrative perspective.
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