ST Rey & Kylo Ren in Episode IX

Yes, the bold is what I thought when I saw the movie.

Yeah I had already read many interpretations like yours. My problem with a character like Kylo, whose fate is uncertain, is that I tend to be quite negative, so I'm not surprised to have ignored those clues, now I feel more positive about Kylo's future.

Anyway, another thing I like about the spoilers from the junior novelization is that Leia seems to have recovered the hope of saving her son, a Leia without hope is something very sad to see.

 

It's really a shame that Leia will not see her son redeemed. Or maybe she will, but not on screen (obviously). If JJ could find a way to not kill Leia off screen and make her live through Episode IX, I would love to see her realise Ben is back in the book and comic.

 

You know what it's said about bonding together in battle, friendships are born and apparently passion! Reminds me of the force bond between Mara Jade and Luke Skywalker in that one book where they were fighting for their lives back to back and formed a soul mind spirit bond...then of course Luke pusposed and Mara almost let him sweat it out, but she didn't. Rey on the other hand....flat out said no. So if the junior novel is simple then what was the hut scene like?! Since people said it was like a marriage....Still hasn't gotten my novel. Gah! The look in Kylo Ben's face on the last picture was relief of being alive and "dang, I need to marry this woman!" Lol! Or eye sex anyone or is it just me?! Probably me...reading too much into it...again for the billionths time!

 

Btw i love Luke and Mara, star-crossed lovers too since she was a darksider. Its funny almost all the SW couples start off on the wrong foot.

The hut scene in the junior version is entirely from Lukes POV, he walks in and catches them holding hands.

 

The Cave, hut scene and Confronting Luke in Story Book. I'm putting them under spoiler tag because there are a lot of pictures. Interesting retelling of the mirror scene and Luke\Kylo confrontation. I'm going to order it, art is gorgeous.

Spoiler

 

Oh, I decided to click on it because well I'm impatient and oh it makes me more eager to get my hands on the novel. The pictures are just beautiful and it still makes me giggle seeing Kylo Ben sitting dainty on his basket stone chair or he'll fall off! Rey seems a little more stable, probably because of the blanket! Now I feel like that was an allorgory of sorts.

 

The part where Leia says "we have everything we need" could have multiple meanings, but Ben and Rey is 100% one of them.

The side of the lightsaber that Leia puts her hand on is Ben's side, the side he's pulling when they break the lightsaber together. I've said this before, but I believe they'll definitely be a scene where they'll fix it together in IX, perhaps even at the end.

Truly heart breaking that Leia won't get to see her son be redeemed, and even more heart breaking we won't get to hear Carrie's hilarious sexual innuendo filled interviews in the lead up to IX

 

Luke: I won't fail you. I'm not afraid.

Yoda: You will be. You... will... be.

Que thirty years later......

Luke Skywalker: I've seen this raw strength only once before in Ben Solo. It didn't scare me enough then. It does now.

Que the past,

Obi-Wan: But Master Yoda says I should be mindful of the future.

Qui-Gon Jinn: But not at the expense of the moment.

Qui-Gon Jinn: Remember: Your focus determines your reality.

Que bad decisions on visions of the future

Que life?
Shmi Skywalker: You can't stop change any more than you can stop the suns from setting.

 

Kylo: My story? Well my parents are Han Solo and Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker is my uncle who I believe tried to kill me and I’m Darth Vader’s grandson. Then I fell to the dark side. What about you?

Rey: My parents were losers who abandoned me as a kid and now I’m here to save the day.

 

Rey: For 14 years my only family was a plant that I left in Jakku

 

I don't think that bravery and self-interest are mutually exclusive. However, I will concede that we really don't see the scene from Kylo's perspective, limiting our understanding of what he was thinking.

I guess I don't see this perspective very well. Mileage may vary.

If I recall correctly, Rian Johnson has stated that Kylo was manipulating her although he may not have been aware of that (if it makes any sense). However, I do think that intent or not, it shows that any relationship they would've had had Rey accepted would've been built on an extremely toxic foundation (stuff like that is considered a form of domestic abuse in the real world).

I think the carry thing was just practicality and could've been visual storytelling, but that cuts both ways; it might evoke a romantic parallel, but it's a common monster movie trope having the movie's monster capture and carry off the leading lady (like in Creature of the Black Lagoon). I always thought that Kylo taking off the mask was manipulation, given that he does it when Rey labels him as a monster; like he's trying to undermine her convictions and her perspective to make her an easier target for interrogation. Mileage may vary.

interrogate

The Force showed her his future, she jumped to the conclusion she could easily "persuade" him (manipulate him?) to follow her immediately. The Force didn't tell her if the future was now, in two months or two years. Of course this is the limit of Force visions.
Yes, through the Bond she has an insight to Kylo's memories and feelings no one else does and what she saw was a possibility since the the future is not set yet and it is subject to his own (future) decisions.[/quote]

I still feel that the movie was showing that the Force stuff was connected to the throne room scene, however it is a fair point that the movie never does outright say it and they could establish that Rey was getting sneak peeks of stuff for Episode 9.

Very true. It remains to be seen if Abrams builds on this or discards it (that could go either way). I also doubt that the material will prove to be important since it didn't make it into the movie (that totally changes the scene from what we see onscreen, so it's not just a nice little embellishment for the book readers).

(I've got my copies of both novelizations, but I need to get through a reading marathon I've started before I can take a crack at them. Covers are nice, though, except that I wish that the junior novelization had been given a hardcover like literally all of the others.)

 

Rey: But about a week ago I met a dude named Finn and we really hit it off so I’ve got that going for me.

 

Dont worry novelisations are just author's interpretations.
Also they are given special instructions to write some scenes with care ie not to reveal too much/ to misdirect.

And they are keeping EVERYTHING regarding Kylo's story hidden until people actually get to see it in theatres.
So no need to worry too much.

 

Leia's sacrifice for her son will get Ben back home.
He loves his mom more than anything in the world.

 

Rian Johnson did work with Jason Fry to get the book made, so I think it's safe to say that the book will be accurate to Johnson's intents. Whether those intents are followed up on or contradicted by Episode 9 remains to be seen.

 

Yup RJ did. He gave input in Bloodline too, regarding the napkin bombing.

Also i dont think the novelisations gave us anything new to be honest. But its just my POV.

 

That's been my impression so far: Fry novelization and movie match. It's just I was uncertain before. I think the movie could have done better in showing things.

 

Yeah.
But it was already a long movie.
I think the resistance plot got TOO much time and the force plot suffered for it.

But i loved it anyway. So its fine with me.

 

Heres a brilliant analysis of the junior version. Honestly, the Kylo is so different to the movie and Frys novel.

 

No but Luke has and he probably projected that hut scene he witnessed on Ahch-To to Leia.

Spoiler

Luke’s eyes were warm—with understanding and love, but something else, too. It was knowledge, she sensed—a knowledge vast, deep, and strange, but also comforting. It had changed him—remade him utterly—yet the Luke of her youth remained, at the heart of whatever he had become.
“No one’s ever really gone,” he said quietly, leaning forward to kiss her on the forehead as he took her hands in his.
When they touched, she immediately understood. A slight smile played at the corners of her mouth, and her eyes shone with the secret the two of them now shared.

Everything, from that moment forward, takes another meaning if you see it through Leia's eyes and the "secret" she and Luke (and Rey) share. The film does not contradict it: Leia has actually a kind of Mona Lisa-smile after Luke kissed her forehead. The same smile she gives Rey in the end.

 

Yup.
Luke and Leia share a bond that allows them to know each other's feelings and thoughts without talking.
So yeah you are onto something.
Also Kylo and Leia ; and Luke and Kylo share a bond too.
All Skywalkers are connected to each other and feel each other's feelings and thoughts.

 

The junior version is bizarre because Kylo behaves like Pure Evil and then every 5 pages characters believe\hope\want him to be redeemed. Kogge made kid's version more black\white and separated Ben Solo and Kylo Ren for this reason.

I find Luke odd in this version too. It seems Kogge didn't watch the movie.

 

RJ was not involved in the junior version and it shows.

 

I have almost finished the adult novelization and I can tell you that I was myself puzzled by Kylo’s representation and wondered if I ever got his character right.
Then I re-read some of Foster’s TFA pages back and understood.
We have almost zero POV from Kylo in TFA. I could guess his rage, anger, pain, but only guess.
In TLJ Kylo's personality is bared naked right in front of you and it is quite shocking. It goes beyond anything you could imagine, it doesn’t even get close. The hate, the anger, the rage, the pain, the hurt, the humiliation, the abuse, the misery it's all there. Even with flashbacks to the TFA interrogation scenes with Rey.
But:
You have beautiful (and I underline “beautiful”) pieces of Ben Solo as well. Really little frames of Ben who is still there and separating himself from Kylo Ren. Literally.
All the Force bond sequences are pure Ben Solo and we are told, by Snoke first, and Luke later, how Kylo himself created Kylo Ren and tried to kill that part of himself, never quite successfully.
Leia's memories, Kylo's memories of Ben, you get those as well.

The sequences on board of the Supremacy are still Ben Solo gambling with Snoke and shifting to Kylo Ren back and forth. Knowing that Snoke is reading every course of action and thought, you have a very guarded, almost distant Ben/Kylo sassing Rey, but secretly smiling at her when the guards aren’t looking.

The whole Crait sequence is in Kylo’s POV and is delirious. Hux and Luke alternatively tell their own version and is repeated again and again that his raw emotions there are pain and fear, more than rage

Spoiler

"Rage poured out of him, and a near-malignant cruelty—a lust to deform and destroy everything around him, to blot it out and erase it.
But those emotions weren’t the most powerful ones Luke sensed in his nephew. Even stronger than the anger were Kylo’s pain and fear. They filled him, threatening to devour him."

An image that is confirmed by the film's visual representation of Crait: salt surface over a blood red core – salt over a raw wound.
Must hurt like hell.

 

Has anyone listened to the TLJ audio book? This is from reddit:

Music in TLJ audio book