ST ST Criticism Discussion Thread

Kylo's situation is actually pretty strange because there was no reference to his incredible power in TFA and yet he came off as a more menacing threat, even though I would say that still falls short of what he should have been. But considering the fact that Abrams described him as basically a villain on the rise I can somewhat excuse it. Now contrast that to TLJ and it feels like he actually regressed as a villain because despite his power being referenced throughout the movie, he looked even more like a weak crybaby. Add to that that the narrative keeps saving him from truly sinister actions and it gets even more jarring. What should have been his ascent into a full-on terrifying villain has the effect of making him look like a lame insecure bully. You know, the kind that picks on little kids and then when one of those kids insults him he collapses into a puddle of shame and tears. No one's scared of that.

 

Also he feels like even less of a threat to Rey than he did in TFA as well.

 

The antagonism issue can be easily fixed. Most movies, including Marvel, have to establish new antagonists and do so. All JJ has to do is show these people as formidable with the Force and have one of them want to take out the former master (on the Dark Side the Master always gets taken out from within) and suddenly there's 6 Dark Side users with Force powers, interesting visual designs, and little emotional weaknesses shown to truly shake up the status quo and move things out of what we are all familiar with for the films of Star Wars and more into something a little different.




Then, you have the overwhelmed Resistance facing First Order long odds and eventually Rey facing difficulties versus 6 badass dark side users who JJ sets up formidably out of the gate. Eventually the overthrown Ben Solo helps the heroes.

 

I've been saying this basically since I saw TFA in theatres. He never should've taken the off the mask until Han told him to. Hell if they could've done it where we don't even see his face and then right after he killed Han he put the helmet back on it would've been perfect. Then in his fight with Rey she could've damaged it like we see Finn do to Phasma in TLJ where part of the face is peeking through. This hits her with the realization that there is a person in there after all (one thing I will say for TLJ is the emotion we see in Gwendoline Christie's eye after Finn cracks open her helmet). Requiring Driver's face to not be seen for the whole movie is a huge ask though.

 

Woops! Sorry bout that.Didnt look earlier in the thread.

 

Kylo doesn't have any charm, he's shown little to no redeeming personality of any kind. If he's going to do a heel-face turn, then the personality resulting from that should be humble and earnest, not charming. He should be focused entirely on making things right. He shouldn't be "charming" or flirtatious, nor should he be dropping funny one-liners.

Oh ha ha ha you're so funny, remember when you murdered your own father? Oh HAHA HA HA HA that was hilarious, right? What's the matter, Ben? Why aren't you laughing?

It's not a joke. His life is not a joke. It's not charming, either. If he tries to reform, he'd be a reformed patricidal war criminal. It should be a very serious thing. He should have a mouth full of crow basically at all times, with maybe a scene or two of quiet, understated levity.

I don't see why he would suddenly develop charm for the first time in his life just because he's trying to atone for his crimes. His personality should be mostly consistent with what it was before (ie crappy and joyless), just minus the crimes. Vader didn't suddenly turn into Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan at the end of ROTJ.

 

Anakin was less creepy and less angry prior to falling to the Dark Side. It's possible Ben Solo was as well.

You raise some great points beyond that though that I agree with. Earnest and humble would be better if he's working his way back. I'm just thinking about how Driver could possibly play it to better show the transition from the Dark Side's influence and the Light. Basically, I'm wondering about Anakin in reverse if he was still relatively young and not dying and old like in ROTJ. Though, even in ROTJ we do sort of see Anakin smile when he's old and dying and that still felt like a big moment considering the Dark Side influence he'd been under and our impressions of him with the mask on prior (I'm talking prior to us knowing him better via the prequels here since that was my first experience with Star Wars)

 

I prefer my antagonism to be harder better faster stronger...

 

That's actually one of thevfew things I like about Kylo and sequel trilogy. He is evil but in a more realistic than way.

 

Pity then that I already saw it done better with Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming, Erik Killmonger from Black Panther, Thanos from IW, etc.

 

If you want a little moment of levity...have him make a quiet little joke in an awkward moment that he's too bashful and humble to really laugh or fully smile at. An embarrassed, hesitant smile that requires him to look away. The kind of smile that needs to be forced because you don't really feel like smiling. Someone else, like Rey, can smile and laugh at the awkward levity, but he can't enjoy it fully.

Or Rey can make fun of him a little. Tease him. Mock him. He can't really laugh because it's a serious matter, but he can acknowledge the joke with the slight smile of a good sport. Okay, you got me. There's not a lot of material for this, though.

There's a bit of this in Force Ghost Hayden as he looks down when he smiles. It comes off as a bit embarrassed, as if Obi-Wan had made one of his little teasing jokes. I think a reformed Ben Solo would be more like bashful farm boy Luke than charming Han.

 

You're probably right. This moment from Harrison Ford is probably the closest things could get given what he's done. Harrison delivers this with sincerity and some warmth because he does feel bad in this moment. It's not super expressive but it's warmer than most of Ben Solo's looks. I could sort of imagine this kind of moment from Ben to Rey near the end if they had worked together to defeat a common enemy and she tells him that he'd better go with Chewie and get out of here because if the others come they'll likely capture or kill them. That's kind of how I can imagine things ending between them. She helps him by stalling or making up a story about losing him to others and tells him that this moment is what his parents hoped would happen some day. He expresses remorse and says they'd be here if it wasn't for him. She tells him realizing his mistakes is the first step. Atoning to the galaxy for all he's done is the next. He thanks her and delivers a moment like this and they go their separate ways and then the happier endings start with Rey, Finn, etc and their reveals on lineage and the force ghost moments happen.

 

I firmly believe all types of characters are only working when they were created in certain patterns. If the villain tends to be melodramatic, add to that the anger, and it will be fine. Add to that cold blooded socipath ingredient - and the whole portrait would fall apart. It simply wont work.
All great villains are great because the ingredients their personalities consist of are perfectly fit the certain patterns.
Vader is ambitious powerhouse who fell down because of ego and secret fear of loss. Typical fallen hero material.
Palpatine is cunning, calm, yet psychopatic villain. Typical Evil Chancellor material.
Tarkin is cunning, cold and merciless villain. Typical evil general material.
Dooku is elegant, polite, cunning, arrogan count. Typical evil noble man.

Add to Vader the cunning ingredient, and his fallen hero persona would be ruined.
Add to Palpatine the dumb ingredient and his character would be ruined.
Add to Tarkin and Dooku the pyschopath ingredient and they will be ruined.

With Kylo it doesnt matter realistic villain he is or not. They tried to combine every ingredient possible into one poor character, making him both powerhouse, but beaten effortlessly, smart, dumb, calm, psychotic, emotional, cold blooded, ambitious, arrogant, yet mocked by higher ranks, good, but bad, want some love but want to kill that love.

Thats why he is probably the worst villain in all SW. He is messed up character and it looks like writers themselves and Adam Driver too dont know who Kylo Ren really is.

 

See, I love that about him. He's not some 3-ingredient villain. The unpredictability of him is his greatest asset on-screen and what draws so many people in. It's not quite Two-face level but they hint at aspects of that with the glimmers of the light side still. When you think he might do something incredibly evil he sometimes lets up or shows compassion like telling Rey she's not alone and reaching out to console her. Few villains would do that. Other times when you think he might be coming back he goes more evil.

He has traits that make him seem like a nerdy outcast you'd root for when he was younger to overcome bullies and maybe get the heart of the nice girl who saw the best in him for being awkward and weird but at the same time he has traits where he's now gone too far and become this lineage-obsessed monster that's even worse than any of the original bullies once were. It's definitely a unique mix.

At his most unhinged and full of rage and physicality he reminds me of of this:



At his coldest and creepiest he reminds me of this:


At his most bad ass he reminds me of this:



At his most petulant when you just want somebody to stick a knife in him he's like this:



When he’s most conflicted between right and wrong and you're wondering if this is maybe the start of the redemption:

 

I agree he is not a good villain, but I still think he is a great character. I'm very interested to see what will happen to him. In fact, he's the only character that even has any questions attached to him at all (Rey has mysteries, but we all know she will finish in heroic fashion). I think Adam Driver has done a good job.

But his function as seemingly the main villain going into IX doesn't really work for me. I hope they go the redemption route. I don't really get the idea of accepting someone you love is evil and there's nothing that can be done to save him. That's a fine position to take about someone, but not if you love them. They've tried to create a connection between Kylo and Rey, but it's very confusing because we don't know what to believe. Are they brother and sister? That'd make sense. Are they cousins? That'd make sense. Are they total strangers who met and have some strange connection in the force that has no grounding in anything other than it exists because of the force itself? Well now that's where we are right now, and it just doesn't provide enough detail to make me feel strongly one way or the other. I understand romantic love, but this relationship between them right now is pretty perverse. He's a brutal murderer who is out to basically abduct her, brain wash her, and turn her into his slave so "they can rule together." And she feels somehow drawn and connected to him because he's the only one who seems to understand her. I'm not saying it's illogical...but it's not exactly inspiring. If they are blood related, or even had a otherwise meaningful relationship in any serious way, it would be heroic for Rey to want to save Kylo's soul. Basically, yes, he's not a great villain.

 

Can't help but feel a sense of deja vu with this idea. Ah, yes:

 

I wouldn’t really consider any of the Skywalker men particularly cunning so among them Ben Solo certainly seems like he’s at least added some Padme/Organa calculation and Solo opportunism to the party and when he’s calm and more in control I think he’s shown an ability to assess personality weaknesses in others and pounce on opportunities.

He had way less cards to play than a father dealing with a son who wanted to be with him and yet he slowly drove a wedge in between her and Luke by observing character weakness not only in her and using it to his advantage but also his own knowledge of Luke.

He did the same with Snoke.
He didn’t shoot first like his dad but he cut in half first. It wasn’t some drawn out moment of him looking at Rey and back at Snoke. He slow-played Rey’s weakness heading into the throne room & had a purpose in mind. Snoke was going to die and Rey was going to join him. He slow-played as though he had knowledge on her parents to pique her curiosity further and then he took advantage of Snoke’s arrogance and how he knew he was enjoying feeding on her fear and took his opening.

He multi-tasked with the Force the way Abrams showed us he could do in TFA by manipulating objects while he carried on in a other way.

He fits into the Skywalker highly emotional and occasionally bratty persona spectrum but for him it’s taken to new lows. He’s least effective in his goals when he’s most angry and out of control. That’s Kylo Ren taking over and that’s the side Rey hates.

Interestingly, this is also why I don’t think he’s meant to be a villain long-term. He’s simply ineffective in these rages and most effective when he’s calm and controlled so I think IX May show him learning to employ that ability to assess personalities, spot opportunities, and force multitask for good eventually.

@Jedi Ben , every second film in Star Wars has foreshadowed a shift in dynamic between characters that will come back into play into the final episode in the trilogy. It’s never regressive back toward the dynamic of the first episode in each trilogy because the people have been changed in different ways. Obi-Wan starting to lose control over Anakin. Anakin killing women and children Tusken Raiders. Padme supporting him. Vader being unwilling to kill Luke and wanting to be with him. The big development for VIII was seeing Rey & Ben team-up & how it was only their competing goals there that kept them apart. Seems likely that IX will find a way to align their goals even briefly because that’s where things are most interesting. Also, them versus 6 Force users would feel like an escalation of that dynamic that was explored earlier. Something that ROTS did to the complications of AOTC & ROTJ did for TESB as well. Throwing the Force into the mix for those Knights changes their function possibilities and level of threat massively. Besides, going back to just Rey versus Ben would be even more deja vu. They did that in the first film already.

 

I think that gives him far too much credit. He managed to manipulate Rey who comes across as a really naive girl in TLJ doing a 180 on his due to his abs. It doesn`t take a mastermind of Palpatinian proportions to manage that kind of manipulation. And it seems he stumbles into it more than anything because he really botches it in the end when he reads her completely wrong.

Then he kills Snoke because Snoke is portrayed as utterly moronic in that moment. I mean, it doesn`t even look cunning or powerful on Kylo`s part because Snoke`s visible stupidity overpowers the whole scene when he narrates his own death scene.

He is really lucky that his main political opponent seems to be Hux who is even more comically stupid and incompetent. If Kylo were to face of with the likes of Tarkin, he`d already be assassinated somewhere.

 

Snoke was smart enough to keep the Tarkins of this era as far away from himself as he could. Either by killing them first (according to the extended edition) or by promoting people he saw as less of a threat to positions of power.

But that’s precisely one of Ben Solo’s greatest antagonistic weapons so far. He gets people to underestimate him or think they’ve figured him out and then uses that against them.

Obviously Solo is no politician. Sidious is a Grandmaster chess player in this saga. However, among the Skywalker men I think Ben Solo holds his own by bringing some of Han’s underrated survival traits to the mix. Han knew how to let people underestimate him to shoot first. He had his inspired “moments” as Leia said. Ben has some of those too.

 

Kylo is such a big indicator to me of the lack of a plan on LF’s part. It’s like they really can’t decide what story they want to tell with him. On the one hand, I’m sort of swayed by those that think he’s inevitably headed for redemption. On the other, huh? Why would they turn Hux into a total joke and kill off Snoke if they’re redeeming Kylo in IX? He’s the only villain right now, and TLJ comes off like a strange attempt to build him as the big scary bad guy. He’s the new Emperor in charge of the galaxy obsessed with literally massacring every last good guy. To the extent that he’s not really a compelling villain, I don’t think that’s by design. I think LF is just confused. RJ was so focused on Reylo he forgot or didn’t care about the good versus evil plot in the trilogy. It’s like he wasn’t thinking about the need for his movie to set up anticipation for an epic final showdown between good and evil. Or, he was thinking it, and those that think TLJ closed the door on Reylo are right, which I might buy if RJ hadn’t explicitly said in an interview that he doesn’t want Kylo’s story to have a typical good-guys-kill-the-villain ending. Clearly he wants Kylo redeemed. I can’t make predictions about IX because at this point I think JJ has as much freedom to do whatever he wants with IX that RJ has with TLJ. Anything at all can happen and I don’t think KK or the SG really care at all where the story goes. KK just wants a well made film.

 

But those are just normal men.

Introducing the Knights of Ren in an action scene in IX, and showing their force abilities could help to not be a repeat of the above. All the while not having them all be dead when the ST is finished.

 

JJ depicted the character as far more villain-esque so I assume he is gonna pick that back up in episode 9. Because of the nature of TLJ, he is in the comfortable position of basically being able to ignore it while appearing to not ignore it at all. I mean, TLJ made it so you could say "well, this was our redemption tease, we moved on" and Kylo ends the movie as the evil in power. So you can do ep 9 and pick him up years later as the villain again and basically say "that middle thing was just a phase".

I have no doubt the RJ would make a vastly different episode 9 than JJ will do.

Thinking to Into Darkness of all things, Khan was at points made to look even honorable or sympathetic or even funny during one moment. And the other antagonist played as the "true" villain. Then once Khan got into power again, he cracked that guy`s skull with his bare hands and went into super-duper-evil villain territory. So it`s not like JJ wouldn`t do this.

 

Kylo Ren absolutely shouldn’t be a military leader. Anakin’s experience in the Clone Wars was an invaluable add to the Empire. Ben Solo has no such war experience so he’s closer to being at Luke’s inexperience levels where he’s mostly jumped in and observed and adapted and just happens to be an awesome pilot like his ancestors all were.

But, absolutely, he’s no military leader or military strategist. He’s far too reckless and emotional to lead.

Which is exactly why his reign will be so short and we’ll see him as a lone wolf for a time in IX.

If Marvel can establish a new villain every movie as a threat and Star Trek can do it every movie then I don’t see why JJ won’t be able to do the same. All they need is one of those 6 to be established as smarter, sneakier and more ruthless than Ben and then have that individual do some horrible things as soon as they’re in power. The underlings of Thanos were established as scary within the first 2 minutes. Killmonger seemed formidable by beating T’Challa in combat. It doesn’t take much to establish new antagonists who make the audience wonder how they can be beaten.

Basically, every single criticism that’s been listed in this thread about why Kylo Ren isn’t a strong enough villain is exactly what would make him an effective comeback candidate versus Dark Side users who nearly kill him by wrecking him collectively. Showing him get beat down that bad would also give some in the audience a little bit of the vengeance they crave.