ST Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) in Episode IX

@JoJoPenelli I believe in hand symbolism. Luke's metal hand doesn't mean he lost wife and daughter in the past, it's recognisable element that connect Luke to Anakin. At first metal hand and then self-fulfilling vision.

 

That’s not what I’m arguing.

It’s not a recognizable visual element. We don’t see Anakin’s fully-exposed hand.

And the Luke-Kylo situation has no relationship to the Anakin-Padme tragedy. Luke saw something in Kylo’s mind. It was not a vision. The use of “would” indicates that either Luke saw something and feared terrible future consequences or some intention of Ben’s.

But assuming we believe Rey that Kylo was still conflicted, I wonder if it may have been a tragic misunderstanding of Luke’s rather than Ben already having turned. Just my spec atm.

 

I see this thread is being made about Luke as well...

 

Seems so

Back to Kylo and cybernetic hands.....

It would've been great had Snoke punished Kylo after his failure by chopping off a hand

 

Regarding this I think PH was referring to the idea of Ben being corrupted by Snoke in the womb. I don't think that happened, though I speculated in that direction previously.

This implies to me that Snoke reached Ben when he was a child, not while he was in the womb. Also it's interesting that it says *latent* power of the Skywalker bloodline as that implies it hadn't manifested itself yet. So I am wondering if Ben's powers awoke due to Snoke, and then Snoke figured out how to manipulate his feelings of inadequacy and abandonment. As Ben's powers manifested he would break things and had anger issues, so Leia was desperate. That led her to take Ben to Luke who decided to restart the Jedi Order.

My other guess is that Han was the parent most on his side and he felt he needed Han to stop Leia from sending him away. So then he felt betrayed when Han didn't.

Basically it's like Kylo said to Rey--her parents left her but she can't stop needing them. He couldn't stop needing his parents after they sent him away. And at some point he began cannibalizing those feelings as though just destroying them and all they represent would make it stop hurting.

 

I love this symmetry with these two characters. The both want what they can't have, both are alone, and both have been shaped in different ways because these attachment issues.

 

Kylo will not remain evil. The FO already has one truly evil leader who will not be redeemed, Hux.

 

But he will probalby remain evil enough for a considerable part of the movie. Mind there has to be a lightsaber duel at some point. And it has to be dramatic, so they probably can't come with a new villain and call it a day.

 

Depends on what JJ does with the KOR. Considering they are trained Jedi to some extent they could be a considerable hurdle for Kylo turning and could provide the big swordfight at the end. Kylo already dueled and lost to Rey, it would be repetitive.

 

I don't think Vader fighting Luke twice was repetitive, nor Anakin fighting Dooku twice, or Obi-Wan fighting Vader twice as well.

 

well they could make it interesting by having Kylo mop the floor with Rey. But Rey kicking his ass twice in a row is repetitive. Luke got wrecked by Vader but then won, same with Anakin and Dooku, same with Obiwan and Vader.

 

The only thing is in one of the TLJ BTS scenes, i can't remember which one, but Rian was talking about the balance of the force and how "the jedi rise, the sith also rise". So if the KOR are former jedi and darkside users, wouldn't that dismiss what Snoke said to Rey? "Darkness rises and light to meet it". So atm Rey and Kylo are the strongest force users and when they fought back to back - the force was balanced. It leads me to speculate whether the KOR are a) not Lukes former students b) probably dead c) if they are alive then they're probably not Force sensitive.

TLDR - If KOR are dark force users then that would tip the scale to the darkside and Rey wouldnt have risen to meet Kylos power

 

So how do you bring balance to the force? by getting Rey and Kylo together?

 

I’m thinking Kylo’s turn to the light side will be later in the film and yes that could mean he has to fight the KoR.

Then again I could see the KoR and Kylo and maybe Rey taking on the whole First Order.

The more I think about it the more it makes sense that the Skywalker saga will end with Luke’s former students taking on the FO. It almost feels like that’s the only way it will end. The last people to be trained by Luke will help save the day.

It’ll be so ironic it the KoR and Kylo have positioned themselves best to destroy the FO by essentially being imbedded in the FO. By turning evil they have put themselves in the heart of evil, the FO leadership. If Kylo and the KoR turn they can then strike at the heart and stop the FO.

 

Hux is just bland, small "e" evil.
He's just Tarkin... not even that. He's just one in a history of petty Empire generals. But he isn't EVIL.

And Kylo at the end of TLJ is just a mess. He's Chaotic evil, but again, he's not The Emperor and he's not Snoke. He doesn't embrace his evil.

So, either Kylo accepts his new role and has a fundamental attitude change next movie, or a New Evil comes along.

I think that's what I'd do if I was the scriptwriter. Hux finds a new Nasty Evil. Someone who can properly take charge and do a good menacing cackle. And Kylo gets squeezed out.

Kylo can then fight Emperor Number Three, sort of on Rey's side. Maybe dying in a noble sacrifice.
A Hate vs Hate, Dark vs Dark battle at the end.

 

Didn’t Hux kill his own dad? Pretty evil.

 

Well, yeah. Somewhat evil.
But he can't do the Evil Laugh.

He can't go "Good. Good. It is as I have forseen."

 

I don't think either of those two options are all that likely. You don't need an Emperor-like villain again, and it certainly would make little sense if yet another figure like that would pop up out of nowhere. The whole reason they got rid of Snoke was to have the spotlight on Kylo Ren, it wouldn't make much sense to revert all this and put him into a lesser role again.

Having a villain who is unstable, who goes from raging to questioning himself, is something entirely new. Especially in this sort of position. He certainly has the anger-issues that allow him to be evil enough to be the main villain in IX. Having him in charge, with Hux beneath him as a follower with questionable loyalty, has great potential. You can go in many different directions from there.

 

I did love the Rey and Kylo team up scene in the last Jedi but I'll be bummed out if episode 9 doesn't have an actual duel.
Not sure who it would be though after how kylo almost doesn't seem like he'd wanna fight rey anymore. They might as well have made out in the last movie. All that finger touching and force foreplay they were doing.

 

Well, I think the current situation allows for a duel between the two. It pretty much sets it up, as they already "fought" over the lightsaber. The two got a bit closer to each other, but then clearly had a falling out when neither would accept the other's offer.

Even if either of the two were reluctant to face the other, that would hardly be something that has stopped a fight before. Luke didn't want to fight Vader in ROTJ, yet he had to anyway. Vader was a bit mixed at that point as well. And then there is obviously Anakin vs. Obi Wan, where Obi Wan told Yoda that he couldn't really bring himself to fight Anakin and ended up doing so anyway.

 

Here's hoping anyway. All that sexual tension stuff going on between those two kinda creeped me out. I mean did we really need to see kylo's boobs?
The touching hands scene was giving me star trek 3 flash backs. Not good memories.

 

With an audience likely to be expecting redemption for Kylo and a turn to the light, does this constitute a reasonable threat to the protagonists? Without a reasonable threat to the protagonists you begin to lose suspense.

 

The audience may expect a redemption for Kylo but how it gets there (if he even gets redeemed) or even if he lives is unknown, hell at this point both could die, or Rey could die and Kylo could become the Darth Vader of a new trilogy. Anything can happen.
Im pretty sure people expected a redemption for Vader the moment he revealed that Luke is his son, its almost the same situation.

 

I suppose they could do both. Have Kylo and Rey duel early on and then team up later in the movie. In fact we might see Rey lose to Kylo and almost die by his hand in the first duel which will then ratchet up the tension even more when Rey later feels like she has to join up with Kylo to defeat the FO. I can imagine the following:

FINN: Join Kylo Ren? Rey are you crazy? The last time you saw him he nearly killed you!

REY: We have no choice. The First Order will wipe us out for sure and Kylo's plan is the only thing that gives us a chance for survival.

FINN: And how do you know that Kylo won't turn on you again like he did in the throne room?

REY: I don't.

@Django Fett I think your mileage may vary as far as the suspense goes. I'm sure there were people that didn't find Rogue One suspenseful because they essentially knew how it would end. I however got sucked into RO regardless of knowing the outcome. So even if people go into Ep. 9 expecting Kylo to turn to the light side and he does in fact turn to the light side the movie might still be able to deliver a suspenseful thrill ride. It all depends on the person watching the film and how well crafted the film is.

 

Which is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. We already had the Emperor and we already had Snoke, and both felt very similar. Kylo could bring something different to the saga. We never had a mad tyrant in SW films, and I suspect that's the sort of leader Kylo will be, at least through part of Episode 9.

I really hope they don't do that. First of all, Kylo already defeated someone like that in TLJ, so it would be regressing to make him do it again. And aside from that, this trilogy already had a few too many homages to the OT. Putting in another emperor who sounds like Palpatine, and then having Kylo sacrifice himself to kill this Palpatine-like emperor would just be way too familiar.