ST Daisy Ridley (Rey) in the ST

DP

 

The Rey/Kylo bond was strangely executed - like most of TLJ. Their "connection" was the jiggery-pockery of fantasy writing. They connected because of... "because;" the story required it, but it was unearned, underdeveloped and unsatisfactory (to me).

 

Agreed. I understand it's purpose--to make their relationship less cut-and-dry-villain-vs-hero and thus more interesting, but it ultimately didn't make sense. It was done to move the story along without much thought put into actually making it believable.

 

Well, that's kind of the problem. They start at one point, go on this utterly contrived detour that hardly did the trilogy any favors and then ended exactly where they started.

 

The other factor IMHO is that Ridley and Driver play their scenes well and go a long ways to selling their characters. Compared to Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman, I think they had better chemistry. I wanted to believe it, but I couldn't.

 

I'd argue that they didn't exactly where they started. They're back to not liking each other, but now there's still some sort of connection between them that's going to muddy the waters, especially if there's a climactic final duel a la Obi-Wan and Anakin. Again, it's just less cut and dry now.

Personally I don't mind that. Villain/hero dynamics need some sort of deeper emotional weight, otherwise they're just boring. I just wish it had been better executed.

 

I often come back to this. If they wanted to go Reylo, which I am totally convinced RJ at least did, they should have just done it explicitly. I probably wouldn't have ever bought it, but I think it would have worked better over all as a story. A lot of people enjoyed DR/AD chemistry and wanted something different and weird to happen. If they went down this path to shock the audience with Rey actually joining him, I wouldn't have liked the direction they took her character in but dang I would be curious to see where it was headed next. Finn becomes the hero with a weakness for a/the villain, or something.

But in order for the waters to be muddied moving forward, Rey has to look totally ridiculous. That's my biggest issue with it. Rey's dignity is shattered for the sake of this dynamic. Kylo does absolutely nothing but hurt her and murder her loved ones. He degrades her, he manipulates her, and much much much more importantly, he slaughters everything in his path. If you want to muddy the waters but maintain a story that respects your hero, give us something tangible to point to and think, "see, she's not just stupid, there's actually substance here!" Really, for Rey to find her integrity again as a character, I think she needs to be shown facing Kylo with strength as an adversary, not as a "hero" with a weakness for the guy murdering everyone around her because *reasons (he's cute and has magic).

 

For me, Anakin didn't need Padme to be a sympathetic character. Between leaving his mom in TPM and then losing her in AOTC, he had more life experiences that made him sympathetic to me OUTSIDE of the relationship with Padme. I haven't seen anything about Kylo so far that generates any sympathy in me. I'm not placing that squarely on Luke's shoulders either because Ben Solo was already courting the dark side with his propensity for it BEFORE he got to Luke. I mean, that is why his mother sent him to Luke for help. She was at a loss on how to help him reject it.

 

DP again dang it

 

100%. DR/AD elevated the script, but the script couldn't support their performance. The logic leaps involved in accepting Rey's choices were distracting to me. She had more venom for Luke than Kylo and more sympathy for Kylo than Luke.

 

The only real thing that Rey could even bring up as a reason to not want to stop Ben is "B-b-but we touched hands in a hut".

 

@Ryanpaulstewart She heard both Luke's version of the story AND Kylo's but she gave more weight to Kylo's version and ended up attacking Luke over it? Another disconnect for me is exactly WHY would she place more truth in Kylo's side of the story? I know she was disappointed in Luke's reception of her but she had just watched Kylo murder his father, grievously injure Finn, etc. Up to that point what had Luke done (to her knowledge) other than try to push her away? Is that worse than patricide?

And before someone says it, I don't buy that she would completely side with the villian just because she THINKS she saw something in a force vision that could have been misinterpreted just like Anakin didn't 100% correctly interpret his own vision of Padme dying.

 

I don't think those two things are incompatible. I'm not saying she's going to be all sad and angsty and unable to do what needs to be done. I'm just saying it's going be harder for her to do it because she knows it didn't have to be this way--he could have chosen differently. I'm imagining it like the Obi-Wan and Anakin or even Obi-Wan and Maul duel in Rebels. Ultimately the hero has to punish the villain, but it's tragic and dramatic because it didn't have to happen, things could have been different.

And that last part is honestly an insult to Rey's character. I think we can argue about whether or not some degree of romantic/sexual subtext was present (as much as I hate to admit it, I think it was), but Rey's primary reasons for doing what she did were a. she thought he was the only one who could save the Resistance, and her friends and b. she saw someone who appeared to be in the same position as her and wanted to help, because that's the kind of selfless, compassionate, and to a degree, naive person she is--and ultimately it bites her in the ass. She didn't do it because Kylo is Hawt. Come on.

 

I'm not trying to insult Rey's character, but I am trying to insult the writing for her character. I think that RJ didn't give her reasons beyond the romantic ones to be invested in "Ben" as a person. I don't think the primary reasons for doing what she did involved the Resistance. I feel that way because she lied to Luke from get-go about hanging with Kylo, and because she had her campfire date with Kylo where she opened up to him, assured him he's not alone, and reached out to touch him very intimately, all before she had her vision supposedly convincing her that he could be turned.

I think this "connection" between Rey and Kylo was portrayed as attraction and camaraderie, very very strangely, and she was looking for an excuse to rationalize all of it, which the vision provided. She didn't think twice about fedexing Luke's location to Kylo and Snoke. She didn't think twice about Kylo having murdered all of Luke's other non-evil force sensitive students. She was singularly focused on Kylo.

I don't see why she would ever have thought Kylo was in the same position as her, and I don't think her relating to him in that way was shown. Family means everything to Rey. Rey witnessed Kylo murder his dad two days ago, and when Rey asked about it, he was very flippant. These two, in their portrayals, have zero in common. They're not in the same position. Except magic, which is why I said "he's cute and has magic."

 

I could believe it for Anakin because his visions about his mother turned out to be true so of course he was once burned, twice shy when it came to his wife.

But IMO it is still different to what happened with Rey. Anakin had visions of two women he deeply loved and had had a loving relationship with. There was positive backstory there. Rey changes her mind about someone she has previously only seen as a monster and commit a horrible act right in front of her just a few days ago because of one or two visions. That is some mighty quick turnaround.

 

RJ wanted a "dynamic," romantic or otherwise, and decided to shoehorn the Kylo/Rey bond into the ROTJ framework. He set the pieces beforehand and shabbily wrote them into place in TLJ. The end result was Rey getting narratively shortchanged because the entire story is about Kylo: his past, his present, his future (through Rey's relationship with Luke). It's the Kylo-verse. All of Rey's mystery boxes were closed so that Kylo's could be reexamined.

 

@Alliyah Skywalker Yeah I know he got one of his visions correct, I just used the second one as an example to show the unreliability of force visions.

Yes, her turn around was fast enough to give someone whiplash.

 

Yes, it was really a self-fulfilling prophecy that second time. I mean, he even got the actual proceedings correct as well, just not that in trying to prevent it, he would set in motion a chain of events that would cause it.

But Rey didn`t have that either. She didn`t have previous force visions which turned out correct or turned out badly because she ignored them and wrote them off as mere dreams. In that case it would lend a bit more credibility to thinking "hm, maybe I should pursue it this time."

 

Also, on top of all of this nonsense, we can't even appreciate her failing because when she commits some kind of monumental error, there are no consequences against her. I mean, think about it for a second. What happened when Anakin screwed up? He had all of his limbs cut off and was incinerated, making him a slave to the Emperor and a shadow of the man he once was. What happened when Luke screwed up? He got outmaneuvered by Vader, was beaten to a bloody pulp by debris flung at him by Vader, had his sword hand chopped off and realized that Vader was his father. What happens when Rey screws up? The leader of the First Order is assassinated and his honor guard get cut to ribbons with her walking away without so much as a scratch.

 

Not only that, her new bff is now Supreme Leader. NVM read too fast

 

I mean, that's your opinion and you're entitled to it, but it's not what's presented in the story. She goes to that island for no other reason than to recruit Luke to save her friends (and the rest of the galaxy) from imminent danger. He refuses time and time again. Even after she knocks him to the ground and yells at him, she offers him the saber one more time, giving him one more chance. And he doesn't take it. So she goes to Ben because, as she literally says herself, if he turns, they'll win. Even after they defeat Snoke and the guards, the first thing she says is "tell the fleets to stop firing." Her mind is clearly on her loved ones.

She's convinced that the only people who can save the day are Skywalkers, or other people of "important" bloodlines. And that's her greatest failure/weakness. In the end, she learns that "nobodies" like herself can be heroes, too.

And I'm not saying they are in the same position, Rey simply thought they were in that moment. But it's clear by the end of the film that the loneliness and isolation they were feeling couldn't have been more different. Rey is lonely because she was sold off by her drunken parents and forced to live a sad, solitary life. Kylo is lonely because he's pushed everyone who cares about him away. He did it to himself through his own poor decisions. Again, it's that thing of "very similar, but fundamentally different."

 

She had a force vision in tfa of her fighting Kylo on skb when she touched the lightsaberand that came true. It actually came true because she ran from the vision. I think that's why she trusts the vision in tlj. Trying to run from it in tfa made it happen, in this case she run towards it because it is something she wants to happen.

 

I honestly think that in RJ's mind, the loss Rey suffered in TLJ was losing Kylo. They can't be together because they've chosen opposite sides in this war.

 

I mean...the entire Resistance is nearly decimated because the person she thought was going to help, didn't. I'd say that's a pretty nasty consequence.