ST Kylo Ren is Underestimated

As I said, Lucas's inarticulate and contradictory brainfarts on a DVD commentary are irrelevant now. Everyone knows that Lucas changes his mind depending on what he thinks at the time. Ultimately, Yoda is right; the light side is stronger, and that is shown on screen. If you think that Lucasfilm will be going on what Lucas said in a commentary of the worst received Star Wars film, and not on what is shown on screen, you're wrong. The dark side is a quicker path to power, the light is the path to greater power

 

seems like the dark side caters to the individual, whereas the light side supports teamwork. 2 different philosophies

 

Yoda didn't say the 'light side' was stronger. He said the dark side wasn't stronger than the 'light side.'

Yoda's statement doesn't necessitate the conclusion of the 'light side' being stronger. Possible interpretations 'light > dark' 'dark = light.' And, of course, as has been previously mentioned, you have to understand Yoda's target audience.

 

also, wasn't that commentary in the same context as yoda's quote, easier and faster and therefore, dooku maul and sidious are better than 90% of jedi

 

I'd say it's possible that Kylo has about the same potential as Rey, maybe a little less. Ren's main issue is doubt. During the first confrontation where he is beaten by Rey (the mind reading), he simply gives up and runs away. If they had switched sides, then Rey would not run away. Rey would fight until she either beats him or is thoroughly beaten. But he is just scared that she will get into his mind again. And during the duel at the end, he is dominating her until she lets the force flow through her, which gives her a boost in abilites and shatters his confidence again. He cannot regain his footing during that part. If he was a real fighter (im talking about mindset here), he could have still gotten the upper hand again, I think.

 

Can a Kylo Ren scholar please assess how Ren knew that the blue lightsaber that Finn fought with was the actual original (second) lightsaber of Anakin Skywalker? Did Ren have an Art of Revenge of the Sith book on his shelf? Did Vader's helmet start whispering? Did Vader's ashes form crop circles? A used copy of Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy Far Far Away. Etc.

1. Maz had said the light saber was calling to Rey.
2. The lightsaber ('of its own free will') did not in fact fly into Ren's hand.

 

This is a great point. Morale isn't everything, but it counts for a lot. When Rey embraces the Force, Kylo's morale collapses, while Rey's becomes much greater. The guy has issues with inadequacy and self worth on the best of days, and that day was basically his worst. And so he becomes much less able to to fight back effectively.

 

Regarding one of his other weaknesses during that fight: I think that while killing his father has momentarily weakened him, it could prove essential for his development. He could develop a hatred for himself, which could be used to fuel the dark side.

 

I wouldn't doubt this goes unexplained, but if it were to be, I think the most straightforward conclusion is that Ren has experience with the blade. The other, more far-fetched conclusion would be the blade called to Ren in the same way it called to Rey, perhaps. They are most likely both of the Skywalker line.

 

I enjoyed the characterization of Kylo Ren, and he is the most interesting character in TFA imo. I am really curious to know what will happen to him. In a way, he reminds me of Loki, who was the only character of Avengers that I thought that was remotely interesting to watch.

But, as a fan villains, I don’t think Kylo Ren is a good villain. Maybe he will be in the following movies, but he wasn’t in this movie.

Why? He lacks efficiency and importance.

The characterization doesn’t matter as much as making it clear that whenever this villain appears, the stakes raise. Good villains can be horrible psychopaths or sympathetic antagonists, whatever you want: but they are there to create tension in usually predictable plots. Regardless of how you portray them, they need to represent the main current threat.

Which is what I think that went a bit wrong with Kylo Ren in this movie’s attempt to create an abridged journey of the OT's greatest hits. After the fantastic first arc, it felt like Kylo’s story went on a separated personal adventure from the main threat of the movie, which was the Starkiller Base. Even if he had succeeded in defeating Rey, the rebels would still have destroyed Starkiller, which severely reduces the importance of his role.

And not only his role in the First Order is, well, seemingly replaceable, he’s final defeat by Rey weakened his villain role even more. Yes, he was hurt and whatever, but the point is, that wasn’t conveyed in the movie. He was still Force pushing people to trees after he got shot. He caught up with Finn and Rey really fast. He was a lot more agile than when I had to do an Aikido exam with a sore muscle. And unlike Darth Vader in ROTJ where his conflict and inability to kill Luke was made clear, in TFA, it was never indicated that Kylo was still having any kind of conflict while fighting Rey. Maybe it was in the novelization, but it wasn’t there in the movie.
Hence it didn’t feel like he was defeated due to the nature of his injures or whatever emotional turmoil was going in his head, it just looked like he was defeated by a newbie. Also, said newbie had already bested him in mind probing, making his role as an antagonist seem even more ineffective.

As much as I enjoyed Ren's personality, he wasn't a good villain to me. He could’ve been, he had all the great ingredients to make for an extremely unpredictable villain who can’t control his rage. But this trait of his, instead of being portrayed as dangerous to people, was portrayed as dangerous only to machine equipment and came across and hilarious and rather inoffensive. And I still don't know if that was intentional or just an unfortunate consequence of Disney humor.

(I understand however, if that was really the intention of the movie: maybe he's still too weak in the darkside to be a real danger to people. Maybe they want to portray him as someone that can be redeemed. Which is fine. But writers, you had three other villains to work with. I left the cinema with this weird feeling that the villains were the underdogs, and I don't think that was what the movie intended.)

 

Why do you think that? Do you think the same about Darth Vader in ANH?

 

Yes. Darth Vader was active in defending the Death Star. He took the ship to shoot down the remaining pilots and if it hadn't been for Han growing a heart in the last minute and catching him by surprise, he would've killed Luke and the Rebellion would be no more. At least that's what ANH made it look like.

 

Boring.

Predictable.

The only thing they can do with Rey now is make her fall. Otherwise this whole thing will start to seem a bit too incredible.

What are we going to have? A rematch which Rey wins again? What would be the point of showing up for Episode 9?

 

I'm no expert but based on the conflicting facts mentioned above regarding the question, "Is the dark side stronger?", I'd apply what Yoda said to what George said. In other words, the dark side isn't stronger, as in, more powerful than the light side. However, the dark side allows bad guys to become stronger faster when attacking an opponent, because they don't follow rules in terms of force usage like jedi do, so they can basically abuse the force and use it to perform acts of great strength and power that makes them appear to be more powerful because the jedi aren't allowed to do that stuff. Which explains why Luke became so powerful when he got angry at vader in ROJ. Which also explains how incredible it was that he was able to quickly regain his composure enough to decide to throw away his saber and refuse to vent any more anger.

 

Agree on both counts. Ren could end up being a very, very important character to the saga. Trained by a great Jedi, idolizing a great Sith, looking up to a new master who is neither. He is in a position to do things no one before him could have done.

But the more Starkiller Base takes over the movie, the more Ren becomes sidelined. There's no reason his confrontations with Han, Finn, and Rey need to take place when and where they did. The fact that Ren has a whole army right there is completely ignored. Why doesn't he just have his troopers recapture Rey so he can fight her later after a relaxing swim in bacta? None of that whole plot thread really needed to interact with Starkiller Base or matter to its defense.

And it's not necessary that Ren defend the base in a starfighter as Vader did, but there could have been a better compromise.

 

Unfortunately, from this point onwards, I don't think we'll see a star wars duel between two force users who really want to kill each other, since they seem to be going in the same 'conflicted bad guy who wants to corrupt and use the good guy' route, so that's a debate of whether or not Ren is really badass material could go on forever

 

If I could make one rule that all Star Wars writers were forced to follow, it would be, "Everyone is to try their hardest to kill everyone, in every lightsaber battle, forever."

 

This makes me think... What if Kylo Ren is not the villain we are expecting him to be. Yes he's a Vader fanboy, but even TPTB know that they can never top Vader.... What if he's being packaged as a villain in training, yet we're gonna get an anti-hero instead. It surely coincides well with his conflicted nature..

JJ and Adam Driver have confirmed Ren to be the Big Bad Villain.. Yes he will be the Big Bad, he is the front and center antagonist after all.... But there is a Bigger Badder Villain, Snoke...not to mention an array of FO peeps like Hux, Phasma and Bemicio del Toro's character....

Could Kylo Ren be such a terrible villain because he wasnt meant to be? There still seems to be loght in him after all.

Thoughts?