ST What if Ben Solo's name had been Luke?

I kinda have a love-hate relationship with TFA right now. I think the characters are brilliant, and overall it's a very pretty film, but a lot of the story and would-be emotional moments of the film left me feeling cold. There are just so many moments I feel that should have been changed to give the audience the proper emotional response. I mean the moment I saw Kylo Ren on the bridge, I knew automatically that Han was going to face his son, and that he was going to die. And as a result when the moment happened, I didn't really feel anything for his death. There was no shocking moment of grief, I felt more sorry for Chewbacca than I actually did Han. Han I thought, was a bit of an idiot.

The main issue with this of course was that we already knew who Ren was. Learning about that moment, and seeing his face should have definitely been left for the bridge scene. We should have known that Han lost a force sensitive son, in fact we could have been mislead to believe that Ren had killed his son, a la Darth Vader. Or we could have been mislead about who Ren was entirely.

Just imagine for a moment that Ben Solo's name had actually been Luke. For the entire movie we know nothing about this character Kylo Ren at all. Every-time we see him he's been incredibly intimidating, and we've never seen his face at this point saw all we have to associate with him is is mask and robot voice. And Ren doesn't make any whiny comments about how bad of a father Han is. (Claims that have absolutely no substance for the audience btw since we've seen nothing that shows Han being a bad father. His interactions with Rey kinda prove the opposite) Then the bridge scene comes up and Han starts making his way to the man. We have no idea why Han is doing this at this point. Is Han going to fight with him? Is he going to try to avenge his son? And the bridge has no guardrails so it's an incredibly tense and foreboding scene. Is Han about to loose a hand ESB style?

Then out of nowhere, as Han reaches the midway point he cries out one word. "LUKE!"

Everyone in the audience would go bananas. What!? Luke!? The man we've been searching for has been Kylo Ren the whole time? And he went to the Dark Side?!? The man who redeemed Darth Vader went Dark himself?! But no, because after a bit of back and forth, Han begs his son to take off the mask. At this point everyone is on an emotional roller-coaster. All right it's not our Luke, but Han has a son?! And he went evil?!

And then, since this is the first time we've seen Ren without the mask, they can use his facial expressions to the fullest effect. On the bridge, he looks much less like the psychopathic Sith Lord we've all become come used to. Instead, he's just a normal human being, someone who seems to be even regretting his past actions. It looks like he might actually want to go with his father and leave the Dark Side behind. And as he offers Han his lightsaber, we in the audiance might actually believe he's considering turning over a new leaf. Which would of course make the inevitable betrayal all the more heartbreaking.

Because it wasn't expected.

 

I'm glad that they didn't got for a third act reveal of Kylo Ren's identity. That would have been a little too hokey.

 

The emotion of the scene doesn't rest on not knowing who Kylo is. It rests in knowing who he is, feeling Han's pain, and in some ways, watching a train wreck in slow motion. A lot of people I know, including the unspoiled, knew what was coming as Han stepped onto the bridge. But that heightened their emotional response to it.

Another "father-son" twist ending would have been rightfully derided, and JJ was very smart to avoid it. You can't do the Vader-Luke thing twice.

And that's why I'm glad the OP was not the director of TFA.

 

just to up the troll ante even more, the novelisation would have had Han yell out "Luuke"!