ST Rey & Kylo Ren in Episode IX

I used the Daughter v. Son dynamic mainly because their antagonism is about objectives. Son wants ultimate power and to unleash that on the galaxy. Daughter won't allow that. There are... philosophical and political differences (if one can call it that). But on the personal level, the dynamic is far less antagonistic. So I don't know, it's "complicated enemies."

Naturally, I'd prefer the story in which Kylo's vow to destroy Rey is about the dark side and what must be done for it to keep control on the galaxy. But on a personal level, it's not what the character wants. It's another dark deed in service of the dark side.

I don't expect IX to open up with Kylo Ren being like Darth Sidious. He didn't end VIII as like Darth Sidious.

Though when I use the word "big bad" I basically mean the main villain. VIII did indeed put him in main villain seat, and Rey in main hero seat. I do expect Kylo's villain seat to crumble out from under him as the movie goes on. I don't think he'll be able to maintain control of the FO, let alone the galaxy.

 

Even if there isn't a new villain brought into the story, or Hux there to be the last villain to beat, and even if Kylo Ren is the final villain for Rey and the primary source of antagonism and suffering for... let's say 80% of IX's running time... the easiest way to redeem him and have him live on would be for him to make a choice that sacrifices the First Order and looks like it's also going to kill him (A selfless act around love) that ends up saving Rey, his mother, and others both cares about, that leads everyone to think he's dead because he all but had to be... until we realize he isn't. That selfless act that he was willing to die for doesn't end up killing him and he rises or speaks to his grandfather Anakin in that moment who tells him to rise and he lives to atone with that bullseye on his back for the rest of his days.

Then you can get into all sorts of episode possibilities with him and how Leia and Rey could sense him and/or Leia and Luke as force ghosts communicating with him while Rey communicates with her grandparental force ghost tie-in in another part of the galaxy.

IX needs a happy ending though and the happiest ending is for the characters we care about most and that means seeing Leia, Luke and even us being able to imagine Han somehow happy in another form of heaven we can't see and seeing that his son really did find his way back alongside Rey realizing that sometimes greatness skips generations and that who are parents are doesn't decide who we can be. These concepts as the final end game for IX are more important to Star Wars overall and the other episodes than a revenge payoff so even if some of the biggest Kylo Ren haters who want him killed painfully disagree and want him dead or it implied he's about to go to some big war crimes court case or jail for life... I think in Star Wars we don't need to get into that and can end more on peace and just seeing these next generations of heroes we've followed finding balance by stopping to fight against each other and to see their relatives in force ghost form looking down on them and pleased with how it all worked out.

We can explore the rest in the EU.

 

IX needs to be epic. That's a bare minimum. It's not epic if Rey's dark side counterpoint is only lukewarm evil and Rey mostly just wants to save his soul as opposed to save the galaxy. SW is about heroes. Rey isn't the only hero. The Resistance survivors, Poe, Finn, Leia, all are heroes, all are fighting for the galaxy. They're not here just to save "Ben's" soul. They're trying to restore freedom and democracy to the galaxy because that is the core of the "war" part of SW.

TLJ went to a lot of trouble to set Kylo up as Rey's equal but on the dark side just to try and backtrack in IX so we can add another hero to the already cluttered side of heroes. The narrative point of Kylo killing Snoke is to show Kylo as a badass with crazy dark side potential. Snoke couldn't see his treachery because he's just that fierce. Rey closed the door on him because they're on opposite sides. The point of that is these two that for whatever reason want to be on the same side simply aren't on the same side. They're fighting for different things and that will continue. IX has to open with Kylo's FO spreading evil through the galaxy. That's what Kylo's up to between TLJ and IX. That's not optional because the heroes have to have a larger-than-life threat to fight.

That doesn't mean Kylo can't be redeemed by Rey and maybe they will make force babies and get married or whatever else. It's just that he can't be redeemed 25% of the way into the movie. That's not what was set up by the narrative. All of Kylo's whining about the light while he kept being evil was subversion, a concept this trilogy apparently thinks is automatically brilliant. They tease us with the idea that he'll turn good, and then he chooses evil. Every. Time.

IX will almost certainly have a happy ending, and that very well might include Rey and Kylo finally coming together. It's just that that has to be the ending, after huge epic battles, after at least one epic lightsaber duel, after epic death and destruction and loss.

 

So now episode ix doesn’t need a major villain? What? How can you have a Star Wars saga film without a villain, especially one on the dark side? Before the first film in this trilogy even came out, I believe I remember someone...maybe JJ... saying that TFA was about the awakening and developing of a hero and a villain. Well, we know that the hero was Rey, and I am pretty sure that the villain is Kylo. There hasn’t been a true duel between an equal lightside force user and a darkside force user yet in this trilogy. ( I am not counting the skirmish in TFA, as Kylo was injured.) I really think we should see one in this final film between rey and Kylo.

As for the notion that Kylo MUST be redeemed in order for the skywalker trilogy to have a happy ending, I don’t think there can be a happy ending for Luke, Han, and leia. I am expecting rey to get a happy ending, but even if Kylo is redeemed, it won’t give the OT three a happy ending. Han and Luke are still dead, and Kylo directly or indirectly caused both. Kylo also took away Luke’s Jedi legacy and helped destroy the new republic that his mother helped build. He was the cause of all of their accomplishments being made null and void and their happy ending turned to dust. I don’t think Kylo deserves a happy ending. As a fan of Han, Luke, and leia, I would prefer that Kylo not be redeemed, though I expect that he will be. I definitely hope that Rey’s character is portrayed as being smart enough to never become romantically involved with him even if he is redeemed.

 

I agree that if they don’t have someone like Richard E Grant becoming a new threat somehow... or there’s no villain beyond Kylo Ren... then the start of IX requires him to be about as brutal and powerful as we’ve ever seen him for dramatic function and to continue to sense that the heroes have a significant uphill battle to climb.

I also agree that this needs to continue for much of the running time if he’s meant to be the big bad in this. I shared above where I think he can still decide to sabotage his own side in the end and survive though despite his evil.

All this said, if redemption is their goal and if they truly want to make it easier for others to get on board, a threat that unites Rey & Ben against this new threat is the simplest way for them to accomplish that. Even if it means having an antagonist played by someone like Richard E Grant taking on more of a 1-movie / comic book style insta-antagonist which falls short for some in the grand history of Star Wars villains.

IX needs to be remembered more for a satisfying ending that ties all 9 episodes together more than it needs to be remembered for its antagonism functionality.

 

IX needs to be a good movie that gets and keeps butts in seats. That's what LF is going for. That requires an epic good versus evil plot that will hold up in scale against movies like IW. Insta-villain 3.25 isn't epic. SW can and will tell an intimate story inside of the epic story, but it absolutely has to be epic.

 

Exactly! Just look at he end of TLJ, I posted that photo for a purpose, and see the image we have of Palpatine at the peak of his power, when he proclaimed himself Emperor and when Kylo became Supreme Leader.

Am I the only one to see the difference?

That's why he won't destroy Rey. He is not and will not become the Big Bad.
The whole ST story is about balancing the Force and Ben is one of the two ends. Rey is the other. They cannot kill each other, Rey tried at least 3 times, killing him (like Luke understood in ROTJ) would be the step to the Dark Side... and yet...
There's more to the Dark Side than killing in cold blood. Or Kylo Ren would bear a pair of nice red/yellow eyes.
I think the difference is that you have to mean it. (Voldemort docet)
The Force has other plans for both.

 

Kylo can be Big Bad Lite in the sense that Rey defeated him in TFA, and she saved him from the PG in TLJ. If the novelization is any indication, Rey doesn't want to kill Ben. This means that how much of a challenge Kylo is, is less important than Rey's internal challenge and what the figure of Ben/Kylo represents on her path of learning about the Force and what the Jedi should ideally be, and what they should not be.

TFA begins with Rey almost killing Kylo out of the dark side, out of hate and rage and vengeance. This vengeance is still there in TLJ as the first thing she does when he appears is shoot him. It's still there when she says, "You're going to pay for what you've done!" But come the end of TLJ, Rey (per novelization) doesn't want to kill Ben (she is thinking he will learn). She also thinks the Force isn't done with him, so he is not hers to kill anyway. Come the end of TLJ (again, per novelization as movie just doesn't show this well IMO), Rey has learned how to connect with the will of the Force itself and I think that she is more interested in striving towards an ideal of balance. Vengeance is far less of a motivator.

So given that Rey has a history of defeating Kylo anyway AND doesn't want to kill him, Kylo doesn't have to be some hyper-powerful unbeatable opponent. He hasn't really been set up that way in TFA or TLJ.

@Ender_and_Bean the thing I like about an antagonist Rey and Kylo can both face is that the PG fight was seriously great, and in some ways it feels like a prelude to something else. RJ said they are stronger together and almost like two halves of the protagonist. So yeah, it would be nice if something more came out of that. Except I do remember he used the word "almost."

 

I think RJ analogized Kylo’s look at the end of TLJ to Vader’s as the mask came down. Both hinted at an eventual return but not any time soon.

I still don’t know what the “Rey + Kylo = balance” theory is? It certainly isn’t a harmonizing of FO and Resistance ideologies.

The only actually moderately clear articulation of “balance” I’ve seen seems to pertain primarily to Rey and is different from the sort of balance the ST may be getting at.

 

As someone who's long hoped for the grandparental reveal to be that she's the previously unknown granddaughter of Obi-Wan Kenobi I absolutely love the idea of the Skywalker in this story relinquishing control and becoming selfless and joining up with the Kenobi in the end to achieve balance as a reverse of the PT and to bookend the magnificent OT in the middle. I also like how it would make this ST about how children and their parents can be very different but that every family has some greatness and some regrets in its history.

 

Having Kylo Ren remain evil after killing his boss cemented him as the Big Bad of this trilogy. He's not being manipulated by Snoke...everything he does from that point on is of his own free will. Kylo Ren may not be the same kind of threat that Emperor Palpatine was and his final shot in TLJ clearly emphasized his failings, but that doesn't stop him from being the primary antagonist. If he does die, then the Skywalker legacy won't be one carried by blood...but by those people the past heroes taught (Poe, Finn, Rey etc), which makes sense as two of our heroes are confirmed orphans, and it was with the guidance of the previous generation that they learned to stand tall against darkness.

I mean Finn is already wearing something similar to Han's blood stripes, Rey has the crystal and books from Luke, while Poe has Leia's approval and tendency towards white in his most recent outfit.

With our previous two movies, Rey and Kylo discover one another. Discover that neither is quite what they expected. Kylo doesn't look like absolute evil when he takes off his mask, and Rey is far more than just a 'filthy junk dealer'. At one point they work together, only to end up even further apart than when they first began. Rey assumed that Kylo's decision hadn't been made and assumed she could turn him, Kylo assumed that Rey's painful past would make her agree with his idea to burn it all down. They were both wrong, and thus symbolically broke the legacy of the previous films (Skywalker redemption) by destroying the very lightsaber that most symbolized it.

Now, nothing is assured or guaranteed, and that is likely just how JJ and Lucasfilm want it to be.

 

Killing the boss doesn't necessarily means cementing the Big Bad status.
Or Han Solo would be really bad, we have seen him killing his boss, mentor and father figure in Solo.
The Big Bad is dead. It was Snoke.
If Kylo dies it would not only the be the end of the Skywalker, it would be the end of the only other Force user who, together with Rey could balance the Force. Rey alone cannot balance the Force, it takes two, as we have seen in the Throne Room. There are other Force sensitive out there, we know, but this story is about the Dark Side (Kylo) and the Light Side (Rey) seeking balance, not to destroy each other. Otherwise we're back to ROTJ. And NOTHING will have changed. NOTHING. They could have spared the whole ST.

Really? They know much more about each other know than when they started. And the whole Force-Skyping sessions and the Force bond will leave a trace. The Force bond is not disappeared, as we have seen. They cannot go back to what they were after experiences like that and pretend nothing has happened. If the bond was meant to leave them farther apart as they were in TFA, they could have spared the trouble of shipping A. Driver to Ireland to shot the scene off-camera just "to inspire" Daisy Ridley. The Force bond was central in TLJ. The bond is meant to increase the drama in IX. It is meant to place them in front of each other and challenge to pull the trigger. And they won't be able to.
While we know that in TFA, at least Rey, was well intended to pull the trigger and more.
In TLJ Kylo could have killed her, just as Snoke requested, but he couldn't.
She could have killed Kylo, but she couldn't.
That won't change in IX.

The good of swords, of any sword, is that they can be reforged.
The Skywalker Lightsaber is no exception.
A broken sword is by no means without any use. It is a strong symbol, yes, of broken power usually.
But once they are reforged, they are stronger than ever.
All great swords breaks at least once: Excalibur and Andúril come to mind.

 

Ah yes. Reforging an ancestral weapon...also done in Wagner’s Ring Cycle, right?

 

But what does that mean? How do they come together and restore balance? It's such a vague concept that could mean literally anything.

 

No, my position is that Kylo will not likely remain the big bad throughout IX. But for now, he is.

 

Since the KoR are a (somewhat) known quantity already, I'd prefer if the Knights of Ren were shown to be formidable and aligned 100% with Supreme Leader Ren who's also more powerful and corrupt than we last saw him, and together they are the main threat in IX, rather than introducing Grant as a new big bad who has to be defeated beyond Kylo. I think that would be not as effective.

Grant could still be an interesting FO officer or other character without being a master villain. He could be a FO Admiral who plots of overthrow the unstable Kylo Ren, or maybe he's a smuggler/gangster with dubious alliances.

 

So who will be? Kylo killed Snoke and is the supreme leader of FO

 

Yes, I'm perfectly aware that he is the supreme leader, thank you. I don't know who will take over, I simply believe at some point he will no longer be part of the FO. I'm hoping it will be by choice. If he's forcibly removed, I'd like it to be a consequence of consciously betraying the FO in ways that help the Resistance.

 

I never said that you doesn't know. I'm just saying his situation to a redemption is worse now, Vader died to get a "redemption" (although 98% of the galaxy still hate him) and he never was the leader of Empire.

Kylo's first action as Supreme Leader was to go to Crait and try to kill everybody from Resistance (even ordered to shoot in the Falcon).

"Ren, who led the First Order's assault on the Resistance's last redoubt, ordered his soldiers to annihilate his mother's insurgents."

 

It's always darkest before the dawn!

(I'm skeptical of Kylo redemption myself, but just saying. It's not based on what I think the story could do but on what it might be trying to do.)

 

What? The bad guy did bad things? Inconceivable!

 

Kylo going into Ep. 9 as the Supreme Leader does not mean redemption is off the table. Far from it. Based on the way things are set up, Kylo is likely going to be unable to “deny the truth that is his family.”

I think he will be the main antagonist going into the next movie (while there will probably be other more minor antagonist(s)), however, I think he will turn it around in some way. I do not see him continuing as the Supreme Leader or becoming a Palpatine like figure who ends the movie evil and unredeemed.

 

I don't get why you keep replying with irony. There is no reason for the discussion to go in that way

 

And you had no reason to list Kylo's crimes to me, particularly right after I'd acknowledged him as the big bad of IX.