ST Rey & Kylo Ren in Episode IX

I don't know why Kylo is getting the credit for saving Rey from turning to the darkside. She stops herself.

 

It’s a control issue. She’s pulling herself back from it. Luke did as well. Anakin did briefly earlier into his journey to the dark side. It’s up and down until they commit in one direction fully. Ben was likely similar earlier into his life. Glimpses of the dark side during training. The Force Awakens novel said she was at the edge of the dark side at the end there.

The dark side of her is drawn to him as well as the light for totally different goals and reasons but she’s further onto the light side of the spectrum overall.

 

If she were going closer to the dark side, an understandable response to Kylo's actions would be an attempt to murder him, or even an attempt at strategy to use him to take out Snoke, not thoughtfully hearing him out and coming to bring him to the good guys because he showed up shirtless one time. As much as Last Jedi tells me she went straight to the dark, it doesn't actually mean anything for her actions.

 

1. She’s regained control of her dark side by the time she’s left Ahch-To and listened to Luke, handed out the saber and given him her final chance to change her mind.

2. Even if she hadn’t... many dark siders try to anger potential apprentices as part of the recruitment process. It must have some level of success. Her grandfather tried it on Luke as well and likely will on her in the end. They’re trying to change them based on their main weakness while making them feel welcomed after the change and that they can teach them the ways of the force and help them find their destinies. He offered to show her the ways of the Force first and started her on the dark side path she’s going to continue to struggle and try to repress into IX.

 

She never lost control to her dark side in a significant manner. Touching hands by the fire while cooing how you're not alone for non-manipulative reasons isn't exactly a dark side act. Even the cave, though labeled a dark side cave, is pretty insubstantial in this regard and never really matters when it comes to a dark side struggle. Everything to do with her supposed pull to the dark in Last Jedi feels like lip service squeezed in there because struggling with the dark side is an obligatory thing she has to do as a Jedi protagonist. The most we get is her smacking Luke in the back of the head, and then it's over 5 seconds later.

 

It even realized it was stupid in film when Leia asks him why he has to go - which seemed to make the odds feel longer.

LFL tried but they screwed the pooch in the ST. If JJ can make TROS passable he deserves an award. The rumors so far still have wiggle room to pull it off.

 

To expound on my previous post, the premise that keeps being put forth that Kylo heroically stops Rey from killing Palpatine (and thus falling to the darkside) does not fit the revised JP leaks.

Rey is not striking Palpatine in anger. She is striking him because there is no way around this (which is obviously a very accurate read of the situation). Ben doesn't stop her from trying to kill Palpatine; he joins her. Ben doesn't stop her from falling to the darkside; she overcomes that obstacle on her own when she stabs/heals Ben. He doesn't help her kill Palpatine; Ben's long gone by the time Palpatine is dispatched. He's pretty much a useless tool, other than a proxy by which Rey's powers are diminished and Palpatine's are strengthened, making things harder for her. He's not the hero of this scene, even by a longshot. Sorry, Jack Dawson.

Oh, and since I'm copying and pasting from the JP document anyway....

 

Even if everything happens precisely as in the leaks, with no additional context, missing plotlines or hidden twists...I would give this movie a 10/10 for having this moment. Beautiful. Poetic cinema. I'll cry.

 

This is not a sign of someone who’s firmly in control and free of dark side risk and that was precisely the point. It’s growing within her.



She’s still able to keep it in check... but it’s going to become harder in IX.

EDITED TO ADD: Everything related to the Rey/Ben/Sidious finale is going to come down to execution. It’s difficult to do anything more than speculate on possibilities of the tone and nuance and intent that will ultimately be there.

 

It's a token moment that doesn't feel naturally built to, nor is followed up on in any meaningful way. That's the issue with it. The film failed to make me feel like she was at risk or even particularly struggling with it. A large part of that comes from tossing aside a logical opening for her dark side struggle in favour of her crying over Kylo's soul. It tosses in dialogue about her going straight to the dark, but it never really cares to elaborate on what that means for her or how it impacts her decisions. If TROS is to give her a dark side struggle, as it seems to be doing, it's going to have to make me believe it and also resolve it in one film.

 

lmao I'm starting to love that line so much I'll be lowkey disappointed if they don't have a narrator come out of nowhere and say "Never to be seen again" when Kylo meets his fate. Get Ron Howard to do it. He's part of the SW family and he does a good job narrating Arrested Development.

 

There was a happy ending which Kylo destroyed. The new happy ending would be the monster Kylo destroyed. He stays in his pit. Maybe there’s a Sarlaac in it.

 

The next film will get into the struggle of it more and allow fans of the ST to look back at these kinds of moments differently and as glimpses leading up to the dark side development of Rey Palpatine in IX.

So long as they aren’t siblings or cousins, keeping the hand sex scene more sexually tinged between two consenting adults, and celebrated as such for all time, and so long as she heals him and he changes and travels across the galaxy to help her I’m fine with his fate because I always expected he’d die trying to selflessly put her first as he moves from the monster to the more Jack Dawson-like Ben Solo her light side saw when she entered his mind and wanted to get know more.

The Rey Palpatine aspect just makes it all the more interesting for the dark side bond as well. I’m assuming her father never wanted her to have his last name and perhaps didn’t go by his last name either so her choosing the name at the end is a great touch and I’ll be happy that the Skywalker name will live on through her while still honoring what I like about her and Ben not being related. Some fans can have it both ways and I’ll be one of them from the sounds of it.

 

Daisy just doesn’t understand Rey and Kylo like the Reylos do. She’s out of the loop!

 

You know how Ben Solo chose the darkside in the first place so he probably wasn't Mr. Saintly McWonderful you are advertising and that Rey supposedly saw?

 

Seriously, is there any romance that is safe from being co-opted by Reylos? How in hell is Jack from Titanic in any way like Kylo? He’s Billy Zane’s character.

 

He’s not Jack Dawson in the present at all. He’s an awful human being right now. He will be a good, selfless, romantic Jack Dawson who puts her needs first by the end of IX.

He’s going to move from combining the worst parts of his father and grandfather amplified:











To hopefully having the best of Han & Anakin amplified in him before his end. So that when Lucasfilm inevitably brings him back in novels and comics and shows that his pit training saved him we get to see the atoning hero he could be.

 

Cuz awful human beings, psychos who kill their fathers and commit genocide, abduct, torture, and manipulate their crush, just magically turn into romantic jack dawsons on the flip of a switch once they realize they’ve been a bad boy.

If Kylo is redeemed, the good part thats still in him should return. We don’t know what that even is, but it sure as hell isn’t jack dawson. And its not like Kylo can just invent a new Ben personality out of thin air either.

Ben should be a person who feels tremendous guilt and shame. That’s not something Jack Dawson exhibited. By insisting on this Jack turnaround you’re leaving out the parts that would be necessary for that redemption to have any hope of working.

 

No, he will never be Jack Dawson. Jack Dawson clearly was a good person and never going to be a piece of crap. Just because Kylo Ben stops being an utter piece of crap for half an hour doesn`t mean he gets to co-opt monikers like "heroic", "selfless" or "good". If you throw them around that cheaply, they have no worth and no meaning anymore. And it utterly devalues anyone who legit earned them. And all in pursuit of glorifying Ben Solo who is at best nothing right now.

 

When he becomes Ben Solo it will be invented from Driver. If he channels a little bit of Han at his best and less Han at his worst, and more of Anakin pre-fall at his best and less him at his worst, and combines it with a little bit of Jack Dawson it will be a winning mix!

Not only for IX but more importantly for the EU when he’s shown to have survived later.

 

He can`t invent a persona. It`s obvious Kylo Ren will at least share traits with Ben Solo. As such, he won`t have charisma or a sense of humor or anything that Kylo Ren never ever displayed. That would be ludicrous. You expect some Prince Charming that whitewashes Ben Solo even more. You want a Kylo-stan version not a believable version.

 

It’s going to have to be more exaggerated to better separate the two since there’s not the mask transition to fall back on. JJ said this not too long ago...

- JJ Abrams

This will be the Ben Solo who has comics and books (hopefully a mini series some day) when it is eventually shown in those materials that his pit training saved him.

 

So basically cheating? Everyone is supposed to forget the whiny incel trash with a chip on his shoulder and should just swoon over sweet, romantic little Benny? Good luck with that. Not killing that twit off would be one more disgrace. Unless those future books and comics would have him beaten the snot out of him and humiliated and shunned in every single one of them. They should drag him through the mud ten times as much as they did Han and Luke.

 

Kylo Ren is Ben Solo’s personality. They are the same person. Theres no before personality coming back. And people just don’t invent new ones our of thin air

 

They will absolutely be cheating. I expect it and also that it will work surprisingly well.

Speaking of narrative cheats... May I present “Rey Skywalker.” Which I feel will also go down better than many think.