ST General Hux/Domhnall Gleeson Discussion Thread

I love the fact that he was so petty that he was willing to let the whole first order fall I thought that fit his character very well. In a way he actually got what he wanted and saved the galaxy

 

You could tell he hated Kylo Ren from the start and thought he was gaining ground on him in importance. Working under him was his nightmare. Love that he betrayed him after VIII showed him considering shooting him while he was down.

 

At first, I thought they were really trying to redeem him in IX. That's too much to accept. He's one of the most evil characters of all-time in the Star Wars galaxy. I can accept Vader and Ren going back to the light, Armitage Hux is too much. But him wanting Kylo Ren to lose was a very Hux thing. His life is very miserable by IX, what does have to lose?

 

I liked him as the mole but I was conflicted on how immediately it went from reveal to conclusion. On the one hand his cover was so bad that it would bother me if they didn’t shoot him on the spot, on the other hand I was hoping the fact that he was genuinely surprised at where the escapees shot him would make the wound more convincing, so that he could at least live to see his sabotage come to fruition. The guy needed a win after the previous movie.

 

I thought Kylo was gonna be the one to kill him so I was pleasantly surprised they found a more unexpected & clever way for him to go.

 

Apparently the reason Hux is demoted in TROS has to do with his failure which you can see at Rise of the Resistance at Disneyworld/Disneyland so looking forward to that.

"I'm the spy!" is probably one of the biggest laughs in the film.

It's interesting that Hux is not comedic at all in Force Awakens, I think he's just a zealot nutter and his speech is genuinely freaky. But Gleeson is such a strong comedic actor that him being comedy relief in TLJ and TROS actually works better. This isn't to say he's entirely stripped of menace, his cold command to fire on the fleeing Resistance ships is pretty great. And his "I just want Kylo Ren to lose!" line, not comedic but genuinely spiteful, actually lines up with the conflict back in TFA because they hate each other in basically every scene.

 

He should have got a better death. Falling into a Sarlacc or something.

 

TLJ did so much harm to this character that Abrams had to create a copy so the copy can kill the wasted original.

 

Okay, I'll say it: I thought he was going to get eaten by a giant ninja turrtle?

 

I liked that he was a spy for petty reasons rather than for genuine altruistic reasons. Separate him from other deserters. Too bad he died literally in the next scene without any reverence. I liked Hux and Kylo's adversarial relationship throughout the trilogy and a consistent aspect of this trilogy.

 

I really liked the twist in this movie, which was genuinely surprising. But they had set us up to expect a conflict of some kind. I've always wanted more of this character, and in his role TROS did not disappoint. Another thing I liked about it was how his defection showed an inherent flaw to Snoke and Kylo Ren's leadership approach. An ongoing theme in Star Wars is how evil can be self-defeating. Hux turning against him in this catastrophic way is also a consequence to Kylo Ren for killing Snoke. This was the most interesting thing they could have done, and they did it well.

 

Hux trying to use the Force from the DOTF draft.

 

I was kind of surprised (not in a good way) to see that his main motivation for going through the risky process of becoming a mole for the Resistance is just so he could take Kylo Ren off his throne. I mean in previous films he seemed so indoctrinated into having a sense of pride and dedication for the victory of the FO. Why then would he simply abandon all that devotion just to see one man he hates fall?? That's incredibly shortsighted. I would've thought someone like him would have tried to usurp Kylo Ren in some way (which wouldn't involve turning to their enemies for help), or at least dealing with whomever is in charge, as long as he could see his beloved FO be victorious. Once I heard him reveal he was the mole, and then explain he was only doing it to see Kylo Ren fall-my first reaction was at how petty he was being!

If I'm missing something here, anyone please feel free to clarify this for me!

 

The FO needed a foreboding officer at or near the top. Someone capable of planning a giant can of whoop *** at the Resistance's doorstep without simply using mega weapons or a billion star destroyers. That would have contrasted nicely with Kylo Ren's explosively unhinged personality. I would have much rather seen them use Gleeson in that manner.

 

Snoke had kept the two of them from ever ousting each other but he did stoke their mutual rivalry and hatred. Without Snoke to force him to accept Kylo Ren, Hux clearly sees it as his prerogrative to get rid of this usurper. Hux clearly never thought Kylo had a right to the status of supreme leader, he accepted it under duress. Based on what we see at the end of The Last Jedi, he clearly questions Kylo Ren's competence as Supreme Leader and from what we see he is at least partially right. Hux is megalomaniacal too, but he is a true believer and his contempt comes from a sincere (though sincerely evil) place. Like Darth Vader, Kylo Ren puts his personal agenda ahead of the cause at times and like certain Imperial officers of old, Hux finds this despicable.

My impression is that by the time of ROS, Hux is so inwardly determined to get Kylo Ren out of the way, he is willing to put the whole First Order at risk. For a few minutes I hoped he had actually become good, but the dialogue between him and Finn actually makes sense. He's just undermining the jerk who stole his job and now bullies him from his undeserved position. That's how I believe General Hux looks at things.

It's great because it underscores an important theme for Star Wars as a morality play or a parable or fairly tale or myth. It's the self-defeating principle inherent within evil. I really liked this turn with his character and I would have been disappointed if he hadn't somehow taken revenge in this movie.

 

I loved Hux. Gleeson was great. Gleeson perfectly portrayed the rabid devotee that Hux was. So devoted to the cause, and so blinded by the cause, that he had become so naive of even his general surroundings, that even when exposed for the corrupt evil entity that it was, he still could not separate his devotion any more than to serve his own interests. Gleeson brought so much life to General Hux. The character could easily have become no more memorable than most standard Imperial officers that had been force choked.

 

Sing it, our boy!



saw this post here


Good point that Hux's clothes are relatively baggy and unkempt next to Pryde's crisp clean uniform.

 

Hux's message from the TROS junior novelization

 

Hux went from a menacing villain to a complete joke. After he was trolled by Poe and made to slide on his stomach by Snoke, did anyone take him seriously.

You never use your core villains as comic relief.

 

I feel like Johnson wanted to keep TLJ from being too excessively dark and in the process lightened the tone a bit more than some of us would have preferred. In the case of Hux, I could have preferred it to be a little less. But I think part of it was that Hux is a really scary character and this is one of those things where representational issues as I call them may have compromised the film in a way. By that I mean, he wanted to make Hux a little less scary because of what Hux might represent to audiences about extremists in real life. I might be wrong about this, but I think that might have been an issue considering the time when the movie was made. Extremists were in the news a lot during 2016 and 2017, and people were scared of them.

Excesses aside, I think having Hux become more resentful of Kylo Ren and more frustrated in his sincere desire to enhance the First Order helped to set up the final film. I think it was certainly intended for the rivalry to bear fruit and I am glad they used this in The Rise of Skywalker. Another point worth noting is that the scene where Snoke dresses Hux down, althogh it is over the top, emphasizes both his level of power and his abusive nature with Hux as well as Kylo Ren. Although Palpatine is very cruel in the right moments, it seems like Snoke is more brutal and abusive by nature.

EDIT: Another reason for the scene of Poe embarrassing Hux is that it's a parallel to the first movie. He was a smart alec in the face of Kylo Ren and now he's talking smack to General Hux as well. To me the humor wasn't exactly the right species for Star Wars, but to have some kind of joke there was still, in a way, kind of right.

 

Did two deck officers run up and drag Hux's body away after he died?

I would hope so. I always liked that fine tradition and the idea that there were always two officers behind Vader whose job it was to drag away his victims to keep the decks nice and clean.

 

Spot on. I can't stand what they did with him.