ST Kylo Ren/Adam Driver Discussion Thread

A kiss in at the last minute.

Ben not causing the temple’s destruction was a blatant recon. It was stated in source materials as fact and admitted to by Kylo in TLJ.

Yes, there was more to the story, but I surmised that after TLJ too.

I found this blatantly obvious from my first viewing of TFA. You didn’t have to be reylo or even give a fig about Kylo to see it.

This was clearly established in TFA. The difference is that they think Kylo’s treatment morally absolved him of his sins.

Literally in the SW databank. They don’t get a gold star for basic literacy.

 

They still got a ton right about how the trilogy would go down, and were often shunned away for stating their views. They definitely weren’t predicting Rey Skywalker.

 

Lucasfilm is an absolute embarrassment in regards to this comic. They are either retconning a series of movies that is still in theatres, or they are admitting that RJ and JJ are piss poor storytellers. I'm not sure which is their intention, but it's an inexplicable choice.

 

Neither imo. They're pandering to how some in the fanbase view Kylo Ren to sell this comic. They don't care about anything outside of the bottom line for each individual product. They know 99% of the movie-ticket purchasing consumer base will never even know what happened in this comic. They don't care what it contradicts. They are giving the audience that would care to purchase a Kylo comic the story they think that audience wants. Integrity of the larger story is irrelevant. It doesn't mean they wish RJ or JJ told their stories differently. All they care about for the films is box office. They don't care about the details of Kylo's story.

 

You talk as if all reylos predicted these things. That is not true. And frankly I heard and read a LOT of reylo predictions that were utterly off the mark.

Like, uh, Rey being nobody. Nope. And Rey and Ben living happily ever after. (That was an extremely popular and pervasive one.) Oops.

A subgroup of fandom doesn’t collectively get gold stars for a few correct guesses and seeing what non-reylos could easily see.

 

Rey was born from a clone and a nobody. Is she really even a Palpatine at this point? I honestly have no idea

 

Everyone on BOTH "sides" of the Reylo battle should frankly feel kind of silly for how much time and energy they've spent on this.

Move along... and discuss the topic, NOT other posters.

 

I still want to know why, if Palpatine had a good looking, thirty some odd clone that could sire children, why he didn't take that body, even if it allegedly wasn't Force sensitive.

 

For that exact reason.

 

So, how did Rey get the Force? Is this a muggles having Force kids situation? Also, HOW THE HELL DOES HE KNOW? Also WHY? Also why would Palps care, considering he's got a Sith fleet, his devious brain, and a whole bunch of minions?

(Oh, hell, now I'm thinking of Palps with the Minions and why hasn't Robot Chicken done this?)

 

This became a "muggles having Force kids" situation ever since midi-chlorians were introduced, elaborating on the "the Force is strong in my family" quote. There's clearly a biological component at play with who is or is not Force-sensitive. And how would he know? Because... midi-chlorians, I'm guessing? The explanation for being able to tell if someone is biologically inclined towards Force powers has been here since Lucas added it in 1999. As for why Palps would care, it's clear that his original consciousness, which seems to be his soul (which also seems to be merged with the souls of every previous Sith in a hive mind accumulated from passing from master into apprentice at death), which also seems to be the way he's jumping from one decaying clone body to the next, would not be able to accomplish this feet in a body without the Force sensitivity to do so. If doing so requires an unnatural use of the Force, the body wold have to be able to use the Force for that to work. If not, Palpatine would just die in that non-Force sensitive body.

 

In these films, there's no inherited force sensitivity without a mother. The mother can be FS, like Leia (passing her own force sensitivity to Ben), or not, like Padme (passing Anakin's to Luke and Leia). You can even have just the mother (Shmi), and no father, and it will work.

The connection between Shmi and Anakin, and between Vader and Luke and Luke and Leia, and Leia and Ben - all of them date back to the womb, to pregnancy. Shmi's, Padme's, Leia's. In the novels, Leia start to feel connected to Ben while she's pregnant.

That's 'natural'. Cloning is unnatural, or less-than-natural. That's not how the force works.

I guess Palpatine understood that and set free his son/clone and then followed him, waiting for his grandchild to appear. A child from a womb would have his power - and she (Rey) did.

In the film, he didn't know about the jedi until the very end, and never knew about those jedi talking to Rey in fron of his throne.

A theory of mine is that both things are related.

Maybe the jedi (Anakin) opposed the supernatural to the sith's (Palpatine's) unnatural 'in the shadows, since the beginning'

At some point during pregnancy the so-called 'dyad' was established, and in this way the seed of Rey Skywalker was planted in Empress Palpatine, just as the seed of Kylo Ren was being planted in 10-11 yo Ben Solo. Maybe one thing (darkness rises) was made to cause the other (and light to meet it), and the rise of Skywalker was a thing since the very beginning, at the molecular level. In the films, Ben/Kylo and Rey seem to be inhabiting some kind of immaterial, invisible womb at times. Two that are one.

I mean, those FGs were there since the beginning, and Palpatine never knew about them. Maybe it was Anakin, adopting (or 'stealing') his master's grandchild in this way, with Rey finally adopting 'Skywalker' as her name in return (without knowing the deepest, midichlorian-related sense of that act) There are things stronger than blood, says Luke in TROS, and maybe this was one of them.

 

If midichlorians are like mitochondria, all of them come from the mother. However, a father could have genetics in-universe that cause cells to accommodate a larger midichlorian population. I think there is another question people haven't always asked which is whether midichlorian populations cause or reflect high force sensitivity. A person gifted in the force could, conceivably develop a higher count if you follow the latter interpretation. And hybrid interpretations are also possible.

 

It is a well-documented fact in humans that recessive traits can 'skip' a generation or more and become dominant again in the grandchildren or later descendants.
Maybe Palpy messed up something during the cloning and got the dna config wrong with his son.

 

I mean if you try and run someone over but your pretty sure they'll just jump out of the way it does'nt really change the fact the fact that you tried to run them over.

"But officer, she just jumped out of the road so I don't see what the problem is. Besides, I had a gun and I could have shot her if I wanted to."

I don't have an issue with their realtionship in the films (except, for...you know...) but even I agree this would have been better and more belivable then what we got.

I mean, it still does'nt change the fact that it's a forced violation of someones privacy in a horribly invasive way, and does'nt change the fact that when he uses it on Rey in TFA it's not to save her life.

If fact, the fact that he says Snoke told him about it (and not Luke) could very well indicate that its a taboo and off-limits ability for the Jedi.

Ben having some sort of emotional/anger issues was set up in TFA - "too much Vader in him" and his little hissy fits that he throws at the slightest provication.

I don't remember, but does Aftermath actually say that Ben did'nt know prior to that point, or just that the general public did'nt know?*

The comic also takes place the same year as Aftermath (possibly even at the same time for all we know) so if Ben learning about his ancestory was the impudus for his descent into darkness this all happened very, very fast indeed.

*hell, for all we know Snoke/Palpatine told him years beforehand and he'd just kept it to himself, in which case the damage would already have been done before the reveal.

In last shot he was two years old, and in the Rise of Kylo Ren he's twenty-three, so naturally he's not going to be portrayed the same way.

And it does'nt need to be the Dark Side that he's wrestling with, as opposed to just regular issues. Not only that but Kylo saying the light and dark have been fighting over him his whole life is true from his perspective due to the opposing influances of Palpatine and Luke.

Yeah, I hate to break it to you, but no, no they did'nt - for Ben or for anyone/anything else. I'd say that it should be fairly obvious at this point, but honestly that we all should have figured it out as soon as TFA itself came out and asked a bunch of questions that had no planned answers.

I mean, that's how it works for everyone else, not sure why things would apply differently to Ben Solo.

Well generally when peaple make choices of their own accord they are considered to be at fualt for said actions. Agian, why should Ben be held to different standerds?

Then why not just leave the Order and go off and do his own thing? He was a grown adult by the time he fell and I doubt anyone would have tried to stop him save for possibly Luke - his mother would have supported it and so would Tai based on what we're shown of him, while Han would'nt have given a **** either way.

You don't honestly think that when the peaple behind the story created that nickname for him they envisioned him killing just one Jedi?

The films and all other expanded works up to this point have made it quite clear that Kylo was responsable for the massacure - to the point were Kylo himself admitted doing it.

This is'nt a case of "peaple just made the wrong assumptions" - its a retcon, plain and simple.

This is'nt a ST-only issue; Qui-Gon's ghost never tries to communicate with Anakin, and Obi-Wan (and Yoda) only show up to Luke rarely at very specific points. However Force ghosts work them appearing defiantly is'nt as easy as popping into the neighbors house for a cup of afternoon tea.

I mean, I agree that the comic's route with this was bad and conflicts with the intent of the films, but Luke's vision still works in this sense - it just becomes one he that his own actions played a role allowing to come true.

And the comic does have Ben admit that he was already thinking about defecting the Jedi for the Knights of Ren beforehand despite know exactly what kind of peaple they were, so the darkness was defiantly there already Luke went to sense it.

If you asked a great many actors who played villians about how they feel about there charactor they'd probobly give you similier answers - they have to get into the charecters head and understand their POV in order to make them work. That does'nt make their charecters not villians.

She's as much a Palpatine as any potential child of Boba Fett is a Fett, or any potential child of Thomas Riker is a Riker.

Share your pain...share your pain with me and gain strength from it...

Pictured - one of Palpatine's minions

The way there explained they don't come from either parent, but just exist in a number relative to the strength of one's Force connection.

The comic dipicts Snoke (who is probobly a direct puppet of Palpatine if the excerpts to the TROS novel are anything to go by) as talking to him during his early training with Luke, and so far that is the earliest point of commication we know of between them; it's hard to say when exactly the comic flashback in question take place, but Luke looks closer to his TLJ flashback self then his ROTJ self (as opposed to a different flashback in the comics were he looks closer to the latter) and Ben himself looks to be a preteen.

Not so far, no. In fact in the flashback mentioned above is super obvious Luke has no idea that he's talking to Snoke.

However the second issue of the comic does reveal that Snoke and Luke have apparently met (or at least that Ben thinks they have) and that Snoke's injuries are due to Luke (but since the Snoke clones in TROS are already scarred, however, and Snoke/Palpatine have a clear agenda to make Luke appear as bad as possible in Ben's eyes, its possible that this was just a lie that Snoke fed Ben at some point)

 

Qui-Gon doesn't explain how midichlorian counts vary. He does indicate that parentage can play a role. That doesn't exclude the possibility that training or other activities could boost or diminish one's MC. All we can infer is that a person with a high count has high potential.

They are microscopic lifeforms that are symbionts with all living things in the GFFA. They are found in all living cells. They "speak" to living beings telling them the will of the force, in Qui-Gon's words. One hears them when the mind is quiet. Life could not exist without the midichlorians. They are the source of knowledge about the Force.

It's not clear how literal all of this is, but if they can bring about a conception to balance the Force, there is an implication that they are individually or collectively intelligent. However that's not absolutely a required reading.

Had Lucas' treatments been followed closely, we'd presumably learn how the midichlorians are connected to the Whills. The Whills are apparently self-aware aspects or constituents of the Force itself. But these elements are unclear because we only have behind the scenes comments, and we never got the real exposition.

 

The Aftermath Trilogy occurs within a few years or so after ROTJ. The Bloodline novel occurs 6 years before TFA and there are a few paragraphs after the Vader reveal in the Senate of Leia's anguish in desperately trying to contact Ben - but unsuccessfully. The paragraphs literally describe her worry in that she had never told this to Ben. This "little secret" was only known by Luke (obviously), Leia and Han - maybe Lando and Chewie too, but that is not stated anywhere in any material; Im just presuming with the last 2.

And Leia deliberately withheld this from him.

As for the so-called "non set-up" of the Ben Solo / Kylo Ren, maybe you need to watch the documentary on TFA dvd under the extras bit - JJ and Adam Driver describe the basis of this character; particularly with his relationship with his parents. Because if the VD's and the "Art of...." books are an acceptable and valid reference point for the broadstroke ideas behind the narrative, plot points and characters, then so are the documentary's describing and showing the journey they go on in developing, creating and producing the cinematic films.

So yes, there was a broadstroke "general introduction" to the Ben Solo / Kylo Ren character back in 2014/2015. There were some base concepts and ideas laid down in who he was, the journey he was on and some aspects of his life.

 

No. He wasn't training her.

 

Worst part is, it doesn't have to be silly; there's cool discussion to be had regarding real-world motivations and behaviour, if certain people - some staff included - were more receptive to alternative viewpoints and didn't approach things with such a "knowing" rigidity. It's frustrating and somewhat saddening to watch.

 

He literally said he was testing her so she could see her true power.