ST Kylo Ren/Adam Driver Discussion Thread

The entire point of the Luke/Vader story is the son redeeming the father. Comparing Luke/Vader to Rey/Kylo is pointless imo. They are 2 different stories. Yoda and Obi Wan want Luke to kill Vader. This is not murder; they are at war and millions of people are dying. Luke says "I cannot kill my own father." That is a real reason which gives the story weight. Not "I had a vision, which we won't even bother showing the audience."

 

And what made Luke's love even more potent is the fact Vader was never made overly sympathetic even in ROTJ. While Vader didn't wibble wobble his lips, you did see Vader staring out into the Endor forest after having the conversation with Luke on the catwalk, which is all you needed to know that there was conflict in Vader. Kylo really needed a more subtle scene like the Luke and Vader catwalk conversation IMO.

 

Even worse than her leaving him there is that we don’t see her make the decision to do so! How many posts have you read basically saying “well, she’d have to carry him” when she levitates a field of boulders ten minutes later. Poe gets punished for losing some bombers (which is less than Holdo did later in the film but I digress) but Rey doesn’t get even called on leaving Kylo there. She allegedly knows Leia wants him back. She sure as hell knows that he will lead the First Order after she’s gone and her “mission” is to fix him so she just leaves him there? Why?

(I’m also still hung up on why she has Snoke’s shuttle full of Maker knows how much intel on the First Order and that just gets lost along the way too.)

Vader saying “it’s too late for me, my son” is a hundred times better than all the moments of Kylo whining about how he’s conflicted because James Earl Jones and Mark Hamill sell that scene like the rent is due in five minutes, when Hamill is reacting to Prowse and Jones is reading the lines months later in a recording booth. They should have gotten way more credit for it, especially now when TROS shows you how ROTJ could have gone off the rails.

 

The range of inflection JEJ gets out of Vader's voice is truly remarkable.

 

Vader has been terrifying the galaxy for 20 years. they are still filling in details of how many people he killed in canon. it could be argued he is a little tired at that point to say anything more than "its too late for me son", its been too late for a long time now. Kylo is still fairly new, he is very much looking forward as a young man, while Vader had already been through that and was looking back. obviously being much older and more experienced.

 

It also serves to exemplify The Last Jedi's complete lack of interest in Rey as her own character.

Rey says, more or less, that she is going to try to turn Kylo Ren for the sake of the Resistance yet she lets him live after he has made it abundantly clear that he is not going to turn and that he intends to destroy the Resistance along with everything else he deems a part of the past, and the film doesn't think it's important to devote even a single line to address this contradiction between her expressed motivation and her actions, let alone a scene. That's how little it cared about Rey's motivation.

It doesn't even think it would be worthwhile to expand and explore Rey's character by including a scene where she tries to think about a way to take him captive and struggles with the decision of whether to kill him or not because she knows what the consequences will be if she lets him live.

(Quite frankly, it feels like the film isn't interested in Rey's character, let alone in exploring her character, unless it's about working it in conjunction to another character, such as Luke or Kylo Ren)

The film didn't think that it was worthwhile to give that kind of attention to someone who is the main character of the film and of the trilogy as a whole.

 

Not really. It isn't about disinterest in Rey's motivation, it's Rian's economic style. It's similar to "where is Rey" cut to Rey on Ahch-to and "where is Han" cut to Kylo on Supremacy. It eliminates repeating the information we know, but it also robs us of character's emotional reaction to the information. So in case of Rey leaving Kylo alive, I understand that from his POV it's telling enough that she spared him, we didn't have to see her standing above him pondering what to do and why. I disagree because I think that part was needed for the audience to experience emotional reaction (like in case of Luke's reaction to Han's death for example) but I also understand that his decision wasn't disinterest in Rey. It's simply his style. if he thinks something is clear, he won't extra clarify it if you know what I mean. That's why I find his movies remote. I'm always for more of Peter Jackson-like emotion milking than efficiency that leaves one cold.

 

Pretty much. in TROS we didn't need to watch Rey figure out she was gonna go to the death star alone, we didn't need a sign she had to think about whether to wait for her friends or not because they are her friends. they cut to her travelling to it was really all you needed to know what decision she made.

 

Rian ‘s economic style is one of bloated overpriced items (Canto Bight) while completely ignoring the smaller more important character moments such as your where’s Han and Rey contemplating killing Kylo. Those moments are worth more than all of Canto Bight to their characters so if that is his economic style then it makes me think of awful big corporations where the produce the big and flashy stuff but forget about the actual quality items.

 

Excellent point. If it was Kylo deciding what to do with Rey, we would have seen it.

 

Case in point, the film didn't think it was important to include a scene of Rey deciding not to kill the new big bad, even though she knows it'll be a decision that will be paid in blood, but it did think it was important enough to include a scene of Kylo Ren waking up and reacting - a scene that, by the way, gives time to Hux considering whether or not to kill Kylo Ren while he's unconscious.

 

I think the point was to show Hux's reaction to snokes death. which was always gonna be in question since Hux also answered to Snoke. and Kylos taking the supreme leader role and making Hux answer to him now. and the thing with Hux thinking about killing Kylo was comedy lets be honest. the pay off was that Kylo woke up and Hux acted all innocent.

Kylo being alive in general shows Rey made her decision. the only thing it doesn't do is please those who wanted to see Rey pick a side through onscreen thought.

 

I think some may think it doesn't give emotional context to the character of Rey and her decision making. I don't fully think similarly about that scene specifically, but I think that's in other parts of the movie for the character.

 

I always liked how disappointed Vader was when the falcon escapes to hyperspace at the end of ESB. He didn't even kill anyone, that's how bummed he was.

 

Man, the discussion goes quick in here!

 

Would you believe me if I said this was a slow week?

No joke, I've seen this thread jump through three pages or more in a single day.

 

Also an excellent point. And, as I recall, Domhnall Gleeson had to fight to get that scene in.

 

Me too!

 

Rey was not seen making the choice of not killing Kylo because of her 'you failed him by thinking his choice was made' to Luke (Luke losing it for two seconds in the hut) Either a)she had simplified things after her vision or b)this was a proof of Luke's attitude in the hut being the correct one. Kylo had to die, he was beyond turning.

Rey chose a). Luke was right: 'this is not going to go thecway you think'. But Luke-in-the-hut was still wrong.

Ben was still there as a possibility, and the films proved her right. Retrospectively, that's how she survived TROS, by not killing him in TLJ.