ST Kylo Ren/Adam Driver Discussion Thread

Such a tell - that’s a true Kylo fan. If someone tells me they think that it’s the most beautifully emotional moment in nine SW films, as Nina Garcia would say on Project Runway, I question their taste level.

 

Videos and articles like the above are why some of us protest so strongly against Rey and Kylo's relationship in the ST. The fact that people (including RJ himself) describe Kylo's treatment of Rey as anything but abusive is quite disturbing. It is an incredibly damaging message. The fact that people defend it as "just being a movie for kids" is mind boggling... if anything, that makes getting this right 100 times more important.

 

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the overall story the ST tells and the more I think about the character of Ben Solo, the more I realize just how non-Vader he is and how non-Anakin his saving grace is. I believe the evil state of his character was intended to be inexcusable, and that’s why, I think, choices were made to avoid explaining his fall outside of Snokatine’s influence. They were intending to avoid audience sympathy. It’s conceivable that audiences might think or hope that he’s somehow salvageable because of emotional investment in the family, but not that they should find any avenue for justifying his existence except as a foil. His heart in TROS is not ennobled as he is not a fundamentally heroic character like Anakin. Rather, it is overpowered, first by Leia’s sacrificial Force Distraction, then by Rey’s choice to heal him, and then by the memory of his father. His sacrifice at the end was not a moment of spiritual fulfillment, but spiritual clarity. Whereas Vader always knew what he wanted and believed he permanently destroyed it until Luke’s presence showed him otherwise, Kylo never really knew what he wanted and believed he never would, until he realized that Rey’s life was important to him.

 

I advise against reading the clickbait articles that are completely mischaracterizing and flat-out making stuff up about both the video and a few vague tweets.

Here is the video where Daisy says she was told who her parents were when TFA was filming:


The more recent interview vid should be much easier to find. But she’s very very vague about the timeline and does not contradict what she previously said.

 

Didn't Daisy do a web interview just after TROS came out where she said they changed it from Kenobi to Palpatine? It seems like she "knew" it was Kenobi in TFA, only for it to get changed.

 

She said after TFA that it was obvious whose child she was. If it was, why did I see two years of fighting on Tumblr?

 

@JoJoPenelli



Yeah, she had no idea because it kept changing. At the 2:20 mark she says that even going into TROS they weren't sure who she was related to.

"It kept changing."
-Daisy Ridley-

 

It doesn't matter who your second protagonist is, or who they're even related to, or not related to.

 

She said Kenobi was being tossed around but she never said when. It could have been in the early concept stage. She was extremely vague for a reason. And she’s never said who Rey was during TFA, prior to RJ apparently making her nobody.

ETA:

Nothing Daisy says here contradicts her prior statement that JJ told her Rey’s parentage in TFA.

It’s very clear to my that Daisy is not at liberty to be straightforward about who JJ meant Rey to be circa TFA.

 

Well, I'm gonna keep saying that they had no idea who her parents/grandparents were because that's what she said. And I quote Daisey Ridley, "It kept changing." And when she says that, she means leading up to TROS. The context of that quote, which I will type out again, "IT KEPT CHANGING" is during the lead up to TROS, the final movie of the ST. So for you to make the claim that Daisy "knew" all the way back in TFA that her gandfather was Palpatine goes against what she JUST SAID in that interview.

You can feel free to infer that her words don't actually mean what they mean all you want, but I'm not going to join you in your alternate reality.

 

I never said she knew her parentage was Palps in TFA. Daisy never said what her parentage was in TFA.

Clearly, what she was told - what was true - in TFA changed.

Her two interviews are not contradictory.

 

Then I ask the question I posed before, what use is "knowing something" if it turns out not to be true?

If I tell you I'm buying a red car and so you tell other people that I'm going to buy a red car and I end up changing my mind and buying a blue car, would you still tell people you knew what color car I was going to buy?

"I knew he was going to buy a red car."

"But his car is blue."

"...I still knew."

Doesn't make any sense. Words have meaning. She may have THOUGHT she knew, but she didn't know.

 

It was true at the time Daisy was told it. Then it changed. The fact that it later changed does not retcon what JJ told her into a lie.

You truthfully told me you intended to buy a red car, then your intent changed and you bought a blue car.

No. I knew you intended to buy a red car.

You appear to be working under the assumption that the parentage Daisy was told in TFA had no impact on how JJ wrote TFA. I’m note sure why you’d think that.

 

I literally watched a TEDtalk video where JJ compared his own movies to cheap junk you can buy at a magic shop, so when I say that JJ uses mystery boxes as a trick to get people to care even though he himself doesn't invest much in it, I know what I'm talking about. And when you compound on this the fact that JJ abandoned his first "mystery box" for another, it's not exactly helping your argument that he cared. He didn't care enough to keep it.

And more importantly, what use did it do Daisy to "know" where Rey came from if it ended up changing anyway?

 

Try bashing JJ to someone who cares in a conversation where it’s relevant.

Depends if one cares how films are developed. There are entire “making of” books for the OT and PT because many fans are interested how they were made. It’s fine if you’re not, ofc! But the fact that many are isn’t exactly a mystery.

The making of the ST strikes me as having been a cluster-*bleep* and to a degree I find it interesting why it was a cluster-*bleep.*

 

i don't feel sorry for him when he kills his father in much the same way as i don't feel sorry for Vader when he kills Padme. or indeed any character in a similar scene in any drama or literature.. i don't feel sorry for Hamlet or any other tortured soul whose commited acts most foul, but i do find them intensely dramatic and interesting

 

Kylo's beef with the galaxy, and himself, is that he's a half-blood prince.

I think they could have made Ben Solo someone who desperately wanted to rebuild the Jedi Order, but his major hang up is that he's not as powerful as he thinks he should be in order to accomplish this task. He can't escape the fact that while one side of him descends from the Chosen One, and is powerful, the other side is without any force ability whatsoever. And maybe he could be as powerful as Anakin, or Luke, (they had a non-force sensitive mother) but because he's focused on his resentment of his own father, he's not as strong as he could be. Maybe have him be someone who thinks the Order needs to be led by Skywalkers, all while Luke is determined to give up that power. He's determined to find nobodies across the galaxy, who simply believe in themselves, and find someone else to lead the Order. And that's Ben's problem. A lack of faith. (Kind of like...his father)

Hell...maybe that's what sends Ben over the edge. Luke finds a new leader, someone not in the family, and doesn't want to give the reigns over to Ben (for obvious reasons) and that hurts Ben. He thinks the Order, much like the Anakin saber, is his. And now that it won't be, he decides to destroy it all. He sets up his own Order, becomes Kylo Ren, and find his own knights.

And this would work great against a protagonist like Rey. A literal nobody. With no powerful parents. Who no inheritance. No legacy to rebuild. Who eventually finds Luke again, and gets trained. Those are motivations we can understand as an audience. The stakes are obvious.

But alas. That's not what he got.

 

Why is every single idea I hear on here about the ST better than what we got?

 

Weird right? It's like they're so close. yet sooooooooo far away at the same time.

 

Ben Solo could have been the only legacy child in the ST - but if so, not a villain.

Funny how those who claimed Rey could be the protag of the ST without being a Skywalker later turned around and argued that Ben Solo was the true protag because....he was a Skywalker.