ST The Knights of Ren talk only

Read the last couple of pages of this thread

 

I think the KOR were an opportunity (a lost one) to have a new faction of darkside villains whom were not the Sith, and perhaps had a different set of values/codes. That would have been something different and interesting to explore. Instead they are (seemingly) a red herring, and a creation of Palaptine... and they can't even give Kylo Ren/Ben a fight that's more challenging than Snoke's Pretorian Guards in TLJ. Makes you wonder what the point was at all really...

 

I looked up "missed opportunity" in the online Oxford English Dictionary, and got this image:

 

Palpatine communicated directly with allegiant general pryde.

 

Latest issue of Crimson Reign gave us a good look of the Knights during the Dark Times, and was one of the most interesting additions to their lore, I think!

Spoiler

The Knights were, apparently, rivals to the Sith at some point. They are now far below what they used to be, confirming this air of street gang that we've seen of them in earlier sources... one that keeps a low profile in order to avoid the Sith´s attention. They are basically untrained (but not incapable) in the Force, and have members of different races and gender.

All in all, I´m quite interested in learning more about them. There was a good insight to what they were, and what they strive to be again, even if they seem to know everything above petty pillaging is out of their reach at this point. Their interaction with the Sith seem to be definitely worth exploring in this era.

 

Not sure if this is old EU or old concepts from George Lucas for the movies. But at some point didn’t the origin of the Sith involve pirates who could use the Force. They start using the dark side to loot and plunder which quickly scales up to taking over worlds.

Also there are hints in The Clone Wars that the Sith are responsible for eliminating other groups of Force users. The Sith go in as allies that can work together to become more powerful. The Sith learn the other group’s knowledge in the Force. And once they max out they wipe out the other group.

Sounds like Kyle’s Knights of Ren could have a lot in common with the early Sith.

 

I thought the Sith came from an actual alien species, with a Sith home world, and then overtaken by fallen Jedi who started a Sith religious order.

I don't remember pirates being part of it.

 

The Knights of Ren were probably never closer to reclaiming past glory than their position in the First Order under Kylo as Supreme Leader.

I'd like to know what their past incarnation was like that apparently was a worthy rival to the Sith.

 

If I recall… that was mentioned in a supposed early draft of ROTS, where Palpatine/Sidious was funding some villainous pirates (can’t remember if they had force powers) to cause mayhem on the shipping lanes etc. If I remember rightly, this was part of the draft that had Anakin going around assassinating Jedi.

 

That’s not what I was referring to.

 

If they had stuck with Lucas' theorized premise of the Criminal-Pirate Underworld taking control in the power-vacuum...then the Knights of Ren could have simply been the hired-guns, the knights, of some crime lord new baddie. They could have even been force users, but all mostly untrained, and almost just as chaotic as Kylo Ren (who he himself is largely untrained due to leaving Luke too early)

 

Like I mentioned, that’s the only time I recall evil pirate types in relation to live action films specifically. Other than that, I think the Sith have always been envisaged as a splinter group of the Jedi.

 

I think the Lost Tribe of the Sith, from Fate of the Jedi (gang of Sith, marooned on a low-tech planet for thousands of years before being rediscovered by a sapient Sith meditation sphere ship, and pointed back in the direction of the stars) probably had to do a lot of pirating to build up their fleet, not having any ship facilities of their own.

Probably began with some in the Meditation sphere stopping and capturing a random armed freighter, then the sphere and the freighter worked together to capture something bigger, and so on, and so on, for a year or two.

 

This would be the earliest Sith began more or less as pirates. Within like a generation they are taking over planets. Not that Sith roll in first as pirates and up their aggression to over throwing worlds.

Once the Sith are established as conquerors they do shoot straight to taking over worlds.

What I’m referring to about Sith with a pirate origin is probably info I read in the 90s regarding George Lucas’s early drafts for the the original Star Wars movie. Maybe that was in the Star Wars Annotated Screenplays.

Anyway an earlier post said something about the Knights of Ren that reminded me of this.

 

TKOR are featured in the current crop of marvel comics set between ESB and ROTJ.

 

Does anyone understand the timeline of what the plan was for the Knights? This is my understanding :

-TFA: jj wanted them to be Luke's other students that kylo took with him from Luke's academy. He creates the template of this story in reys flashback scene

-TLJ: Rian either forgot about them or didn't have time hence didn't include them in e8 (he says he didn't have time). Luke mentions students leaving him I think?

-Tros: for some unknown reason, the Knights get changed/(retconned?) to be generic characters that are NOT the students of Luke. But they're still force sensitive for no special or known reason. But they don't use the force ever even though they're force sensitive



What a disaster. It's the perfect example of not having direction from the beginning. I have a theory that Knights of ren were never finalized, and were "work in progress" and concept all the way through the entire series.Maybe there was a struggle into how to include them in the story since they never truly appear until 9, so maybe they kept "kicking the can down the road" until the road ended with 9.

 

I imagine the Knights of Ren were originally envisaged as another faction of darkside force users, that were not the Sith... and that Snoke and Kylo led them. However, this idea gets jettisoned fairly quickly, and obviously once Palpatine is back, they become entirely moot as a concept.

 

JJ intended them to be a different dark side faction altogether that predated Ben's turn, that he would later join and take over. Since JJ's only job was to make TFA before being bought back on short notice for TROS, it's unlikely he had any ideas beyond "cool menace bad guys", and that it was up to the next do something with them, even if it was to simply be present. However, as we know, this didn't take place. The notion that the Knights of Ren were originally Luke's students comes from TLJ when Luke tells Rey that Ben had disappeared with a handful of his students, and slaughtered anyone who refused to follow him. Never mind how much more incompetent this makes Luke for not being able to tell that his nephew had turned to the dark side, but that he had turned several others in his class as well. With JJ's return, he most likely went with his original idea of them being a preexisting group that Ben Solo joined. On a side note, the Knights of Ren are shown to use the Force very briefly when they confront Ben Solo, but it's so dark that it's easily missed.

 

Could have had something like ... The Sith Eternal is the group behind the Sith, maintaining the order. And should the Master and Apprentice ever fall, or should the Sith lineage ever go extinct, it is this group, essentially a clergy, run by Snoke (no force powers of his own, but perhaps understanding of the dark side. A reverse Maz, if you will)... sets out to find a new Sith master, and rebuild the lineage and rule of two.

The Knights of Ren are the initiates, a sub-order who carry out the actions and needs of this shadowy group. They also serve as a repository, of potential Sith Apprentices, should the Sith Master finds himself in need of a new apprentice. A ready and willing group of force users always at the ready to be selected and inducted into the higher Sith Order/Rule of Two. Maul was once a Knight of Ren, until he was personally selected by Palpatine at an early age. Dooku and Anakin were not part of this group, but were selected nonetheless for other reasons.

 

I think a big issue with the sequel is there's too many characters. You have captain phasma, general hux, finn, poe, chewie, Han, 3-4 different resistance Droids, kylo and the Knights of ren, Rey, etc

So some characters got lost in the huge mess they created

 

I agree... the entire ST is undermined by fairly basic structural problems (IMO), one of which is the use of its characters. I'm not convinced DLF ever really understood (or agreed on) whose story we are actually following in the ST. And whilst Rey seems like the obvious choice, given her relative positioning, I believe Abrams/Kasdan were much more invested in the Han Solo/Kylo Ren dynamic... and in TLJ, Rey's position is even more downgraded. The problem is that the sequels through lots of different characters in the mix, but never really invest the time in determining the inter-personal dynamics... and of course there's only so much utility and function to go round...

 

An early draft of the first Star Wars (1977) featured a fallen Jedi apprentice called Darklighter who was seduced by the dark side of the Force and taught a clan of Sith pirates the ways of the dark side. This was the conceptual origin of the Knights of Sith, as they were known in that draft. They allied themselves with the Emperor and helped kill the Jedi Knights. Then they became the Emperor’s elite guard.

In later drafts, the Knights of Sith were renamed Dark Lords of the Sith. There were several of them besides Vader, I think seven total, and each was assigned to a part of the Empire. These Sith Lords were in fact what the line “the Empire’s sinister agents” originally referred to. As the story developed, Lucas decided to have only one Sith Lord, Vader, whose backstory was also fused with that of the first fallen Jedi apprentice.

Lucas’s later backstory for the Sith Order in the prequels grew from his backstories for the first Star Wars movie. One concept that remained was that their origin came from a fallen Jedi who conquered the Sith people. The EU interpreted “people” to mean that the Sith were a species, but based on the early drafts it’s more likely Lucas meant they were a warrior culture, not unlike the Mandalorians, whom the fallen Jedi conquered and used as an army in their early wars of conquest before they destroyed one another.

You can see that the Knights of Ren were strongly inspired by the original concept for the Knights of Sith. It would’ve been interesting to see more of that. Also, this is the first I’ve heard of there being an early draft of ROTS where Sidious created a band of pirates! I’ll look into that.