SPECULATION OFFICIAL Kylo Ren Discussion Thread

like you i'm hoping they don't drag it out. i'm already chewing my knuckles about it. here are my mantras for keeping sane:

• we know he's going to be awful in viii: probably cruel, vindictive, monstrous, and even dispassionate if Snoke has put the thumbscrews to him.
• he'll likely have a rematch with Rey and he'll best her (poor Rey!).
• he'll likely come face to face with Luke in some fashion and that ain't going to be pretty.
  
• he might have to face his mother as well (and that might not be pretty either).
  • if this happens he'll either reject her in anger or completely fall apart in despair--i suspect he's not ready for this confrontation yet.
• he probably won't have a last-minute epiphany-style save (not like Vader). in fact, he'll more likely have a long-drawn slow slog back to the Light as he sheds his illusions and comes to terms with who he really is, what's been done to him, and what he's done to others in turn.
  • if so, they gotta start turning him viii, even if he's reluctant.
• there's a high probability someone's going to lose an arm (though i hope they subvert this assumption) ~ hahaha

while i'm all for him jumping the Light rail and coming straight home to mom, i'll be happy enough in viii if he's at least safe.
away from Snoke in some fashion, and preferably in the hands of the Resistance.
doesn't have to be pleasant for him, but so long as Leia counts him as rescued, it doesn't matter if he is still in the mindset of being captured.
this gives them time and opportunity to deprogram him.
and if we get all the right emotional beats in viii, some of this can even happen OS between films:
we return in ix and he's starting to be a little more amendable as they ramp up for the final battle.
this might actually be smart as it won't then feel like he's just flipped over night (though still saves his final commitment for an on-screen moment).

see? i've got it all worked out!

and if you don't like this scenario, i've got another one in which he's not forcibly captured, but willingly defects by the end of viii ~ hahaha

#SaveBenSolo

 

So come on then, let's hear it!

 

ha ~ lot of the same possible beats, i think!

after he defeats Rey, rather than be captured, perhaps he has to decide whether to take her back to Snoke and ultimately can't do it knowing how screwed up he is (he takes pity on her). but he also knows that he and Rey belong together (yin and yan).
and that leads to some kind of unpleasantness between him and Snoke (some last straw gets snapped).
then maybe he is either seriously injured and needs rescuing himself, or he manages to flee and either:

a.) asks for and is given sanctuary with the Resistance, or
b.) grabs his Knights and goes rogue.​

lots of possibilities to spiral out from there.

i think the most important thing is that one way or another, he needs to make a serious break with Snoke and escape from the FO in viii.
reconciling with his family could just happen a lot sooner if he ends up with the Resistance somehow.

i still feel like storywise it would make the most sense for ix to be about Rey and Ren learning to work with each other (with Luke's oversight) so that they can take out the FO ~ and that's going to take time given their history already and (likely) the Resistance's fear/reluctance to trust him.

all just spinning fancies. viii may surprise us by going in some crazy direction no one even considered!

 

My head canon (or spinning fancies as it were) is somewhat different...I don't see him getting back in VIII, but I see a foundation laid out for Rey to have compassion for him (she will learn things about him that will change her view of him being just a monster). He will probably be shown more "badass" and more relentless outwardly, but I see them showing him being "torn apart" in private - dreaming about his dad's fall; or Vader's mask not answering back his pleas (because perhaps the vision he supposedly saw was not given to him by grandpa? I'm referring to the "Show me again grandfather" line which implies he believes his grandfather showed him a vision at least once before); being pulled to the light essentially...He might do something to protect some of the "good guys" - Leia, Luke or Rey...(maybe even Finn??? which surely would earn him points...).
In IX I see him and Rey put in a situation that they need to cooperate (I think this might work for VIII even better, but it seems there is too much set up already...)
But the thing is, Ryan Johnson has made people working on VIII watch a Soviet movie (Letter Never Sent) that has a group of people stranded together and working together, learning about each other and trying to survive faced with natural disaster, which I think might have been shown for the cinematography only and not for the plot, but in my headcanon, Kylo and Rey find themselves stranded somehow and have to work together to survive even if they at first mistrust each other and even if they are still on opposite sides which makes both of them know each other better and people's true nature does come out when faced with coping together with something...This could in a way show the way Leia and Han were stranded in the asteroid field...Maybe they find themselves stranded together and to survive they have to cooperate...?

 

i like this idea and i've played around with it in my head too!
that they are forced into close quarters somehow and have to rely on one another.
i think i have gravitated toward the "capture" scenario to expedite the turn and avoid a lengthy scenario in which Rey and Ren are isolated from the others.
but it could certainly work and i would love to see them snarking at one another over the circumstances ~ hahaha

though i think BenRen is honorable at heart, i don't see him making any grand gestures toward the people who he perceives to have hurt him.
maybe for his mother? hard to tell.
otherwise, he's sure holding his grudges at the moment.

 

WHY would Kylo yell STOP??

 

I think the question is, why would he keep on repeating it?

Maybe in a version that didn't make the final cut, Rey and Finn turn and run instead of standing there chatting with him at first? (That's what I'd have done, though I'm sure I wouldn't have gotten very far.)

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 13, 2016, Original Post Date: Apr 13, 2016 ---

@FN-3263827 and @Obi-Wan Solo, I like your potential scenarios. I like the "forced to work together and rely on each other" idea the best.

 

In the novelization, instead of silently waiting for them and then saying "We're not done yet", he says "Stop!".

Adam could have been rehearsing and being in character and they might have seen that it is a bit nuts...
Then they ended up using the shouting for "Traitor!"...would be my interpretation of this behind the scenes...
My question is - why is the saber in his left hand...?

The repetition is an edit made by the person who made the clip I would think...

 

I found why Kylo Ren was disappointed with Solo.

You can't wear this shoes when you're a serious dad ! Look at 4.07

 

because at one time that's what was in the script when they first run into him out in the snow:



he doesn't yell it in the book, but also, Finn knows where they are headed in the film, so a lot of stuff clearly got moved around.

@Obi-Wan Solo i guess it would help if i reloaded the pages once in a while. der....

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 13, 2016, Original Post Date: Apr 13, 2016 ---

there's that weird left-handed thing again...

 

Weak and foolish indeed.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 13, 2016, Original Post Date: Apr 13, 2016 ---

Haha! I knew that--the repeats combined with the close-ups and slow-downs makes for some mighty high drama.

 

it's positively Skywalkerian!

 

Maybe Ben is left handed and Kylo is right handed... or more likely, he needs both hands to properly land blows with a saber like that and is used to switching the saber between hands to fight. One must beware the weapon and not the hand, as the weapon can be in either hand..

 

yeah, i actually considered that and have tried to pay attention, but he is predominantly right-handed when wielding the saber.

like you said, it's more likely because the dang thing is heavy and requires two hands anyway.

it's just a particular curiosity because since this scene was cut, he really only does the left-handed thing on the bridge.

 

Yeah, he's got no love for the Resistance, so I don't see him willfully helping or submitting to them.

I've considered the 'capture' scenerio, but it's problematic for me, because I think: what prison, what guards, could hold him? In order to capture/imprison a powerful Force user, you'd literally have to have another Force user on the other side of the room, keeping him in check. Any Adventure Time fans here?

Haha, like that. Then it's just a question of who passes out from exhaustion first. Hahaha...

The latest "plot leak" (which is probably a load of crap) offered another option:

Spoiler: poss. spoiler I guess

Ren is so badly beaten in his fight with Luke/Rey that his spirit is completely broken - thereby affording them the opportunity to reason with him.

Eh, I don't know. Maybe? Something about it doesn't sit right with me.

I much prefer your idea, that they end up in a jam while still on opposite sides, and have to work together to survive it. Oh, that's interesting. Oh, the possibilities!

Thanks for posting that, Bandini! I didn't get the Target edition, so I was hoping someone would share the love.

 

maybe that's what Luke's been figuring out on Ahch-To.
he knows first-hand how powerful Ben is.
he knows he'd have to neutralize him to keep from hurting him.

 

Time to put your fan of Vader franchiise away

 

Kylo will be redeemed. I can't believe this is even a debate. The producers and director went out of their way to cast a gorgeous actor Adam Driver and recruited him to play this role. No one cared who played Darth Vader because he was a villain. Kylo is not a villain, and I can't believe anyone would think he is after watching the movie. He is a tormented hero who has led a tragic life and is on the road to redemption. It starts with his falling in love with Rey.

I have extensive experience in film making, and it is glaringly obvious that they are going down the route of Rey being the Light (Ray of Light) that leads Kylo back from the Darkness. This trilogy will be, above all, a love story about the love of the heroine leading our hero back on the right path. I can't believe anyone would think otherwise.

Kylo has led a terrible, neglected, lonely life. He has been abused (by both his parents and Snoke) since he was a a baby. He never stood a chance. My heart hurts for him every time I watch the film. Unloved, unwanted, horribly abused and neglected since he was a birth, he has never known love until he meets Rey. She opens up his heart to him in the scene where he enters her mind.

His dad, murderer Han Solo beat Ben and Leia within an inch of their lives every day of Ben's childhood. I cannot (luckily) begin to imagine the damage that that would cause a young child to watch his dad beat his mom, his mom screaming for help, and not being able to do anything. When Leia was done, Han would turn to Ben and beat him. The poor child grew up watching his dad abuse his mom and suffered his abuse. Han's alcohol and drug problems made him a volatile, violent presence in the home. Leia tried her best to shield Ben, but it wasn't enough. That's why Ben hates Han and considers him a disappointment. When he was older, Ben finally tried to stand up for himself and finally Force shove his father - and this made Leia fearful that Ben was falling to the Dark Side so she sent him off to Luke. Ben was devastated! Who would protect his mother now? He was leaving her to the mercies of his violent abusive father - that's why he felt abandoned by Leia. Leia didn't love Ben (as JJ and Adam Driver said, the only thing Leia cared about was her career, not her family), but Ben loved Leia. Not having that love returned by his parents damaged him irreparably. While away at Luke's, he felt helpless that he was not around to protect his mother from his father's beatings.

Luke did not love Ben, but reluctantly took him in after Leia decided she didn't want him around. He failed as a teacher and he was a poor excuse for an Uncle - never showing any love or affection to his only nephew. Ben felt alone and abandoned.

Snoke was able to come in and be a father figure to Ben. Ben never had a father figure who loved him, and finally he had the love of someone else. He felt loved and wanted for the first time in his life. But poor Ben, Snoke only wanted him for his own power.

Kylo Ren has done nothing wrong, and it's painful to read that some people in this thread seem to think he's an evil person who does evil needs. Nothing he has done is wrong, or any worse than what our heroes have done. Han Solo is a smuggler and murderer. Luke Skywalker murdered thousands of civilians when he blew up the Death Star in ANH. Neither of them are any better than Ben - in fact I would argue they are worse, since Kylo never beat his partner.

Kylo is engaged in a war against the corrupt New Republic and in war soldiers die. This is a theme in Star Wars. No one cries when Leia shoots stormtroopers in the original trilogy, because that's what happens in war. The New Republic is corrupt and ousted Kylo's mother. That's why he hates them. A corrupt government deserves to be destroyed.

The villagers on Jakku were part of a fanatical religious organization who worshipped the Jedi. As we have seen in Paris and Brussels, nothing good comes out of extreme religious factions. Kylo did the galaxy a favor by getting rid of them. LST was their leader and he was the one who confronted Kylo, not Kylo. Kylo would not have killed him if he had not tried to confront him.

There is no evidence that Kylo massacred Luke's Jedi Academy. Han only says "a boy" did, not Kylo. I believe Snoke framed him and when Kylo believed he had massacred his friends, he felt he had no choice but to follow Snoke to the Dark Side.

Finally, Han. Han has been an abusive, unloving and neglectful father to Kylo his entire life. Ben grew up watching Han beat his mother and suffered his beatings himself. He never loved Ben and made it clear he preferred adventuring over Ben (JJ and Adam Driver say so in the documentary). I remember reading about a case in the States about a son who after his father had abused his mom and the defendant for decades, the defendant finally snapped and shot his dad in the back. He was acquitted.

To me, this is no difference. What happened with Han was self-defence not murder. Han was the one to approach him, Kylo was trying to avoid the confrontation. Kylo knew Han is a violent, murderous man who is a criminal. He knew that Han would start physically abusing him again, possibly kill him. What Kylo did was what any other boy who had been abused and neglected his entire life by his father would have done. It was justice for his mother, who Han battered their entire marriage (Leia: "No matter how much we fought".

Kylo is a good man, and a hero. Episode VIII I fully believe will end with Kylo and Rey falling in love, possibly getting married. Rey will go to Kylo to try to defeat him (as instructed by Luke, who is a selfish, manipulative person - just like Obi-Wan was.) Rey will be manipulated by Luke and try to go to Kylo to defeat him and Kylo will kidnap her. While Rey is being held captive by Kylo, she falls in love with him (similar to Beauty and the Beast, also by Disney). Kylo teaches her about the Dark Side, and Rey will teach him about the Light Side. They will both emerge as Gray Jedi, balancing the Light and Darkness within themselves. Finn and Poe will officiate their wedding, then Episode VIII will end. Episode IV will be about them teaming up together to take down Snoke and then rebuilding the new Jedi Order. At the end of Episode IX, Rey will announce she's pregnant...thus starting the new Jedi Order for Episode X. Episode X will be about Kylo and Rey's child, now grown up, with Rey and Kylo having been happily married for 20 years by that point.

 

woah there, @ReylovesKylo!
where is it ever shown that Han ever abused Leia or Ben?
or that Leia didn't want Ben? or that Luke was unaffectionate?
those are some pretty strong accusations there.

welcome to the Cantina ~ that's quite the opening post.

 

I can't imagine Leia getting beat by Han.