The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker

I really hope I'm not coming off as combative or accusatory. Tone is a hard thing to get across in text. I do respect your perspective and voice as totally valid. So I apologize if it maybe doesn't seem that way by my responses

 

Nothing personal eeprom, but at the moment I'm not getting much pleasure out of SW, I might be back sometime in the future, when I'm feeling more chipper. Cheers!

 

The fact that Luke fooled Kylo and denied him the dubious prize of killing him does not suggest that Kylo Ren was on the road to redemption. There’s no logic to that. His only regret was that he had failed to kill Luke and failed to enlist Rey.

 

There's much symbolism in TLJ, and all of SW, that's easy to look over if it's viewed without scratching the surface of its deeper meaning. The esoteric meaning of the light swords is that it represents consciousness, or aspects of our psychology. Swords represent thought. Battles with swords of light are about our inner consciousness struggles. Characters are personifications of forces at work here. So the struggle over the blue sword at the end, with the Kylo and Rey characters is a consciousness struggle. That sword has done the greatest good and the worst evils, in the hands and consciousness of its wielders.

In ascending, Luke did not just sacrifice his bodily self, as he was always a symbol of the return of spirituality in the collective consciousness. He is the hero inside of you. Kylo confronts him in Luke's full spiritual mastery, which is untouchable, and not material. Luke Skywalker means the light that walks across the sky, and it's a metaphor for spiritual enlightenment. The salt and red soil on the ground at the end of TLJ is an important symbol, and the salt comes from alchemy of internal transformation. They made a point to say it's salt. It's crystallized, base materiality. Luke moves his feet and it doesn't have any effect on the ground, because he's spiritual, whereas Kylo is stuck to the world of lower consciousness. Luke projected himself across the galaxy in more ways than one, as he inspired the whole galaxy to turn against darkness at the end of TROS, the darkness inside of their own collective unconscious, symbolized by Palpatine.

 

This (and your other posts) is absolutely brilliant. And it explains that the sensory overload I experienced after seeing TROS was not just a matter of enjoyment. I have loved other films as well but, not all of them 'sit' with you as well. It goes to show that the films have a rich subtext and convey so much more than just what is on screen. Which is the hallmark of good storytelling.

 

He didn't seem like that to me at the end of TLJ. He looked like someone who had acted in a rage brought about by hurt; and that at the end his rage had burned out....and only the hurt remained.

 

It's quite obviously regret at his failures. How can it not be? It would render worthless everything that's just happened in the battle. One of the things he wanted to achieve is now unattainable. But the other two are still out there having slipped through his grasp for now. There's no indication that he has changed in his ambition to conquer or pacify them.

 

I mean he could surrender then? At the end of The Last Jedi Kylo Ren has made his choice. Rey gave him a choice and he chose to blow up Luke Skywalker. When that didn't work he chose to cut down a defenseless man. I thought it was interesting they let Ben choose to be a villain, but by the time the next film came around that was kind of put on the back burner.

 

Um...surrender to someone like Poe Dameron, who in all likelihood would have lynched him? Would Leia have intervened? 'My son is gone.' Leia was a war general first and a mother second; she asked Han to try and talk to Ben when he went to Starkiller, but still gave the go ahead to destroy it, even if Ben was on it - and Rey too, for that matter.

As for Luke being a 'defenceless man'....Kylo/Ben thought he'd tried to kill him the night of the destruction of the temple, so frankly I don't blame him for being mildly annoyed with him!!

 

This is getting absurd now.

 

It's Star Wars, it's always been absurd!

 

One minute Kylo is supposedly repentant and turned over a new leaf. Next he's justified for trying to kill his uncle and rightly annoyed that he failed.

 

1. He thought his uncle tried to kill him when he was a boy. He woke up and saw him standing over him with an ignited lightsabre. Sadly, they never got a chance to reconcile, so he didn't hear Luke's side of the story. Yet another beef I have with TROS.....at the end of TLJ Luke's final words to his nephew were: 'See you around, kid.' I thought there would be at least one conversation between Kylo and Luke's FG where Luke told him what really happened that night.
2. He's my favourite character...sue me!!

 

His demeanor is certainly one of regret, but not simply with respect to unattained goals. His last lingering shot is crouching all alone after Rey closes a door in his face and his father’s dice disappear in his hand. That’s not just unrequited ambition. That’s a loss of personal connection. That’s sadness and despair on his face. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Kylo is suffering at the end of TLJ because of his fearful, angry, hateful actions. I agree with @madcatwoman17 on that sentiment. But personally I think that’s perfectly well consistent with where we pick up with him again in TROS. He’s still suffering. He’s still in that darkness. He still desperately wants that connection. And a faux alliance with Palpatine, he thinks, is his shot at making that happen. Tracks OK for me.

 

But you said he'd gone past that and was now only left with the hurt. Whatever that means. He can't be vengeful angry at the same time. He literally stands there screaming as he realises everything has got away from him.

You don't owe anybody anything but it would save a lot of trouble by just stating it's the way you wanted it to be, regardless. rather than making things up and ignoring the actual events in the film to try and argue it was meant to be that way.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 28, 2022, Original Post Date: Apr 28, 2022 ---

His loss is not having his kindred spirit validate his choices the way he wanted. Another failure. But I don't believe his failure makes him want to consider his position as the Supreme bad guy at that point.

 

Reminds me of the caused after Lucas' revised Anakin's turn; which had him killing toddlers, 3 mins after being knighted as a Sith Lord.


The turn is much better in the Novel... only because the book had already gone to print, I'm sure the tinkerer would've done his thing if he could.

 

I totally agree. But I believe the point of that last scene is to communicate to the audience that the spirit behind what Luke said to him is ringing true. We don’t leave a powerful villain confidently standing - defeated but unwaveringly shaking a fist. He’s on the ground, huddled and cradling something lost. There’s no anger in his face. No malice. No spite. Just devastation.

What Luke had told Rey, “This is not going to go the way you think”, could also be applied to him as well and I believe he’s recognizing that at the end. I really don’t believe the Kylo character cares about being the Supreme Leader. I don’t believe he cares about the First Order. All the power in the universe isn’t going to fill what’s missing, but it’s all he thinks he has left. This absurd desire to burn everything down and “bring a new order to the galaxy”. To control everything and everyone because he’s out of control within himself.

I don’t, in any way, interpret the end of TLJ as Kylo ‘becoming the big bad’ as in him taking ownership of that role. I see it presented tragically. He’s seized this arch villain status, but deep down knows it will never bring him any kind of fulfillment or completion. He’ll always be longing and that’s simply his reality now. No, he isn’t considering giving that position up. But he’s also not emphatic about staying in that position either. He’s wallowing in an emotional limbo. Emptily maintaining power for the sake of power alone.

 

Why would I go to the trouble of 'making things up?' I can read fanfiction or write my own for that.

Kylo was created as a conflicted character. KK chose Driver because of his ability to make his character sympathetic. Driver said he 'wanted to show his humanity'.

I'm told that I'm making things up because I see the character as tragic. But..perhaps those that dislike the character are also 'making things up' by seeing him as an unrepentant remorseless villain.

 

TROS doesn't contradict anything about Kylo’s character, conflict, humanity established by the end of TLJ.

Your making it up that he had realised how he was "left with the hurt" and that TROS in the beginning not having him repentant yet somehow retconned or regressed his character. He never showed any intent to atone in TLJ. Just regret that he'd failed to kill Luke and turn Rey to the dark side. I never said he never felt any remorse. I'm saying that he was not yet shown to be turning over a new leaf during the climax to that film.

It was obvious he was going to be redeemed somehow because that's the Skywalker saga's style. But just because you anticipate that it does not obligate the storyteller to jump ahead to that point in order to validate your foresight.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 28, 2022, Original Post Date: Apr 28, 2022 ---

I don't see why if assumed the position of the big bad that it can't be tragic as well. A pyrrhic victory.

Yeah deep down. But it's mainly irrelevant until it comes to the surface. Deep down there's the potential for him to turn back, thanks to Luke's sacrifice denying him an even more tragic "victory. But how and when that happens still needed to be.

Vader was emphatic and he still turned.

Kylo professes his ambition to "become what he's meant to be". Just because he's not yet getting spiritual fulfilment from ostensibly achieving those goals doesn't mean he's lost faith in his belief that supremacy is his right.

 

Not to reignite any controversy, but I think there's some truth to this.

TLJ gives us a Kylo that, in much of the end, is raging. He came really close to getting what he wanted, only to have it all taken away. Even in a moment of supposed victory, it's hollow for him. So yes, I think in a way, his rage burnt out by the end.

But I don't think it was totally gone. In TROS, we see echoes of this still- or at least, him attempting to demonstrate that. The reforging of the helmet, for instance, being symbolic of this- he's trying to be the Big Bad Sith Lord that he thinks he wants to be, but the cracks are starting to show.

I think it's a logical enough through line- it's realistic enough that someone's rage would wax and wane over time.