Why didn’t Kylo Ren use Sith lightning?

Yup, he was just a 'puppet clone'.

'I have been every voice in your head' Palps to Kylo at the beginning of TROS.

 

Different from Snoke being Palpatine though.

 

Some time back there was speculation that Snoke was an old apprentice of Palpatine's called Gallus Rax, this might have worked actually. All I kept thinking about watching TROS and Palp's collection of Snoke clones was....why on earth did his clones come out old, wrinkly, and scarred, when his own was young and handsome...and bore absolutely no resemblence to a young Ian McDiarmid?

 

Gallius Rax was a character from Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath book series. He wasn’t Palpatine’s apprentice. He was a glorified gopher whose role was to oversee Palpie’s Contingency plan if it was ever needed. He wasn’t a 7 foot tall evil wizard though. Just a regular guy. So dovetailing those two would have been quite a trick.

I think the rationalization was that Palp’s “darkside power” (or whatever) was too much for a regular clone to handle. Snoke was the end result of continuous tweaking to get a body that could be somewhat reliable. His size and fugly appearance are the consequence of the dude basically being a mutant. Dumb, but makes a sort of sense, I guess.

I liked the earlier idea that Snoke was physically mangled from an encounter with Luke at some point in the past. That would mean Luke could have stopped him before any of the horror with Ben or the FO happened, but hadn’t. Another failure for him to feel guilty about

This is halfheartedly explained with the goofy idea of “strand-casts”. Essentially, it’s a clone . . . but not really. Like Snoke, he was genetically modified, so that’s why he looks different. Stupid? Yes, very.

 

I liked that idea myself.
If there is one thing I would love to ask JJ...it's why did he decide to make the only descendant of the OT heroes a bad guy?
I loved Kylo, but JJ himself described him as the 'villain'... I can't understand it, sorry.

 

Seems like JJ and Kasdan really liked the idea of creating a ‘nega-Luke’. Where Luke idolized and sought to emulate Anakin, the Jedi hero, Kylo is the opposite. He idolized and sought to emulate Vader, the Sith villain. While Luke is courted by the elder figure of Obi-Wan, Kylo is courted by the elder figure of Snoke. Where Luke pursues the light and struggles with his inner darkness, Kylo pursues the darkness and struggles with his inner light. It’s a fun little inversion – an upside-down hero’s journey. I liked it a lot.

“Antagonist” is probably more accurate than “villain”, I think. He’s the bad guy, but he’s a noticeably conflicted bad guy. And the idea of a Skywalker falling to the dark, only to find his way back in the end, isn’t all that crazy. It’s probably the most obvious direction the story could have gone in really.

 

But they didn't have to kill him.
I don't know if anyone here has seen Disney's Once Upon A Time but it's full of characters who did some pretty terrible things....but still got their happy endings.

Okay, probably in the minority here but that is the story of my life
I wanted Ben Solo to live. That is all I really wanted from this trilogy
I WAS a reylo, but I would have happily swapped the reylo kiss for a live Ben Solo

 

Having Ben live and commit his life to righting his wrongs would have been a different and interesting choice and I’m not mad at the idea. That would have been neat.

The morality of Star Wars has always centered around the struggle between charity and greed. Selflessness versus selfishness. The villains take from others for the benefit of themselves, while the heroes give of themselves for the benefit of others.

To save Ben from the fatal attack she dealt him, Rey gave him part of her life. To defeat Sidious, she gave up the rest. To save her, he gave that life she’d given him – to save him, back to her. I think that’s actually quite lovely. Tragic, but lovely.

The life he had in him wasn’t really his. It was hers. And he needed to give it back so she could live, no matter what would happen to him. A genuinely selfless heroic sacrifice. Like his father. Like his mother. Like his uncle and grandfather. I have a hard time being upset with that.

 

Who is/was Palpatine apprentice? Was not Snoke, he is not Sith. Always two there are.

 

Why then should anyone take any of your criticism of the films seriously?

Essentially you're treating the franchise as if it is a reward giver. Like the movies are supposed to acknowledge and endorse your preferred outcomes at the expense of everything else. And if the movies fail to do that then they are perceived to have rewarded someone else, someone less worthy, with the unholy outcomes that they preferred.

Don't feel singled out though. I believe a significant chunk of fans/commentators on franchises treat them in this way to some extent. I just wish that people would be more open and honest about this instead of getting hostile when you remark that it sounds very much like someone who failed to receive what they thought was coming to them rather than making a sensible or rational argument.

 

Because he never reached JarJar levels of power...

 

I don't know, why should they?
I was just expressing my opinion. That's all.

 

There's really no such thing as "just expressing" an opinion though. Is there?

 

An interesting "what if" thing to ponder is what exactly would the new galactic government do with Ben Solo, turned to the lightside and alive?

I know we are still uncertain of what the prominent power in the galaxy post-TROS is, but say it's another New Republic (or something similar), surely they punish Ben Solo right? I don't see how they could just exile him somewhere after all he's done without major backlash from planets and people across the GFFA.

 

What if they thought he was dead?