There’s a lot of people saying that The Last Jedi (which I adored, FYI) was “not what they expected”, and there seems to be a lot of fans online who are disappointed in it, but those are subjects for other blogs at other times. Today, I’d like to talk with any and all who’ve seen the film, or don’t mind a few spoilers, about why I believe Kylo Ren may just have saved the franchise from just repeating it’s old formula. This is full of spoilers though, so don’t read on if you’ve not seen the film yet and want to be surprised by everything.
First and foremost, this is not a blog praising Kylo Ren. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the character in The Force Awakens, although I was thrilled by the fact that he wasn’t Darth Vader 2.0. In The Force Awakens we’re introduced to a character who is far from the dominant evil of his predecessor. Where Vader was cold, distant and completely in control at all times, Kylo is none of those things. He’s young, emotional and full of anger, as well as being massively conflicted where Vader was absolutely certain. This is shown in some of The Force Awakens greatest moments, where Kylo completely loses his cool and trashes a console with his poor underling looking on in terror, and where Rey first learns to control the Force and escapes and Kylo finds her gone and trashes the room she was in, with the approaching Stormtroopers turning and walking as fast as they can in the other direction rather than face his wrath. This created a character who was different from Vader, a character still learning his way, and one that despite the fact that I wasn’t his biggest fan I still wanted to see more of and had hope for.
The Last Jedi gave me the hope I was looking for, because instead of being a story about how Kylo Ren becomes just like his grandfather it was instead a story about how Kylo Ren had that option, he had the option of following the same path as his predecessor before him and instead of doing that he elected to take his own path and forge his own destiny. That destiny is what is so exciting moving forward, and why it is I think Kylo Ren saved the Star Wars movies from this point on. He did that by embracing exactly what The Last Jedi was all about, and that was forgetting about the past and instead embracing change. He begged Rey to do the same thing, and Yoda told Luke to do exactly that as well. Luke wanted the Jedi to die because he knew that the old ways were no longer the way forward, and yet when he had the chance to end the legacy of the Jedi he couldn’t do it. Yoda, on the other hand, could and did. Where Luke showed weakness and a dependency on the past, Kylo showed no such weakness. Where Yoda killed off the history of the Jedi – a wise choice considering the prequels – Kylo did the same thing for the Sith.
I say it’s a wise choice, and there are sure to be plenty of people who disagree with me, but here’s why I think it was wise. Rey is not a Jedi. She shows emotion far, far more than any Jedi we’ve seen before her. In the prequels we learned that the Jedi didn’t like that. We learned that the Jedi prided themselves on being in control, being emotionless, being fearless and being without fear. After all, fear – in a roundabout way – leads to the dark side, doesn’t it? Except… that it doesn’t, because there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that Rey was terrified during both films and yet she never turned to the dark side. Luke was scared she would when she started using the Force to explore the island, and yet she didn’t. Kylo was convinced she would turn to his side when he offered her the choice, and yet she didn’t. Ergo the Jedi were wrong. How many did they turn away over the years because they sat in that circle around the potential recruit and gave the same speech to the recruit that they gave to Anakin? How many kids with the potential that Rey had did they believe were dangerous and did they just send away to do their own thing?
What’s worse than that is we all know that there was a prophecy of one who could bring balance to the Force, don’t we? We know this because it’s basically the only reason that the prequels happened, and it’s the prophecy that ended up bringing down the entire Jedi order at the height of their strength, and giving rise to the biggest evil the universe has ever known in allowing the Empire to form and rise from the ashes of what came before. So, how many other prophecies did the Jedi have? How many other times over the years did they rely on some old prophecy to dictate what they should do, rather than simply doing the right thing? Rey, as someone who isn’t a Jedi but who has more power with the Force than possibly anyone who came before her – well, anyone since Anakin anyway – isn’t constrained by those prophecies. That means she can do what she needs to do, she can be a hero the likes of which the Jedi would never have allowed… and thus she can be better than the Jedi ever were.
Those are all reasons why Rey is the ultimate hero and why forgetting the past is the best idea, so where does Kylo come into this? Well, where Yoda had the strength to get rid of the last visages the Jedi Order, Kylo Ren did the exact same thing with the Sith. The Sith were just as guilty as the Jedi when it came to their rules and their prophecies. One immediately springs to mind, one that has dominated the movies up to this point – there are always two, a master and an apprentice. This prophecy provided some very cool things for the series up to this point, including the likes of Darth Maul, but ultimately it also makes the whole thing rather… boring, for lack of a better word. When there’s only ever two it doesn’t leave much scope beyond two guys with power and a whole bunch of Stormtroopers. It also created this problem that The Last Jedi faced where Snoke was built up by the fans to be the next Emperor, and Kylo built up to be the next Darth Vader, and if that was the case then the series only had one direction to go in. However, Kylo clearly had no intention of following that particular prophecy. He wanted to do his own thing and, just like his former master, he too wanted to see the end of his order.
Snoke sensed that Kylo had resolved the conflict In himself in what was, by far, the greatest scene in The Last Jedi. He had. He’d not only resolved the conflict in himself when it came to his ties to his mother and father but he’d also decided he wasn’t just going to let Snoke manipulate him and boss him around anymore, and so in one beautiful moment with the Force he literally cut his new master in half using his grandfather’s, and father’s, lightsaber to do it. It was beautiful, and it led to an absolutely bad-ass scene with Rey and Kylo, but it also meant that just like Yoda had burned down all that was left of the Jedi, Kylo has also destroyed everything that was left with the Sith. He has no master, and he has no apprentice. He’s his own man, doing his own thing, and with more power than anyone else had before him. He’s the new Supreme Leader of the First Order, with the power to choke the life out of anyone who attempts to stand up to him. Now, thanks to his decision, we know that we CAN’T see a repeat of Return of the Jedi in episode nine, because there is no Emperor for Kylo to turn against. He IS the emperor now, which creates a new story that we’ve not seen yet, which in turn creates a fantastical plot for episode nine which will be new and different to everything that’s come before it.
More than that, Kylo’s rage against the resistance has also meant that while he’s made enough mistakes to leave all our favourite characters around for the final instalment in the trilogy he’s also destroyed enough of the resistance that, once again, there’s no chance of a repeat of Return of the Jedi in the ninth chapter. He’s created a new story for us, one that we can’t possibly have seen before and one we can’t predict the ending of. By doing that he has, in a big way, created a new and different Star Wars that I’m very much looking forward to. There is no Jedi, there is no Sith, there is simply good and evil now, and genuine excitement for what is to come. But, BECAUSE there is no Sith, there is also an unpredictability of what we’re going to see on the side of evil in the ninth chapter… which includes a group of characters that we’ve been told about a few times and yet we still haven’t seen in any detail: The Knights of Ren.
We heard about them in The Force Awakens, when Kylo was called their leader. We didn’t know much more about them however besides that they were somehow connected to him, and we didn’t get to see them or what they were about. In The Last Jedi we learned a little more about this group, since we learned that after the whole fiasco with Luke’s “failure” with Kylo he slaughtered many of the young Jedi students and defected with others… others who presumably went on to become The Knights of Ren. This means that this group of characters are Force users. They’re former Jedi pupils, and THIS means that they could be the single most bad-ass force we’ve seen yet. Imagine someone with Kylo’s rage and unpredictability leading a group of evil Jedi (I’m going to call them evil Jedi, rather than Sith, because as already stated the Sith can only be two). Imagine Rey and what’s left of the resistance coming up against a whole group of Force users led by Kylo. Imagine how utterly amazing Episode Nine could be with that premise. And now you can see how Kylo, with his rage and massacring of his former master, has set the wheels in motion for an amazing final chapter.
By destroying so much of what we grew up with perhaps you’re angry at Rian Johnson for his movie. I, on the other hand, can’t stop thinking about the potential for the future. I can’t stop thinking about Rey and the resistance up against the all-powerful Supreme Leader of the First Order, leader of the Knights of Ren, and the most powerful dictator the universe has ever seen in Kylo Ren. I can’t stop seeing the potential for Rey facing off against the Knights of Ren, sent after her in groups or one at a time. I can’t stop thinking about how amazing the battle against an unstable leader – as opposed to the Emperor, Vader and even Snoke, who were always calm and in control – could be for the final chapter of this set of films, and I can’t stop hoping for both a Rey led Episode Ten in the future but also be filled with excitement for Rian Johnson’s new trilogy, set off somewhere else in the universe which, if it’s ANYTHING like Rogue One, could be the best thing that’s ever happened to Star Wars.
Thus, whether you’re a fan of The Last Jedi or not, I think the movie as a whole has taken everything we knew about the universe of Star Wars and reinvigorated it for a new generation, and in a lot of ways – in universe – we have Kylo Ren to thank for that. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Do you see the potential for Episode Nine, or do you think I’m off my nut and completely wrong? Let me know. I’m on Facebook (facebook.com/ajebdon) or Twitter (@AlexisEbdon) for you to share your thoughts with any time you like. Thanks for reading.