Kylo Ren: Irredeemable?

The other day I found this article online that suggested that rather than Ben Solo--also known as the Dark Sider Kylo Ren--murdering his father Han Solo in the science fiction film Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Han committed suicide with his son's lightsaber to make his son into a monster in the eyes of the young Rey, to inspire her to take up Luke's old lightsaber and become this generation's Jedi hero. The article also states that Ben was part of the plan--that he knew the only way to redeem himself was to be the monster needed to inspire resistance to the First Order.

Here are some relevant quotes:

Finally, Kylo Ren is irredeemable. He cannot live, he cannot walk away, he can’t go home to his mother. Ben Solo-Organa is irredeemable as a living person. He’s irredeemable according to the standards of The Force Awakens, as he opens the film by ordering a massacre of innocent villagers. He’s irredeemable according to the standards of Star Wars, as his crime of murdering the Jedi apprentices under Luke Skywalker perfectly mirrors the greatest crime of Anakin Skywalker, murdering the younglings of the Jedi Temple. But like the person Anakin became — Darth Vader — he may be useful as a symbol of evil to motivate the next Skywalker, and be able to earn redemption by sacrificing himself, just as Vader did.

In one option, Han gets through to Ben, who hands his father his cruel dark side lightsaber to be thrown away. They walk away from the stormtrooper ambush, and Ben… well, what can Ben possibly do to redeem his crimes as Kylo Ren?


Making Ben into some kind of traitor within the First Order, deliberately being evil to ultimately undermine evil, is an interesting idea. But Ben taking up his father's offer and leaving with him (perhaps tricking any watching stormtroopers into thinking he's taking his father prisoner, or simply killing them) could open up some interesting story possibilities. However much Ben deserves to die for betraying and murdering Luke's Jedi trainees, massacring the villagers, and doing who-knows-what-else as Snoke's apprentice, he might be more useful to the Resistance alive than dead.

*For starters, he'd be an intelligence gold mine. He'd know all sorts of useful information about the First Order and Snoke's plans and assets as well as the Knights of Ren. He'd be a one-man intelligence coup, analogous to how useful Vader might have been had he survived the events of Return of the Jedi.

*Secondly, the Resistance doesn't seem to have any Force-wielders (other than Leia herself, who doesn't seem to use her Force powers) and given how big a deal Luke being the last Jedi is, there might not be any Force-wielders on the side of Good against Evil. Ben would be a vastly useful military asset, once they'd gotten all the intelligence they need out of him and can afford to risk him in battle. Him serving as a one-man analogue to the new Jedi Order he helped destroy could be a form of penance.

*Depending on how important Ben is to Snoke's plans--according to the novelization Snoke had been watching him his whole life to try to corrupt him, which reminded me of how Palpatine had been watching Anakin "with great interest" since he was around nine years old--losing Ben to the Resistance would be a massive setback. Given my first point about intelligence value, Ben's defection would be even more destructive than his death.

*Ben seems to be the one most interested in finding where Luke Skywalker is hiding. His defection could scupper the First Order's plans to find and kill the last Jedi.

So yes, even if in moral terms the above wouldn't make up for the atrocities he committed, it could certainly go a long way.

Furthermore, it opens all sorts of interesting story possibilities for future sequels.

*Depending on how well-known Kylo Ren's real identity as Ben is/becomes, it could cause all sorts of drama within the Resistance. Kylo Ren is likely a thoroughly terrifying warrior in ground combat. Many Resistance soldiers might have lost friends to him, been wounded or crippled by him, etc. Finn's defection was prompted by his refusal to participate in Ben's mass murder of the villagers, while he used the Force to mind-rape Poe. Two of our three leads are going to HATE him. If Rey is one of Luke's surviving Jedi trainees or especially if she's Luke's daughter, once she more fully remembers just what happened that got her left on Jakku, she's not going to be a fan either.

(Plus he mind-raped her too, although if I remember right it wasn't as blatantly scary as what happened to Poe.)

*Ben's defection could inspire challenges within the Resistance to Leia's leadership or trouble from the Resistance's backers within the New Republic. People could think that her maternal interest in Ben is undermining her decision-making abilities and think the Resistance needs new leadership. Especially with the Republic decapitated by Starkiller Base's attack on Hosnian Prime, they might think times are too dangerous to allow the Resistance to be led by someone they view as compromised.

*Snoke is going to be ANGRY. I could easily imagine Han not surviving if Snoke senses through the Force what's happening and sends orders to Starkiller Base to make sure at the very least Han is killed. And if Han survives, killing him is going to be a major priority for Snoke. It might drive Ben back into the Dark Side and even if it doesn't, it's punishment for betrayal. Harrison Ford apparently wanted Han Solo killed off, so even if he doesn't die in this version of The Force Awakens, he could die in the second film.

*Finally, if the only way Ben can be redeemed for his crimes is to die like his grandfather, perhaps Snoke comes to kill him personally? In the Clone Wars animated series, Palpatine doesn't have Darth Maul and his brother Savage Oppress blasted from orbit when he learns they've set up a rival Sith pairing to himself and Dooku--he comes to deal with them by himself, hand-to-hand.

(And it is awesome--watch it on YouTube here.)

A not-yet-fully-trained Rey might try to fight Snoke herself despite her issues with Ben and get hammered. Snoke is going to kill her when Ben throws himself into the fray, fights Snoke himself, and gets smushed, or Ben just takes the blow for her instead.

It's all moot now, but Ben's attempted redemption could be an interesting story in its own right.

Spoiler-Free STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS (2015) Review

At long last, after weeks of looking forward to it, I've finally seen J.J. Abrams' science fiction film Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I've managed to avoid spoilers so far, and I won't sully your experience, so the following review will be spoiler-free...

The Plot

Thirty years after the events of Return of the Jedi, the Republic has been re-established and is supporting a resistance movement against the First Order, a successor state to the fallen Empire. Luke Skywalker has disappeared and both the Resistance, led by Leia, and the First Order are seeking him. Ace pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) receives a map showing where Luke went into exile and leaves it with his droid BB-8 on the planet Jakku before being captured by the First Order and its Force-wielding enforcer Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). While rebellious stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega) helps Poe escape, the droid ends up in the ends of scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley), and the hunt is on...

The Good

*The movie is quite entertaining. It starts out with a bang--the First Order attacks a village in order to capture Poe and the map he has--and keeps going. A lot of movies I end up looking at my watch multiple times throughout, but not this one.

*There are some fun action sequences, including a Big Damn Heroes moment where the Resistance arrives to rescue some characters captured by the First Order and various battles between X-wings and TIE fighters.

*Finn is pretty funny, especially his interactions with Han Solo. I liked a lot of his lines.

*Although Leia does not appear to have undergone Jedi training like she did in the original Expanded Universe, the filmmakers do remember that she's Force-sensitive. She's capable of picking up on another character's ultimate fate from possibly light-years away.

*Although the film is too derivative of the original trilogy (more on that later), there are a couple scenes where Han riffs on events from the first film for comedic effect.

*I liked how a character reveals another character's real name. Very dramatic. And the resulting confrontation is very well-done. One character makes a particular decision and is clearly very torn about it, to the point you think they'll make a different one.

*The First Order soldiers are clearly trained to take on opponents armed with lightsabers, indicating a certain adaptability on the Empire/First Order's part.

*Domhnall Gleeson does a good job playing General Hux, one of the First Order's commanders. He's very good at making dramatic speeches.

The Bad

*The movie is overall rather derivative of the original trilogy. The First Order's new superweapon is too much like the Death Star, as is the attack on it. There are even sequences that are obviously copied from the original films, including a scene where the Millennium Falcon and X-wings flying away from an explosion. The galaxy far, far away is a pretty big place and there's plenty of room to do new stuff in the old world.

*The superweapon doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The Death Star was pretty straightforward--it was a gigantic laser capable of destroying a planet. Not going to go into more detail for fear of spoilers.

*The political situation doesn't make much sense. The resistance is a separate entity from the Republic and is clearly under-armed, but yet it has a bunch of important people from the Rebellion in hands-on command. I would expect them to be better-armed. It's like if the Afghan resistance movement against the Soviets was commanded by a U.S. general from WWII, Korea, and Vietnam but didn't have anything beyond their own small arms.

*I don't particularly like Kylo Ren's robotic voice. James Earl Jones as the voice of Vader was much more impressive. Heck, given how Ren has Vader's helmet, it would be interesting if he plugged in Vader's voice-machine and had James Earl Jones' voice. Characters could even comment on that.

*There are some obvious matte paintings for the background.

*I liked what Han and Leia were up to in the original EU--her one of the civilian political leaders of the New Republic and him a military general--after the fall of the Empire rather than what they're doing here. The reasoning behind it makes some sense--and I think in the EU Han did something similar after the death in battle of Chewbacca--but I didn't particularly like it. And how on Earth would he lose the Millennium Falcon?

*Why Rey doesn't want to leave Jakku is incredibly foolish. I remember another reviewer saying she acts like a realistic young person, including making bad decisions, but I didn't like how they handled it.

*Finn goes from wanting to desert the First Order after a war crime to killing his former comrades pretty quickly. I would expect more internal conflict.

*Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) is rather underused. She doesn't even take her helmet off. Christie was pretty impressive in Game of Thrones, so this is rather unfortunate.

*Why is there a map to where Luke is hiding? I could understand something like manifests of the ship he left on or records of "Luke Skywalker sightings" or something to that effect, but how would this map be made?

The Verdict

It would have been a lot better if they'd adapted Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy instead. Let's hope the new trilogy improves from here. Six out of 10.