#and TROS could have been written that Kylo only has his mask with the new batch of troopers

[renee-mariposa]

One way TROS could have ended if the writers weren’t hacks

As soon as her battered ship touches dirt and the cockpit opens, Rey’s panicked shouting cuts through the chaos on the base. “I need a medic here! I need...!”

Poe himself is reeling - shaking with adrenaline, head spinning with the unbelievable reality of we’re alive! we’re alive! - he needs to find Finn, he needs to...Rey is cut all to hell, dried blood all over her, and looks like she’s barely standing up. He reaches her just as she stumbles - he can’t believe she’s here, they’re all still here, this isn’t a dream - she’s heavy and he almost drops her. She’s only out for one moment, and when she comes back her eyes refocus on him slowly. “Poe?” she slurs, sounding bewildered.

“Rey!” he answers, unable to look away from her face - something he thought he’d never see again - shaking her a little in his arms, unable to voice anything else, unable to think over the din of celebration. Her brain comes back online and she grips a fistful of his jumpsuit - “I need a medic!” she panics, eyes wide, shaking him as if he needs to be convinced.

“Yeah, sure, just hold on!” he says, preparing himself to carry her to medical on his own to feet if he has to, when she shakes him again. 

“No, not me!” She gripes, somehow tugging them around to face her relic of a ship. “He’s in the gunner’s seat - he’s wounded! Please, Poe,” she implores, looking at him with a silent plea and he doesn’t really understand why, “I need your help.”

It’s on the tip of his tongue to ask what’s going on when the medical team finally arrives. It takes five of them to get the wounded man out of the seat - he’s a big guy - and if Poe thought Rey looked bad, he was clearly mistaken. The wounded man is young,  There’s a tense moment when they’re hooking up the scanners - Rey is trembling with the effort to remain somewhat standing, barely breathing in palpable fear - “We have a heartbeat!” one of the paramedics shouts, to be heard over everything else - Rey nearly passes out again with what Poe can only describe as sheer relief - and the entourage cuts back into the crowd to rush the wounded man to sickbay.

“Who is he?”

“I’ll tell you when I can hear myself think,” she says, avoiding his eyes. “We need to find Finn,” she says, gripping his jacket again. “And Rose. Where’s the General? Is Chewie okay?”

“One thing at a time,” Poe decides, visually scanning the crowd in what feels like building desperation. He needs to see Finn, needs to see that he’s alive and well, needs to see him smile and laugh again. “Let’s go find him.”

((Everyone hugs and cries like they do in the movie except there’s an actual gay kiss between Finn and Poe. Scene transition to the epilogue, still on the jungle planet.))

Rey only agrees to go to sickbay herself after visiting Leia’s deathbed and crying wearily, gripping Rose’s hand tightly the whole time. Rose remains while Finn and Poe escort Rey to the medics, but Rey stops them right before the three of them enter.

“I need to tell you something,” she says to them, calmly. She’s dead on her feet but grimly resolved. “I need to tell you who I brought back with me.”

Poe blinks. “Who is it?” he asks. She doesn’t answer immediately - she’s afraid, his brain supplies. “You can tell us,” he says gently. Finn nods in agreement, confused as to what’s going on but willing to listen.

“His name is Ben,” Rey says finally, visibly unsure of what to say. “He saved my life. More than once.” She searches their faces. “He’s very important to me.”

Into the silence, Finn jokes, “You had a cute boyfriend this whole time and you didn’t tell us?” and Rey frowns fondly at him, tension among them broken.

“The jury’s definitely out on cute,” Poe tells Finn in a stage whisper, causing Rey to frown at him, too. Poe restarts their three-legged march into sickbay. “He looks like death chewed him up and spat him out. He ain’t winning any beauty contests today.”

He can tell when Finn sees the wounded man - Finn stops dead in his tracks and nearly causes all three of them to wipe out. When Poe recovers his balance, he finds Rey gripping Finn’s shirt imploringly with all of her meagre strength.

“He’s the spy, Finn,” she says to him with an intensity Poe doesn’t understand. “He left the First Order just like you did.”

“Yeah, but...!” Finn protests, just now regaining his ability to speak.

Rey shakes him once, visibly shaking with the effort to remain standing, and Finn’s gaze snaps to her. Her face is deathly pale. “Please, Finn. He saved my life.”

Finn studies her, makes his decision. “Okay,” he says finally. Rey sighs with relief. “For you,” Finn gripes, and Rey almost smiles a little.

“Is he a stormtrooper?” Poe asks in confusion as they finally get Rey to a chair.

“Not exactly,” Finn mutters, and Rey very obviously elbows him. Poe tamps down a fission of irritation.

“Well, he can be processed with the former ‘troopers once he’s feeling better,” Poe decides, waiting for one of the medics to show. It’ll take some work and money, but they’ll get some doctors specializing in brainwashing to the base. The medic shows up, gets Rey some bacta patches. tells Rey to get some sleep, allows her to remain in sickbay to be near this Ben guy. She sits down on the hospital bed and, right as they’re leaving, Poe sees her take his hand and grip it tightly.

Poe and Finn walk back outside, hand in hand, to the roaring celebration. The defected stormtroopers are mostly helmet-less now, staring around in a daze, as if overwhelmed and not really sure how to celebrate. Looking out at the people he’s been chosen to command, the future unspools before Poe: rescuing the defectors from their brainwashing, tallying up what their people know how to do, sending out diplomats, building alliances, building a future. 

Together, he and Finn step out of the hallway into the bright, bright evening.

#tros roast #tros #tros fix it #my writing #long post #it occurred to me this evening that Finn is the only one who has seen Kylo Ren maskless #and TROS could have been written that Kylo only has his mask with the new batch of troopers #Finn acted as Stormtrooper Moses and rescued most of the troopers #so a way Ben could live in a Happily Ever After story is to emphasize 'Ren died so Ben could live' #this is unedited but it's still a better ending than TROS! #star wars #i just want a Happily Ever After in my entertainment goddamnit #obvs i'm not pulling from canon here but if it isn't in the movies it isn't canon to me #headcanon #unbeta'd

[helbertinelli]

I wanted to see the new Jedi Order AND the New Republic in the sequels. But no, instead we got A New Hope 2.0, Luke 2.0, and Darth Vader 2.0. This is so disappointing.

Yeah, the sequels were disappointing. There were so many better ways to continue the story of SW (although personally I think they shouldn’t have continued it), but they chose to go about it in the worst way possible. They had no idea why SW was loved and they focused on the absolute worst things and then switched to new things when the first thing didn’t work rather than to try to fix the thing that didn’t work.

Like they were for sure that people loved SW for Vader so they gave us a guy who wore a costume that looked similar to Vader’s, but the character himself had no personality, he had some lame motivation to join the dark side, and he wanted nothing more than to stay evil. People didn’t like Kylo and then they were like okay, well Palpatine was in all 6 films, they have to like him. And then they brought back Palaptine.

But they missed the fact that the people loved Star Wars for the story. That the characters in SW were just characters without the story to tie them all in.

Everyone loved Luke saving Vader and Vader wanting to be redeemed. The sequels tried that story with Rey and Kylo, but 1. There was no reason for Rey to want to save Kylo. He wasn’t her father, he had no relation to her other than the fact that he killed Han in front of her and he tortured her and her friends. 2. Kylo didn’t want redemption. Every time he was offered the chance to do something good he turned it down and it was like 2 or 3 times that this happened. Vader didn’t. Yes, he didn’t accept Luke’s help at first, but he did in the end. And after Palpatine died, Vader wasn’t like “Okay, I’m taking his place now. Join me or you’re nothing to me“ to Luke. Vader did want to rule the galaxy with Luke right after he found out he has a son, but he gave up on that and realized that he needs to come back to Luke rather than to have Luke joining him. He realized he needs to make the right decision because his son is important to him and he can’t lose his son. Rey wasn’t important for Kylo. She was literally no one to him. They had no relationship at all, except what Kylo said: “My grandfather worked for your grandfather so we’re a dyad” (I legit had to pause the movie because I couldn’t stop laughing... they even ripped off Space Balls omg). Maybe the sequels would have been better if the two were related (either siblings or cousins). But they were just strangers and Rey just decided one day that she wants to save Kylo for some reason and then she decided that she’ll go back to trying to kill him and they kinda switch back and forth between that and it’s just a complete mess and doesn’t even come close to the story of Luke redeeming Vader that they were trying to rip-off from the OT.

People loved Vader being mysterious and intimidating and they loved the idea of this powerful Sith lord wearing a mask (like the Sith of the Old Republic did). And the sequels tried to copy that aesthetic, but then they reveal Kylo’s face right away and he’s not intimidating at all and the whole mystery around his identity behind the mask goes away too. And his entire thing is to be whiny and throw a tantrum when things don’t go his way and destroy everything around him. I guess they were trying to copy Vader choking people with that, but the scary thing about Vader was that he would choke people but he’d put no energy into it and he’d stay calm and it was kinda unnerving how calm he was when he was choking the life out of someone. This is why Vader was intimidating and menacing. He didn’t lash out like a spoiled child and destroy his toys. He was in control even when he wasn’t and he was calm and made it seem like taking someone’s life was no issue to him.

Anakin’s backstory is loved by people. The way someone who was a Jedi and good became a Sith and took down the entire Jedi order and basically destroyed everything his world was about in the process was extremely complex and well-written and Anakin is somewhat of a sympathetic character because a lot of people can see that he made the wrong choices for all the right reasons (he just wanted to save his wife and their unborn child... children as we later find out). Kylo’s turn to the dark side is just he was contacted by Snoke, who whispered bad things to him about Luke, and for some reason Luke decided that the only way to deal with this is to for some reason kill Kylo in his sleep??? (yeah I also don’t understand why the guy who spent 3 movies trying to redeem Vader and refused to fight Vader and was about to let himself get killed by the Emperor because he was convinced his Sith lord father was actually good and would save him, is now like “You know, my nephew has to die. He can’t be redeemed.”). And then Kylo’s immediate reaction to this was to kill everyone else in Luke’s temple because I guess they also needed to rip-off Order 66 (out of all things that happened). Kylo isn’t sympathetic in this way because 1. He had a loving family and a good support system with Han and Leia and even Luke to some extent. He wasn’t like Anakin who never had anyone to talk to and who had to keep his life a secret from the Jedi and who grew up a slave and who was desperate to save the only family he had left. Kylo’s life was good and they said it was good in the sequels too. 2. He got threatened by Luke and his very next choice is to go kill a bunch of innocent people. He never showed any ounce of remorse for his actions. At least with Anakin, we see that he’s torn apart when he’s pledging himself to Palpatine and he’s basically hurt and haunted by his actions starting from then on. Kylo just killed a bunch of people and he’s going around like “yep, just another Tuesday...“

And aside from just doing a bad rip-off of a story that was already presented in the same universe, they also messed up with other characters that were beloved.

Luke, who never gave up on his father and who even abandoned his training (I think) to go save his family, is now the guy who wanted to kill his nephew at the first sign of the dark side and then his solution was to leave his family behind and never see them again.

Han is a deadbeat dad who left his wife when things got hard and went away on a road trip with Chewie to avoid any responsibility.

Leia is always sad and she desperately wants to forgive Kylo (they basically gave her Padme’s personality for some reason, when she’s more like Anakin). Like I can see Han forgiving Kylo (because he does have a big heart despite his rugged exterior), but giving what we know about Leia’s character, she wouldn’t forgive Kylo. It took Leia a long time to come to terms with forgiving Anakin and she wouldn’t even talk to his Force Ghost when he came to apologize, even though she knew he’d never see him again. There’s no way that she sees Kylo basically turning into Vader 2.0 and she’s like “there’s still good in him.“ Like he destroyed an entire system of planets, that had to bring back some painful memories for Leia. She actually had to watch Alderaan be destroyed. And he killed Han. I know their relationship was ruined in TFA, but TFA also made it clear that Leia and Han were still in love. There’s no way she would have forgiven Kylo or thought he was still good after he killed his dad and her husband. And he tried to kill her too if I remember correctly. He fired on her ship, which made her float out into space. Leia isn’t like Luke or Padme. It would be difficult for her to forgive Kylo for basically turning into her worst nightmare and taking her family away from her and killing so many other people too.

And then they bring back Palpatine too because I’m guessing their thought process was “well he was in all 6 movies that people loved, we do need a good villain.“ And it made no sense. Palpatine died like twice in ROTJ. He got destroyed by the reactor that Vader threw him in and then the entire Death Star exploded into tiny particles. There was no way for the Death Star to be crash landed on Exegol since it basically blew up in all directions in the middle of nowhere in space. Bringing him back basically invalidated all of Anakin’s story because him dying to bring balance to the Force was for nothing. He didn’t balance anything, Palpatine was never defeated. They really didn’t need Palpatine to be the villain of TROS. You could replace him with any other random villain and nothing changes. They only brought him back to make a reference to the old movies and have people watch their movie for nostalgia. But I honestly don’t know who was nostalgic for Sheev.

Anyway, it’s embarrassing that they had a good story that they tried to rip-off and they still managed to fuck it up. Like how hard it is to rip-off Star Wars and still have a good story? Didn’t Disney actually accomplish it before in a Phineas and Ferb special? I don’t know why they couldn’t do it this time around too.

But for real, they should have showed the New Jedi Order and the New Republic and show us how Luke and Leia were changing the world for the better and how they were fighting to keep the world a better place rather than to give us a watered down version of the First Galatic Empire vs Rebels but with worse characters and a worse story this time around.

#thanks for the ask #anti sequel trilogy #Anonymous #ask

[crmediagal]

Updated On AO3!!!

Seeds of Redemption by CRMediaGal

Synopsis: The First Order may have fallen, but the Proclamation has risen in its stead. As the galaxy is threatened by the coming of a Second Darkness, Ben Solo must painstakingly navigate both sides, the Dark Side and the Light. Only he is no longer alone in this fight, with far more at stake to lose than he ever would have dreamed.

Rated M, AU. TFA, TLJ, TROS, and Post-TROS. Originally written and published between December 2015 - April 2018.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22 

Chapter 23 [ NEW! ]

Excerpt:

Alas, it would seem that all of Ben’s painstaking efforts towards securing an end to the Proclamation were falling by the wayside now, with him being forced to swallow the brunt of those misfortunes, though his throat was too parched. Knowing that if he was ordered to remove his mask a second time he would likely forfeit any of Snoke’s remaining trust, Ben obliged his ‘master’.

His slightly unsteady hands gripped the fail-safe black chrome that had become his disguise and it betrayed his feathery touch, clicking and shifting out of joint. The mask, at last, slipped away to reveal a clamped, unsafe falsehood: Ben’s fleshy, vulnerable expressions, ready to sell him out at any moment.

“Yes, you see? There.”

Snoke’s affirmation, an eerie, daunting whisper that sounded most confident in its judgement, set the nail-biting scene, his upper lip curling backward in what appeared to be disgust. He whipped Amidala around by the shoulders, curling his large hands around her, though there was no need to hold the girl physically hostage; his Force abilities exercised that oppression well enough on their own, ensuring that Amidala wouldn’t escape. She yelped under his crushing grip.

“Is that the face of a faithful apprentice, I wonder?”

Amidala didn’t answer him. Her breathing quickened as she gaped, petrified, at Ben for some sort of guidance, but his eyes were purposely aimed somewhere around her wonky ankles, every ounce of his burly frame immobile and stiff.

Snoke, too, didn’t elaborate upon that tantalising question, allowing for the thick silence to cultivate and deepen. He eventually leaned closer to Amidala and brushed her ear with his cold lips, proposing by way of a delighted smirk, “Shall I tell you what I think, my dear?” to which she snarled, resistant.

“I – I’m not your ‘dear’, you filth!”

Amidala wiggled uselessly against her invisible restraints, attempting to draw attention away from her father. Ben saw straight through his daughter’s gallant but, ultimately, flimsy ploy and, regrettably, so did Snoke, for, unaffected by her outburst, his crafty attention zoned in on Ben specifically, wicked eyes unblinking and driven to tear; to destroy utterly.

“Rise, Commander Ren.”

Ben’s long legs mechanically did as they were instructed to. Either this was an out of body experience—a new, unfamiliar sensation for Ben Solo—or his fears had reached new heights upon which even he could no longer react with fleet-footed precision or cautious effectiveness. He was too afflicted by the horror of what had mounted into a ruinous failure. How was he to stop this impending shipwreck without killing himself or, worse, taking down Amidala and the rest of his family with him?

You’re in over your head, a canny voice warned inside his head, and it took Ben a couple heart-pounding seconds to comprehend that that hadn’t been his own conscience remarking on his downfall but another.

For some reason, either stemming from witless audacity or an involuntary reflex, Ben lifted his affected gaze and forced himself to look upon the harrowing scene, eyes flashing back and forth between his trapped daughter and the unbridled mastermind now threatening everything he held dear. He turned off his emotions, much like hitting a light switch, and frantically prepped himself for the worst yet to come.

“You see, my dear, I advised my apprentice long ago that should he double-cross me,” Snoke proclaimed, with bone-chilling, impassive evenness, holding a debilitated Amidala and Ben engrossed, “it would mean his end; the termination of his life and the extinction of his royal bloodline. He almost met that end in the Great Fire that took down the First Order…and nearly me with it.

“But like ashes, and those too powerless to stop our tyranny from spreading, we rose once more. So, too, did my undistinguished apprentice, with his elaborate tale of being blinded by the Light’s empty promises; by that contemptible scavenger’s Light and lies. Your mother,” he breathed next to Amidala’s ear, causing her stomach to clench and churn.

“I took him back, you see. I showed my apprentice mercy, a token rarely bestowed upon our enemies. I gave him everything he sought and then some, for he had submitted to his weaknesses and granted me the wherewithal to hone them to my benefit. I don’t give second chances lightly, you know, but I remembered Ren’s raw potential and decided that his powers were too easily manipulated to destroy.

“Ah, yes, such enormous capacity, such breathtaking conflict… Such a mighty tool for the Proclamation…

“I warned Ren,” Snoke continued, each sentence more ominous than the last, “that should he double-cross me again, I would finish what I started. That should have been sufficient; my threat needn’t have gone any farther. And then I saw it…”

Snoke inhaled a deep breath, lithe fingers digging into Amidala’s shoulders. She shook, not from the displeasure of the Sith’s touch, though that was putrid, but from the knowingness and ferocity that lay behind his claimed, as yet unspoken vision.

Then a series of grisly images began flourishing across Amidala’s sight. Spooked at recognising them from two years ago during a frightful meditation session with her mother that had gone awry and ended with her father passing out, Amidala went rigid as stone. She saw her brother, Han, trying to outrun what she now identified as Kylo Ren’s—her father’s—flaming red saber that rose to cut him down; there was Astrid screaming in unspeakable pain as her little body was electro-shocked, the force used to run her through so brutal that, before long, she went grey and lifeless; and there was her mother writhing on the ground as her Light and goodness—her very soul—were stripped from her until she could no longer communicate or move…

#reylo #reyben #kylo ren #ben solo #rey #star wars fanfic #crmediagal writes #seeds of redemption #oh. i updated. #i did the thing

[ganderinggoosie]

Would you break down Kylo Ren, please?

Boy can I anon! :) Apologies as well for the late reply, i wanted to take my time for this one.

essentially the TL/DR version is: this character has been neglected and abused his entire life, believing he didn't belong anywhere with anyone. only after realizing his parents and Rey actually care about him does he gain the courage to��“do the right thing.” He’s then written unceremoniously out of existence after saving and kissing Rey, only being happy for 10 seconds in hid entire life. Aint that dandy! :)

Idk how short of an explanation you want, but i also decided to list all of his major character arcs within his lifetime, simply because i care about this character A LOT. I haven’t written anything like an essay in a while, so i really couldn’t help myself haha. This list is also chronological, but ill keep it under a read-more for easy scrolling.

PRE-TFA

Literally been toyed with and corrupted SINCE BEFORE BEING BORN

A happy toddler who loved his parents and "uncles"

His parents loved him very much but didn’t treat him as a priority. Leia tended to focus on her political career and Han couldn’t shake his old nomadic ways. As a result, Ben ended up very isolated.

As he grew stronger and keener to the isolation, his parents feared him and his emotions. Leia sent him away to Luke’s academy, despite Han not wanting Ben to go.

Made friends in the academy, but still a loner. All the while the voices in his head (Snoke/palpatine) are growing louder and louder

Luke forcibly saw into his mind, intent on ending ben’s life until changing his mind. Naturally this upset Ben, seeing as he figured what was left of his family that cared about him wanted him dead. He then collapsed the building, trapping Luke inside.

While deciding to run away, a storm (inferably caused by Snoke/Palpatine) struck fire to the Jedi Temple, killing the students inside. Ben attempted to save a few, but failed.

Ran into the arms of the First Order and the Knights of Ren, since snoke gaslit him into believing it was the only place he could be.

Trained under The KOR and Snoke as a dark side force warrior. Mainly used asa spiritual tool to snuff out Jedi rather than a political tool for the FO.

Tasked with finding Luke Skywalker, sets the beginning of TFA in motion.

TFA

Demonstrates his capability in dark side tendencies by torturing Poe for information

Chooses not to acknowledge Finn’s deflection

immediately gets distracted from his mission of finding bb8 once learning there is a girl involved with this situation.

remains primarily on the defense while subduing rey, carries her away manually to his ship for interrogation. its notable to mention that Han was completely unworried for rey as she was being taken; he knew rey was strong enough to resist and he knew his son’s shortcomings. 

willingly unmasks to rey while interrogating her; this is to show the audience that not only is he making himself more vulnerable and relatable to rey, but also to show that he’s completely opposite to what rey was expecting.

Their connection is formed as they push into each other’s minds

snoke tells him to kill his father in order to complete the training. ben loves his father dearly but genuinely believes he’s too far gone to do anything contradictory to snoke’s orders.

senses it when han arrives at Starkiller, and ignores him. referential material implied that kylo wanted to give han the chance to escape, but when Han sought him out then he reacted.

kills han, the deed “splitting him to the bone” 

survived, but gravely injured by Chewbacca’s bowcaster blast (shown previously blowing up 6 troopers at once). Sees Finn and Rey, becoming enraged, and follows them.

intercepts rey and finn in the forrest. angrily taunts them while beating his wounds. sends rey back into a tree in self-defense. demands to take the legacy saber, fighting with finn in the process. its notable that his fighting style while on the offensive is extremely akin to a berserker method; precise and accurate but brutal and excessive. ends up slashing finn and rendering him unconscious.

is in awe of rey’s ability to call the saber to her, fights her less-aggressively in order to corner her and offer her guidance. naturally she refuses, and taps into the force to overpower him and leave him bleeding on Starkiller as her and Finn rejoin the resistance.

TLJ

approaches snoke in his throneroom, visibly injured and emotional as a result of his fight with rey and the death of his father. snoke mocks his “weak” emotional state and calls him a “child in a mask.”

is hurt by snoke’s remark, an destroys his mask in a rage.

leads an arial attack on the Resistance ships, demonstrating his skills as a pilot. When he has an opportunity to blow up his mother’s ship, he doesn’t; he loves her far too much and cant physically bring himself to repeat the horror of killing Han. Unfortunately, one of the TIE pilots do instead. (later he is relieved to still feel his mother through the force.)

while in a medbay getting treatment for his scar, the force connects him with rey for the first time. both are surprised by this turn of events, and Kylo is more curious as to the logistics of the connection rather than being angry at the sudden appearance of his enemy.

connects with rey again as she is in the rain, still fascinated by how exactly the bond works. rey is still enraged by his presence as he casually mentions that Luke isnt the saintly figure she sees him as. Agrees with her as she angrily calls him a monster; instead of a taunt its actually a display of self-loathing. he then wipes his face after their connection ends, demonstrating that the bond they share permeates a physical space (as well as being a metaphor of the palpable tension between him and rey).

connects with rey again, this time with him in a state of partial undress. rey asks him if he could put a shirt on and he doesn't, despite the fact his shirt is on the desk a few feet away. the narrative purpose of this introduction is to show that rey is physically attracted to him and he knows it.

tells rey his story of Luke attempting to kill him, then tells her his nihilistic outlook of “letting the past die.” they disconnect, but rey ends up following his advice and explores the darker part of the island (a metaphor for HER darker side).

Later connects with rey again as she tearfully tells how alone she felt while in the cave attempting to find herself. Him, visibly touched by her story and the fact she trusts him enough to confess something so personal, tearfully tells her that she’s not alone. they then touch hands, doing so granting them visions of the supposed future. Luke angrily blasts apart the cabin, forcefully ending their connection.

Rey flies to him on the Supremacy, and he cuffs her to take her to snoke. (It’s important to mention that in the novel adaptation of the movie, it’s more of a playful and flirtatious banter between the two instead of a prisoner/hostage situation.) While on the elevator rey begs him to join her, as he counters and says that she’ll eventually join him instead.

While in snoke’s throne room, Kylo submissively kneels as snoke tortures rey for information. he occassionally looks up woefully at her, and eventually turns the saber on snoke after saying “he knows what he has to do.” He and rey team up to fight the Praetorian Guards and end up defeating them together.

Pleads with Rey to join him in leading the darkside as rey pleads with him to save the resistance fleet. Kylo tells her that he saw who her parents were and that she was nothing to them and had no place in that particular story. he then clumsily adds “but not to me” and begs her to join him again. the two then fight over the legacy saber, only to have it explode and knock them both back.

passed out from both the blast of the saber and Holdo blasting through the ship, kylo awakens to find rey gone. heartbroken and furious at her supposed betrayal of his trust, he violently declares himself the new Supreme Leader and orders an attack on Crait.

on Crait, he shows that not only is he deeply impulsive, but also an ultimately poor leader. he’s fine until noticing the millenium falcon, then finally loses it in a fury of rage and heartbreak. Luke skywalker understands the irrational state his nephew is in, and takes advantage of his irrationality to aid the resistance. his fight with luke was simply a distraction and taunt, resulting in a massive tactical failure.

kneels in defeat while clutching his father’s lucky dice, only to be connected with rey one more time. she distainfully “shuts the door” on him, and he recoils sadly as the dice disappear.

PRE-TROS

featured in supplimental material as a ruthless leader, hellbent on finding the resistance and eliminating threats to the First Order.

is shown to take plenty of self-assigned solo missions, implying that he doesnt truthfully care about the governmental aspect of being supreme leader.

TROS 

Begins the film on Mustafar, fighting a band of cultists dedicated to Darth Vader, taking the wayfinder they were protecting. in earlier drafts of the movie (as well as probable deleted scenes) Kylo then sees a character known as the Oracle on Mustafar, who cryptically tells him about Palpatine, Rey’s heritage, as well as his affection for rey that he attempts to deny.

he flies to Exogol, where he discovers that it was actually palpatine whos been manipulating him his entire life. threatens to kill palpatine but humors him as palpatine offers promises of utter domination if kylo could kill rey. naturally he has no intention of doing so.

Later connects with rey as she is training. its unclear if hes the one making the training droid react negatively to her or if hes simply observing her and attempting to catch her off-guard.

unites with the knights to rebuild his mask (for some reason).

informs the First Order officials he knows one of them is a spy (for some reason). 

connects with rey as she’s on pasaana, taunting her and stealing her necklace in order to track her location.

arrives to pasaana and witnesses rey trying to drag a ship down. holds back the ship in order to see if she’d tap into the dark side to bring it down, which she does.

follows rey to kijimi as she boards his ship and steals the dagger he has. tells her the “true history” of her parentage while also stating that he’d never lie to her. they fight (him on defensive) and she destroys his room. they meet again in person, him unmasking to show hes being sincere in proposing to her again; saying they’re a dyad and they belong together. she denies, again, and flees. 

meets her again on the Death Star, remarking that neither of them could return to the light since the pair of them are too far ingrained into the dark. He destroys the wayfinder she found, believing they’ll only get to Exogol together. they fight, again, with him on the defensive, again.

towards the end of their fight its clear that rey is exhausted, so he backs away and lowers his weapon. however, at this exact instance, Leia chooses to call out to him via the force. (it is unclear if she does this to distract him or if she does this because she knows she’s ill and wants to see him before she passes.) While he is distracted, rey grabs his saber and fatally stabs him. he collapses, feeling his mother’s death and the resignation that the woman hes in love with ended him. However, rey immediately regrets hurting him and uses the force to heal him. she confesses that had he been Ben rather than Kylo, she would’ve taken his hand. 

While gazing out to sea alone, Kylo hears the voice of his father. He turns, and it met with a vision of Han. Han tells him to “come home” and that the light within Ben was always there. Han caresses his cheek like he did in TFA. Ben, crying, starts to say something but is so overcome with emotion that all he can manage is “dad.” Han smiles and says “i know,” a callback to his line to Leia in ESB.  With the forgiveness of his father and the newfound strength and motivation, ben throws his saber into the ocean, effectively cementing his persona Kylo Ren officially dead.

as rey is in danger on Exogol, Ben flies an abandoned TIE (inferably left in the Death Star wreckage) there and sprints, armed with only a blaster, and launches himself into danger to help rey.

their bond connects as she’s about to pledge to the sith and as the knights of ren are about to kill him. he wordlessly assures her that he’s there for her and that its ok to reveal that shes part of a dyad. she agrees, passing along her saber to him through their bond. Ben kills the Knights as rey kills the sith guardians.

the pair of them reunite, but only for palpatine to sap their life force, made more powerful due to them being a dyad. once significantly weakened, Palpatine launches Ben into a pit. 

After defeating palpatine, rey dies. Ben manages to climb out of the pit and crawls over to rey, severely injured. he then embraces her lifeless body and cries for her, knowing then what he needs to do.

Ben heals rey with the force, bringing her back to life. Rey, elated to see him, cups his face as he cries and smiles feebly. she kisses him and caresses his face again, him smiling and chucking for the first time the entire series. At peace and healed by the redemptive power of being in love and having that person love him back in return.

he then immediately falls over dead and disappears into the force, thereby ruining all semblance of a skywalker legacy and redemption arc. FOR. SOME. REASON.

#kylo ren #ben solo #reylo #rey #finn #han solo #leia organa #knights of ren #luke skywalker #supreme leader snoke #sheev #meta #star wars #answered #anon #yeah this got way too long lol

[dumbledearme]

Unpopular opinion:

TROS works. For me at least. And here’s why:

So... I have never been a die hard Star Wars fan. In fact, although I do love the story, the setting, the world, I always kind of thought the original trilogy was a Luke Snoozefest (#sorrynotsorry). I was under the impression that the three original movies were unnecessary and that George Lucas could’ve told the same story in just one movie, and that would’ve worked much better.

In 2015, I went to watch TFA by accident, mostly because there was nothing else to watch at the time. And boy was I shook. SHOOK, I TELL YOU. I got out of the movies completely in love with Rey and thinking that Kylo Ren was the greatest character to ever live.

And even though I wasn’t a fan at the time, I could clearly tell that TFA was an ode to the old Star Wars movies. It was telling me, essentially, the same story that it’d told 30 years ago: a hero comes out of the desert to save the galaxy from the bad guy in a mask. Yep. Thank you very much. 

Not only that, every single one of the new characters were cleverly written to replace someone else in the franchise: Rey is Luke, Kylo is Vader, Poe is Han, Finn is Leia, etc. The new trilogy starts the exact same way as the old one did, with a droid being found by the unsuspected hero, guarding very important information, which, in my mind, was already a hint that the new trilogy would also, fatefully and rightfully, end the same way the original trilogy did.

I’m not gonna lie to you, I liked TFA because the protagonist was a girl and because Adam Driver is amazing and he delivers Kylo Ren like it’s nobody’s business. But the story is intriguing and the building, at least to me, made a lot of sense and had a lot of potential. I knew from the start that Rey had to be someone’s daughter, not because she was the main character, or because she was clearly going to become a Jedi, but because of her raw potential and the consistent hints at her parentage, which, in a movie like this, are rarely gratuitos. 

Sure TLJ introduces the concept that anyone can be powerful, or a Jedi, or save the galaxy, and that is a truly powerful idea, but they weren’t necessarily saying that Rey was a nobody: I think they were saying that she should stop looking for who her parents were because ultimately it doesn’t matter. Rey being related to Palpatine in TROS doesn’t matter, it only tells you where her raw strength and potential for darkness comes from. What really matters is the choice she makes in the end to belong to the light, to belong to the Skywalkers. Rey being a Palpatine is balance because it tells you she comes from the villain’s side, but it doesn’t mean she is a villain, just as Ben comes from the hero’s side, but he's chosen to be Kylo Ren. 

Not to mention that as far back as 2017 there were already theories that Rey was a Palpatine, so some fans did pick up on that from the beginning. And I have to say, looking back, that I get what they mean. Especially with the fighting scenes: Rey usually overpowers Kylo Ren using anger, fear and aggression, things that, according to Yoda “the dark side are they...” 

So ultimately, I was not mad about that. Just as I wasn’t mad about Palpatine being the main villain. It seemed right (?) because, like I said before, the new trilogy is essentially the same as the old one. Palpatine is the archenemy of Skywalker. When you think about it, the Skywalker line even started with Palpatine (didn’t he use his power to make Anakin’s mom pregnant with him?), so it only makes sense (?) that it should end with him, too.

And since I’m on that subject, I might as well mention that, to me, it felt like Rey is actually the chosen one from the prophecy and not Anakin like we’ve been taught to believe. She used the Force to end Palpatine once and for all. She is the balance: she is Palpatine and Skywalker, she is light and dark. So, I’m sorry, but as far as I’m concerned the Skywalker who brought balance back to the Force was the one who wasn’t a Skywalker by birth and rather by choice, and I think that’s really beautiful. 

Now, let’s talk about the real elephant in the room: REYLO. 

Yes, I’m a Reylo shipper. I love Rey. I love Ben. I love them together. I wanted them to get married and have lots and lots of babies. The fandom is great and the fanfics are even better. But here’s the thing: I never, not in a million years (!!!), thought the movies were hinting at them being together. WUT 

In TFA I was like “sure would be nice if they banged” cause I could see, HELL I COULD FEEL, the chemistry between them and I was all in for it. When he met Rey, Kylo was all like “hell, Imma kill this girl”, which maybe might’ve been why I felt it would be such a clever twist if he fell in love with her. 

The charm of Kylo Ren to me (other than he being played by Adam Driver, I mean) is that he’s not your typical villain. Kylo is a child who has no idea what he’s doing or WHY he’s doing it. Someone who doesn’t have an agenda is more terrifying to me because he is unpredictable: there’s no telling what he’s going to do next because he doesn’t have a defined goal, he’s just angry and vengeful and a child with a lot of power in his hands. And in the real world that is a truly scary thing. 

But then again, back in 2015, I thought that if Kylo and Rey had fallen in love would mean that I was watching a romance and Star Wars might be many things but it was never about romance. Sure, it’s about family, it’s about love and friendship, but it was never about ~~romantic love~~. The romantic love between Han and Leia is a secondary plot and if you remove it from the movie, it changes absolutely nothing. The romance between Anakin and Padme gets more attention because it’s partially the reason why he became Darth Vader, so it was necessary, but even so it’s not what the trilogy is about: the movies were made to show how he descended to darkness and not to show how he fell in love. Like.. whatever. So I was never under the impression that we would get to see these two characters fall for each other. (Plus, it sort of felt like they were building something between Rey and Finn for a hot minute there, didn’t it?)

HOWEVER, 2017 came, TLJ happened and things got bothered and hot. Because killing Han Solo didn't bind Kylo Ren to the darkness, it made him shy away from it instead. And then the bond happened (and don't even try to tell me that it wasn't a natural thing, that it was Snoke who did it, because I won't believe you, okay? They were already connected from the moment the Force awoke inside Rey and that's why they were seeing each other in the vision when Rey first touched Luke's saber.) 

So the bond happened and I thought "my God please more". I sensed the potential for fanfiction. I wanted them to be a pair, to be together. I wanted Star Wars to be a romance, just this once, I never asked you for anything, guys! But I also knew it was wishful thinking. I didn't think the bond was building a romantic relationship between the two of them (clearly I was wrong), I thought it was a powerful connection of the mind, of the soul even, but not of the heart. I thought these two very lonely characters would find a way to relate to each other so that Rey, in the end, could be the key to pulling Ben Solo back to the light. 

I was reminded of the scene in TFA when Maz tells Rey: “Whomever you’re waiting for on Jakku, they’re never coming back. But... there’s someone who still could. The belonging you’re seeking is not behind you, it is ahead.” At the time, both Rey and I assumed Maz was talking about Luke, but after TLJ I wondered if she couldn't be referring to Ben Solo? That Rey could bring him back because of that sense of belonging that neither of them had ever experienced in their lives but started to find in each other? 

So through the bond we as an audience were able to explore both Rey and Ben's past. Their connection, their chats helped them get to know each other and get to know themselves. They explored parts of themselves that they had been previously too scared to explore alone. They were even allowed to see each other in moments of weakness and vulnerability, like when Adam Driver is shirtless #yes. That was included in the movie to show us that they were getting to know each other in a very deep level where Kylo Ren was no longer the man behind the mask, he was transparent, Rey could see into his soul. And he could see into hers so much that he saw her parents and her lineage. 

And ahh when they touched hands it was like having sex to me. I was so into it, I could hardly believe it. Rey got to see Ben behind the Kylo Ren facade more deeply than Luke could see Anakin behind Darth Vader, so it was no wonder that she had the same reaction he did. 

LUKE: ...There is good in him. I’ve felt it. He won’t turn me over to the Emperor. I can save him. I can turn him back to the good side. I have to try.

REY: There’s still conflict in him. If I go to him, Ben Solo will turn. 

The scene in the elevator, for example, and when Kylo Ren is delivering Rey to Snoke are also a clear mirror of when Darth Vader is delivering Luke to Palpatine. The dialogue is also pretty similar. To me, that was a hint that the end to this story would be a pretty close mirror, if not an exact one, to the end we’ve seen in Episode VI.

LUKE: I feel the conflict within you. Let go of your hate.

REY: I feel the conflict in you. It's tearing you apart.

Last week, when I went to see TROS, I was not expecting at all to get confirmation that Reylo was canon. I was expecting, however, to watch Anakin die again. I anticipated the scene where Darth Vader turns and dies in the hands of the only person who believed in him. And that’s what happened to Ben. 

Look, guys, I know it’s sad. It’s heartbreaking. I know we all love Ben Solo and we wanted him to be happy. But that was never in the cards for him and deep down we’ve known it all along. Sure, we’re just humans and we can’t help hope and cheer for a character we’re attached to. But since the moment he was marked with a scar on his face he was destined to die like Anakin died. It was bound to happen. I think it worked as faith that Ben should die doing the one thing Anakin couldn’t ever do. We see him asking for Darth Vader’s guidance, fearing that he won’t ever be as strong as Darth Vader, and then we get the confirmation that he is even more so. 

The new Vader, Snoke calls him. New and improved actually. 

The thing is all Anakin ever wanted was to save the people he loved from death and he couldn’t do that. It was the only power he was after, so why couldn’t he do it, if both Ben and Rey can? 

ANAKIN: Why did she have to die? Why couldn’t I save her? I know I could have!

PADME: Sometimes there are things no one can fix. You’re not all-powerful, Ani.

ANAKIN: Well, I should be! Someday I will be. I will be the most powerful Jedi ever. I will even learn to stop people from dying.

Why, you ask? Well, I have a theory. Anakin was always blaming Obi-Wan for holding his powers back, when, in fact, his own selfishness was doing that. And the movies tell us that being a Jedi is being selfless (heck, I think Anakin is the one who says that even). 

The Sith rely on their passion for their strength. They think inwards, only about themselves.

To me that is the difference between Anakin and Ben. Anakin was a full-on Sith. He wanted to keep his mom and Padme alive because of how much they meant to him, because of how much it would hurt HIM to lose them. That is not a good reason to want to save a person from death. Ben, on the other hand, he saves Rey because of who she is, because she is necessary to the world, she is important, she is a good person and she deserves to live, much more so than he does after all of the horrible things he has done. HE knows that. He is very much self-aware, something that Anakin was not. 

Which led me to think that perhaps, even as in love as he seemed to be, Anakin wasn’t ready to give up his life for Padme’s and that’s why he couldn’t use the Force to heal her. The key to that power is a life for a life. An exchange. And Anakin wouldn’t exchange his life for anyone’s. Not in that time of his life at least. He was just too selfish. And that’s where Ben differs from him. Anakin was only ever ready to die for someone many years later, when he met Luke. 

Remember: “fear of loss is a path of the dark side.”

Moreover, Anakin never learned everything there was to learn about the Force because the Jedi council didn’t trust him and they kept many things from him. I got the feeling that this was a power the Jedi kept hidden from everyone because they feared it and thought it unnatural. For Rey it came naturally because she was just that good of a person. Nobody taught her to do that. But she taught Ben, or at least she showed him how and that action is what saves her in the end. 

ANAKIN: Love won’t save you, Padmé. Only my new powers can do that.

But here’s the thing, Anakin. Love does save people, because it was love that allowed Ben to tap into the power and use it to exchange his life for Rey’s. 

So I’m okay with Ben’s death because I know he did for the right reasons. As for Rey’s reaction to his death... Well, wasn’t it the exact same reaction Luke had when Anakin died in his arms? I think it’s just another mirror scene, guys. 

And besides, the previous movies tells us that we should “rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force” and not mourn them. That this type of death is a good one, a happy one even. If a dialogue had happened in these scenes, it would probably have been very similar to the one between Luke and Vader. 

LUKE: You’re coming with me. I’ll not leave you here. I’ve got to save you. 

VADER: You already have. You were right. You were right about me. 

And she was, guys. She was right about him and that’s all he ever needed. Ben doesn’t need to live because he can’t make right the things he’s done wrong. Both his parents are dead because of him. He can’t make up for that. What he can do is make sure that Rey doesn’t die because of him, instead she gets to live because of him. 

Which brings me to my last subject: the death of all Skywalkers. Yes, they killed all the Skywalkers in a movie called The Rise of Skywalker. And you know what? I don’t blame them. Not one bit. 

I know most of us wanted the movie to be different, to be about Ben’s redemption, but it never was. The movies are about Rey. She is the main character. She is the one who needs to live out the legacy of Star Wars. And that means that people need to let go of the past. 

“Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.”

We can’t keep holding on to the old characters. We need to let the Skywalkers die. They’re done. It’s past. Star Wars needs to be about something else now. Rey only takes their name because she wants to honor the only family she has ever known, the family she knows she belongs to, but the Skywalkers have to be gone for a new generation to rise and prosper. Didn’t you notice that all the wars and all the destruction have something to do with that family? They had to go. 

In the end, Rey was alone in Tatooine and that’s okay. Being alone and being lonely are two different things. You can argue that she lost the love of her life and her only chance for happiness, but that’s not true. She lost one romantic pair. I know we live with the romantic notion of having just the one true love, but that’s not life. She will be fine because Ben made sure she lives! He gave her an opportunity to take her life and make a good thing out of it. Death is final. Life is full of possibilities. And he gave her that. As a woman, I feel good about the fact that she doesn’t need him in her life to have a happy ending, however harsh that may sound. I find comfort in knowing that she can think back on him, that she knows there was once this *beautiful* man and that she was able to touch him so deeply that she changed his faith entirely. She gave him hope. And he, in return, gave her life.  

I thought the movie delivered a great sense of nostalgia and longing at the same time that it cut everyone off from the past. It was done quite beautifully. 

I’m not going to deny that there are faults, that the fact that they changed writers mid-way was a mistake, and bringing JJ back when he had so much baggage wasn’t the greatest idea. But in no way I think the delivery was bad. There were holes in it, just like in any other Star Wars movie. There were things changed at the last minute, just like in any other Star Wars movie. 

Like I said, it wasn’t the movie I wanted it to be, the romance between Ben and Rey. But none of the Star Wars movie is what I wanted. They are what they are and they follow a pattern that, most often than not, works. 

Would I have liked it more if Ben Solo had lived happily ever after? Yes. 

Do I hate it? No. 

Thank you for reading this. Please be mindful of your words. 

#TROS #the rise of skywalker #star wars #kylo ren #reylo #rey #ben solo #han solo #luke skywalker #anakin skywalker #the last jedi #the force awakens #the return of the jedi #a new hope #the clone wars #the revenge of the sith #the phantom menace #the empire strikes back #leia organa #disney

[janiedean]

what are your thoughts on the claim by antis (the people who I have seen reblog the post happen to be fi**Xrey shippers) that reylo being canon is racism winning or that kylo ren getting focus is racism etc or say the trio is finn/rey/poe even though that poe was intended to die in tfa

in order:

'reylo being canon is racism’ is ridiculous because if it wasn’t obvious from tfa it was obvious from tlj and like........ it’s not like they could cast a nonwhite kylo since he’s supposed to be the son of two white people and if rey was nonwhite people would scream that it’s racist for other reasons, and on top of that finn and rey never were written as love interests from the get-go and it’s obvious

also considering that finn a) had rose who was a canon love interest that was scrapped bc people bitched about it [asian], b) went nowhere with jannah who was the obvious rose replacement just cooler either [black], c) didn’t have the mlm romance with poe with whom he had more chemistry than anyone else anyway [oscar is latino] if I had to go for their reasoning then it’s kind of racist that the black main lead had no actual canon love story RESOLUTION with none of his THREE possible love interests all of which were not white, but nah, it’s racism just if he doesn’t end up with the only main white woman his age? ... I mean, sorry but this is not progressive whatsoever and I’m dying on that hill *shrug*

also reylo is a ship between an abuse victim who did a lot of bad shit and someone who sees the good in them in which the abuse victim turns their life around eventually so miss me with ‘racism winning’, it would have been ‘you can do good things with your life still’ winning if he survived but whatever

‘kylo ren getting focused on is racism’ the dark side has been more popular than the light side han excluded since sw was a thing and at the end of it ben solo was the objectively best written character in this trilogy (saying this as someone whose fave was poe), I’m sooooo surprised! also he’s the main dark side person, if they don’t focus on him who are they gonna focus on? *shrug*

re poe: if I was in the shoes of these people I’d be here protesting about that disgusting retcon space drug trader storyline GIVEN TO THE LATINO CHARACTER GOING AGAINST COMICS CANON because that was pretty fucking offensive. also, poe was not killed in tfa and it was a decision taken before they shot the movie because oscar was like ‘do I really have to die again in the first fifteen minutes’ while in talks for the role so the fact that he was supposed to die means absolutely shit because making him live was not a decision they made at the last minute, so miss me with the poe should have died discourse. however as someone who’d have appreciated good trio stuff in tros, they completely fucked up 80% of that starting with the retconned storyline and not giving finn a proper character arc so like... idk if people want to discuss racism in this sequels maybe they should talk about how the trio part of the movie fucked over both finn and poe as characters, about how tros sidelined the other nonwhite actresses and fucked over rose, while jannah could have been cool but oh hey ‘some stormtroopers feel the force and leave others don’t’ nice calvinism there, and zoe... I mean she didn’t even take the mask off but okay sure that was absolutely progressive? also lando was back but he was there for five minutes??? I mean.... sorry but considering that tros treated like shit all the nonwhite characters who could have had a storyline all on their own instead of revolving around a bad copypaste of troj made to retcon tlj never mind the disrespect to the actors (I can’t forgive them for making oscar play that fucking drug backstory when poe was a character who was NOT supposed to be a latino stereotype in the goddamned established canon, and kelly marie tran... let’s not even touch the fucking disrespect of her being in that movie for ONE MINUTE AND A HALF), I think that the problem isn’t reylo smooching or kylo ren/ben solo existing. poe/finn/rose/jannah/zoe/lando could have had decent storylines on their own..... and the only one who sort of had one was poe and it included that dumbass retconned backstory so if people want to cry about rey and kylo locking lips when they had been told since the trailer from tlj instead of pointing out that this movie’s plot/treatment of nonwhite actors was atrocious then... well. sorry but it’s typical anti armchair activism IF worrying about SW is even activism. miss me with that shit either. and whether poe should have been part of the new trio or no is completely irrelevant given this background. like, they had a lot of nonwhite characters, they could have done really good/nice things with them, they didn’t, but sure, the problem is ben solo’s existence and that he and rey kissed when tlj made it blatantly obvious they would. k.

*shrug*

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #sw wank for ts #tros spoilers for ts #racism cw #we serious #99% of this discourse is out of fucking control #reylo for ts #god i'm so mad about what they did #sw negativity for ts #abuse cw #god spare me from this discourse i cannot #anti-finnrey #god nothing against FR but come the fuck on #i'll believe all this talk when i see those same ppl outraged about KMT #Anonymous #ask post

[smuthuttpodcast]

Reylo stories make me FEEL! From wistful hope to downright horny -- fandom is full of emotion! It's a beautiful escape and has taught me to respect artists and their dedication to getting a story right.

Name/Handle/Alias

ArdentGardenFox

About how long would you say you’ve been rooting for Reylo?

I've been invested in Reylo since "Ah, you do" in TLJ. But I've been a Kylo Ren / Ben Solo fan since he stopped that blaster bolt and read Poe's mind in TFA. 

What did you think of the way Rise of Skywalker handled Rey and Kylo’s relationship?

Full disclosure: I've seen TROS 5 times so far *puts on clown mask* Positives: They kept the Force Bonds. Negatives: Rey was lighting her saber every damn time! Chill out, Rey! There was so much exposition, too: Only talking heads to move story plot and no real growth between the two. Just running and hiding and fighting. To the point where Rey fatally stabs an unarmed Kylo ... Who was pulling his punches the whole time during the battle! Ugh, it was so frustrating to watch each time. So yeah, thanks for the 5 minutes of "redemption" but it was rushed in favor of keeping the movie too "mushy" for OT fans. 

Do you think the film understood why you, and other people, felt like Rey and Kylo had something together? Did it get their chemistry?

The actors certainly got their chemistry. The scenes they had were electric (if their words were a little empty). The filmakers though? I think they totally missed the big picture of how a well-written redemption arc through a love interest can be So Satisfying! Why would you table that in favor of another "I am Ironman" moment? And when I voice my displeasure with non-Reylos I feel like I'm being pat on the head. What sorry lives they live if they don't embrace the power of love, belonging, and soulmates.

What about the handling of Kylo’s redemption? Was it something you had to think through in your stories?

I definitely found solace in reading fix-it fanfic as soon as I got home from the movie. Overall I felt Ben's redemption should've been handled in the first 30 mins of the movie -- in the scroll-text intro, even! By leaving it to the end and most importantly not giving Rey time for reflection or grief, it seemed like a throw-away ... when it should have been the point of the whole ST. Ben / Kylo Ren is like an unknown soldier. Unsung and unappreciated. No one knows his sacrifice. His dying and disappearing was confusing, but then his lack of force ghost at the end felt even more like a slap in the face. Our boy deserved so much more. 

How did you handle or would you have handled the redemption of Kylo Ren in your fics? How did you envision Kylo/Ben’s redemption before TROS and how do you (re)envision it after seeing TROS?

Pre-Tros (and especially post-teaser) I soooo wanted Kylo Ren to be the one teaching Rey the ways of the force. I envisioned her backflip over the Silencer to be her final trial. And the reason Kylo would be her teacher was because the First Order had to team up with the Resistance to take out Palpatine (since he reared his nasty head in the trailer) But mostly I wanted to see the "balance" theme return ... Mortis... Son/Daughter stuff! Alas, we got "Indiana Jones in Space" and a senile emperor who both had a long-term diabolical plan that also changed three times in as many days smh. Kylo should've stabbed him on his first trip to Exegol.

Post-Tros I have to have hope that Ben Solo's force energy is trapped somewhere and it's tied to Rey. She'll bring him back for a proper happy ending. Hey, if they're gonna drop the Dyad card, let's do this! New movie should be all Reylo all day-lo ... And directed by someone who understands this.

What did you think of where Rey landed at the end? There had been a lot of excitement around Star Wars having a female protagonist. Do you think she lived up to the promise of her character?

I wanted "Just Rey". Palpatine or no, she shouldn't have taken Skywalker ... Unless Ben was there in solid form or force form. (Don't understand why the lightsabers had to be buried, too. And my Anakin-sympathetic heart aches that his sabre is deep in sand :(

Rey is a hero. She's feisty. She's powerful. But she's so lonely! I like where they were taking her story and how it twined with Kylo. But TROS felt like a step back. The last scene alone on a desert planet was wrong. If anything she should have her new, chosen family with her. 

There’s criticism of the movie that argues it’s akin to “fan fiction” and that is has too much fan service. As fans and fan-fiction writers, how do you react to that?

If this was fanfiction I would've stopped reading after the first chapter. No Kudos. TROS does suffer from fan service but I was ok with nuggets of nostalgia. It was the unimaginative way the story flowed that left me wanting. It was predictable. And convenient. Not nearly as earth-shaking as it could have been. Take a chance, people! Be fearless! 

Tell us about your favorite parts of the fandom. How does the fandom lift you up and embody the best parts of Reylo and Star Wars?

Reylo stories make me FEEL! From wistful hope to downright horny -- fandom is full of emotion! It's a beautiful escape and has taught me to respect artists and their dedication to getting a story right.

Are you still writing any Star Wars fanfic? Tell us about it! (Don't forget your Ao3 handle!)

Not a writer (yet) but an avid reader and commenter. One of the proudest moments of my adult life was getting an account on AO3 ... I love you all!

Thank you AdentGardenFox!

[bearpillowmonster]

Rise Of Skywalker (NonSpoiler Review)

What's funny is that I changed my wallpaper right before I left because I'm superstitious and didn't want a wallpaper to come back to disappointed and the ending of TROS is very reminiscent to that wallpaper but you won't know what I mean unless you've seen my wallpaper ;D

For some background, I went into the theater and it was chilly because that was the only theater room with broken heat but it was the earliest showing for the day so they warned us but I didn't care...that is until I got there, I warmed up a little but then I had to pee so I came back and had to warm up again, affected a little bit of my experience, shaking the whole time.

Let me start with the opening, as much as people might complain about TLJ, one thing I can gather from a consensus of the fans is that the opening, though flawed with the gravity aspect, was a pretty good opening. This one's opening doesn't excite me quite as much but more just kind of jumps into it, which I can respect. They have a part where they have that ugly yellow alien, I guess his name is "Klaud", he is on one of the first poster leaks but he only pops in here, but he has no business being on the Millennium Falcon, why? That's one part I never understood.

I can tell they at least listened to some feedback with some of the inclusions and such but don't get me wrong, I don't mean fan-service, they have a moment or two of just nostalgia but I mean something like "Rey is too inexperienced to be that powerful." I never really had a problem with it but they, for one, explain it, and for two, have her training. That and some other complaints I've heard before. They do try to play "Oh, you liked this? Well let's put it in there." It does have Palpatine after all.

They don't really explain everything, like they'll just kind of brush over some stuff and then over others, I never felt like they went knee deep into anything. They had some really great parts and some great LOOKING shots but for one, it doesn't do too much that's "new" and I don't mean that as if it's like any particular movie, it doesn't seem like a retread.

And the stuff that it does do new, like I said, they just kind of brush over, such as new characters. Zori Bliss? Yeah she doesn't remove her helmet so don't get your hopes too high.

Why is Kylo's mask back? Well...to fit in with the boys. Which brings me to another topic, Kylo not being intimidating, nobody follows him. This is something that we have dealt with for quite some time, after the beginning of TFA, he just kind of stopped being scary, and in a way they take note of that but again, nobody follows him so it's kind of like "if Kylo doesn't follow the original plan then we're not following him." which doesn't make much sense and kind of just makes it seem like they wanted something to do with those characters. What about the beginning? They didn't seem to mind following him then, was that apart of the plan too? That's not rhetorical, it IS a possibility.

They do have a bit of a problem with a common trope movies fall for, I won't mention what it is but I mentioned it in my Frozen 2 review and you might be able to see it through that.C-3P0 is in a good amount, I'm surprised since he's an old character.

I thought about how each movie seemed to be focused on the single one and while that might be fine and is how even the original trilogy was done, it seems like it's not too clear of a vision or path between the 3 movies. Given the two different directors, it's in a way to be expected but also kind of hurts the movie because I can think of the path the prequels had, and yes it took time to fully realize it and everything as I'm sure this one will too.

One of the problems with the prequels was that it had good content and had the puzzle pieces but wasn't quite put together in the right way, you had to view it in a different way in order to get the vision in it's whole. They mentioned how a lot of the people that worked on the original trilogy made it what it is, that the source content was all there but it needed to be realized and cut in a specific way, this movie seems to have that same problem, it has the content but isn't sure what to do with it. It doesn't seem like it really drags, I'm not sure if it tries to cram things in there or what the problem could be pinpointed to but it was brought to my attention (afterwards) that some people think that this is JJ's telling of both 8 and 9 more or less summarized so that it will fit together. If you try to imagine this movie into two separate entities, I feel like it's possible but I also feel like there's a lot of content that was cut in order to fit the mark and be that mashup so it won't be clear until we figure that out.

I'd hate to admit it but part of the problem IS that it takes place many years after Episode 6, it makes it clear because there's a small flashback that I really liked and thought maybe in another world that that would be 7,8, and 9. But George also had scripts for these 3 films that would take place around the same time as the current ones, so I wonder if it would be any better or if it really is that kind of problem. So, LUCASFILM, RELEASE THE ORIGINAL SCRIPTS!

They take things from previous movies that might have been surprising and made them less impactful because they reuse those abilities. I suppose it's fair because a fan could argue "well why didn't they just do this?" so it's not a big deal.

"Is it surprising?" "Did it make me mad?" "Did it disappoint me?" "How does it stack up against The Last Jedi?" Well it does have genuinely surprising moments, none of that fabricating crap from TLJ imo. I didn't feel sour or mad like I did TLJ, I went in expecting stuff to happen, sure, some stuff kind of did happen that I didn't want to happen but what can you do? But there was some stuff I was hoping for that did happen too. They did, however, tease stuff while promoting the movie that I didn't see at all such as a connection to the Mandalorian, I will say that there is ONE thing from the last episode that I saw in this movie but it's not a character, maybe that was the secret, they don't flat out say it but I have a feeling that it connects to "why" they want Baby Yoda? I think it is better than the Last Jedi and before you ask, no, I don't think there are any parts like the Canto Bight sequence. I am...a little disappointed, not gonna lie, I don't regret that I saw it, I liked it but it's not the saving grace I might have wanted or "the best Star Wars movie", I did like The Force Awakens more. Probably the best thing about this movie isn't something I can say, it's an aspect, not a specific scene btw...

There's something that looks like a General Grievous hand in the droid shop scene we saw in the trailer. Also a weird little tidbit is that they put Colin Trevorrow in the credits, odd, I thought he "parted ways" as Disney would put it, and I didn't stay to watch them all, I think his name was as early as the second screen, I'm pretty sure it said "Written by:" This wasn't Trevorrow's take on Star Wars though, I really don't understand and I don't want to be the one to say it but did they do that to throw him under the bus? If not that then is this some kind of weird morph of Rian Johnson, Colin Trevorrow, and J.J. Abram's version? (It sounds scarier than it actually is but still...)

It's weird because I started reading reviews after the movie and they say completely different stuff, not from trolls or haters either, I know it's all a matter of opinion but some stuff like the "training" thing have been mentioned in reverse so these are my raw thoughts after going to the theater. I'm going to try and make a "spoilers" review, either when the DVD comes out so I can rewatch it or just later when I get a better formed opinion of it, as time goes on, my thoughts will be different, I'm almost sure of that, whether it's one way or another. If you're going into it, go into it expecting it to be a new addition, not the big bad end to "the Skywalker Saga", it's like ending it on a technicality. Big payoff to everything Star Wars has done? Not so much, a few things here and there pick up from other places in the timeline but nothing too big.

#star wars #the rise of skywalker #tros #sw

[k-she-rambles]

Jeez Louise, this is nonsense, but okay: 

Why I think the Reyincarnation Theory (Rey is somehow a reincarnation of Anakin) is plausible:

Okay so. The Rise of Skywalker has a lot of things to do as a film. It has to conclude the sequel trilogy and thematically link all nine movies as “the Skywalker Saga.” But there’s a problem.

For various reasons, Han, Luke, and Leia, the original trio, can’t be used to do this (they’ve been written out, Carrie Fisher’s untimely passing, etc.). Their legacies are important, but the sequels solidly focus on new characters. We don’t have an in-focus Skywalker in the sequel trilogy at all, do we?

(Yes, yes, Kylo Ren, sure. But he doesn’t actually count. He’s an antagonist, purposefully designed to be a bit pathetic --it’s no accident that Snoke eventually snaps at him that he’s playing at being evil, and he’s actually a more successful villain and much more Vader-like after he symbolically breaks his mask and stops trying so hard. Heck, maybe he embraces the spirit, at least, of the Sith code (through power my chains are broken; the Force will set me free...))

Anyway.

They’ve partially solved the problem of linking the movies by bringing back Palpatine. Nothing like a returning villain to do the job, and I’ll be very surprised if they don’t retcon it so that he was somehow influencing Snoke (see also: Palpatine’s tendency to keep his apprentices as pets more than full apprentices, Snoke's comment about Hux being a dog, Palpatine's ‘always a bigger prize’ mentality towards promising youngsters, etc).

But bringing back Palpatine creates a whole new narrative issue: It makes Anakin’s story (finally breaking free of his limited choices out of love and destroying his master, supposedly bringing balance to the Force) unfinished. I’ll get to that later.

Then there’s that bizarre subtitle. The Rise of Skywalker? What the heck does that mean? It’s an awkward title, especially since we’re used to using it as a family name. Luke Skywaker, a Skywalker, another Skywalker. But here it’s phrased in a singular way, like a title, or the full name of a person. What if someone in the sequel trilogy is not a Skywalker, but “Skywalker” full stop? The only person available for the job, really, is Rey.

Where does Rey come from, anyway? It would seem pretty out of character for Han, Luke, or Leia to have a secret kid that they just...dropped off somewhere. Luke grew up without knowing his parents. I don’t think he would like doing the same to another kid. Kylo Ren said that Rey’s parents were nobodies, and he was telling the truth from what he knew. Rey certainly sensed no lie. But when she looked for answers in the Dark Side nexus, she didn’t see whoever dropped her off on Jakku. She saw only herself. Could it be more accurate to say that Rey’s parents were no-one?

Back to the structure of the series. Looking at the Original Trilogy by itself, Anakin being saved in ROTJ is not the catharsis of Anakin’s story, but of Luke’s. Luke, who idolized Anakin and hated Vader, had that thoroughly kicked out from under him, and came back angry and certain that there was still hope, still another way, a way out, and being proven right (tell your sister you were right).

 Anakin’s story in the first six movies does reach a conclusion: he saves his son out of a free choice of love after decades of being defined by hate and a life of limited choices, destroys the Emperor and so the Empire.

And yet.

We have to ask the question: did Anakin bring balance to the Force?

The sequel trilogy seems to say no. The First Order rises from the ashes of the Empire and gains power. Whatever Snoke’s deal is is going on. Luke has come to the conclusion that rebuilding the Jedi Order will only perpetuate the problems that led to its fall and Darth Vader being a thing. (He’s not wrong, but uh, TLJ possibly could have handled that better. Luke grew up on Tattooine, never knew the Republic or the Jedi Order as it was, and never showed any hesitation about following the spirit rather than the letter of the Rules. He’s maybe not the right character to deliver that message, and certainly not so cynically.)

And Palpatine, apparently, is back.

So Anakin’s story reached a conclusion, but it was temporary. The Chosen One prophecy is potentially unfulfilled. There was a redemption, but there was no rise, no triumph. But there could be!

If Rey is somehow Anakin, or meant to finish what Anakin started (see what I did there?), it would explain a lot!

There’s Anakin’s lightsaber, which “calls to Rey,” and triggers visions, which are an Anakin thing in the movies. Despite Kylo Ren’s claim on it, whenever he and Rey fight over the saber, it hesitates, but ultimately ends up with Rey.

There’s the lovely line in TFA about the same eyes in different people.

There’s Rey’s fighting style, that overhand pressing forward that Anakin loved so much.

There’s Kylo Ren’s obsession with Darth Vader, and come to think of it, isn’t it weird that there’s zero inkling of Anakin’s Force ghost telling Ben to sit down and reevaluate his choices? Except, perhaps, that nebulous call to the light and Rey’s determination to give him a chance to do that, even though he doesn’t end up taking it.

There’s Rey’s facility with droids and Binary, and teaching herself to fly.

There’s that new trailer --Rey and Kylo fighting like Ben and Anakin, but with water all around instead of fire. And then Rey in a dark cloak with a saberstaff, looking ready to kick someone’s butt.

I’m not any good at conclusions, but I think it’s really plausible that the “road trip” aspect of TROS is going to be chasing the slow revelation of who Rey used to be and how she can finally bring balance to the Force --by ending the Jedi and the Sith, and creating a third way that is an appropriate blending of the two.

#long post #i am a nerd #sorry for becoming a star wars blog #hi yes I love rey's saberstaff #rey's parentage #tros theories #tros speculation #rey is anakin #the reyincarnation theory