I thought about putting this in the ongoing Star Wars episode 9 thread, but decided this needed its own discussion.
As we are currently a few months out from Rise of Skywalker's release, something has occurred to me recently reading online comments and conversations about the upcoming sequel. Leaving aside the love/hate debates on Star Wars after TLJ, one of the biggest questions people seem the most interested in is: What will Kylo Ren do next? What will his endgame be in episode 9?
While I have noticed more indifference toward some of the other main characters, people still seem strongly interested in the uncertainty of Kylo's resolve. That level of mystery to his character's future intentions and instability of his mental state leads me to believe that it was a win for Lucasfilm in his character development.
Not since the grandfather which Kylo idolizes have we seen a villain with as big a question mark on his head going into the final movie of a trilogy. Think about other popular movie franchises of the past few decades. No other villain has been so debated as to what they'll do next. Months out from the final Harry Potter movie, we all pretty much knew Voldemort would be Voldemort... and he would be defeated somehow. Whether or not you knew anything of the books, that was pretty straightforward and expected. The same with President Snow for The Hunger Games movies, Sauron in Lord Of The Rings, Thanos, so on and so on. You could expect them to be bad and that was that.
But what Kylo possesses is that level of uncertainty and instability both in emotion and mental state which makes him an extra peculiar puzzle to solve, which, to sum this all up, makes one great written villain. Unpredictability can be the most frightening asset for a nemesis to possess. So far, Kylo has mastered that art of unpredictability. If you ask me now how I think his story will unfold in Rise Of Skywalker, I wouldn't know where to begin guessing, based on what we've seen so far. That's a great villain.
Agree? Disagree?
As we are currently a few months out from Rise of Skywalker's release, something has occurred to me recently reading online comments and conversations about the upcoming sequel. Leaving aside the love/hate debates on Star Wars after TLJ, one of the biggest questions people seem the most interested in is: What will Kylo Ren do next? What will his endgame be in episode 9?
While I have noticed more indifference toward some of the other main characters, people still seem strongly interested in the uncertainty of Kylo's resolve. That level of mystery to his character's future intentions and instability of his mental state leads me to believe that it was a win for Lucasfilm in his character development.
Not since the grandfather which Kylo idolizes have we seen a villain with as big a question mark on his head going into the final movie of a trilogy. Think about other popular movie franchises of the past few decades. No other villain has been so debated as to what they'll do next. Months out from the final Harry Potter movie, we all pretty much knew Voldemort would be Voldemort... and he would be defeated somehow. Whether or not you knew anything of the books, that was pretty straightforward and expected. The same with President Snow for The Hunger Games movies, Sauron in Lord Of The Rings, Thanos, so on and so on. You could expect them to be bad and that was that.
But what Kylo possesses is that level of uncertainty and instability both in emotion and mental state which makes him an extra peculiar puzzle to solve, which, to sum this all up, makes one great written villain. Unpredictability can be the most frightening asset for a nemesis to possess. So far, Kylo has mastered that art of unpredictability. If you ask me now how I think his story will unfold in Rise Of Skywalker, I wouldn't know where to begin guessing, based on what we've seen so far. That's a great villain.
Agree? Disagree?
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