Kylo Ren: Still a weak villain?

Hmmmm... I have to give you credit @homergreg . Always the eternal optimist, and always giving us something to think about. Maybe I will even warm up to TLJ a little more via your threads.

But about Kylo: in thinking about this there are so many pluses and minuses that I feel like a pinball.


(-) Kylo throwing a tantrum because Snoke mocked his emulating Vader. It was his typical bratty behavior. But I suppose it did help advance his character development. He decided to abandon Vader and "become himself". But more on the Vader emulating later.

(+) Kylo's conversations with Rey: In those conversations he seems to confront who he really is on an honest and more mature level. And he wants to explore a relationship with Rey, even though his pride was hurt over Snoke rubbing his face in his failure against Rey.

(+) After killing Snoke (more on that later), and teaming up with Rey to kill Snoke's bodyguards, Kylo contemplates being a leader and his vision of ruling the galaxy. He even expresses sympathy for Rey's plight and pleads for Rey to join him. It may have been a bit of a ripoff from the end of ROTS with Anakin and Padmé ("We can rule the galaxy together and make things be the way we always wanted them to be!"), but it probably was some of Kylo's strongest character development.

(-) Kylo's confrontation with Luke: Here Kylo reverts back to being the character plagued with weaknesses in TFA. He uses the Force to slam Hux around the cabin of a walker tank every time Hux says something he doesn't like. And he is in temper tantrum mode during his entire confrontation with Luke. A character easily goaded into behavior that can be manipulated to the advantage of his opponent; as Luke demonstrated throughout their confrontation. And it reinforced (once again) that Kylo is nowhere close to being on Darth Vader's level.

(+/-) Now, for the whole Reylo thing! The thinly guised romantic tension served to advance the character development of both of them throughout the movie. So that was a plus. However it seemed to overwhelm the overall storyline; almost as if on purpose. Everytime Rian Johnson opened one of JJ Abrams empty mystery boxes, Reylo was there to distract us from being deflated.

Kylo smashes his Vader helmet and abandons emulating Vader. This reveals that his praying to Vader and the question of what side of the Force was the Anakin/Vader Force ghost on was an empty box - shortly thereafter along comes Reylo. Snoke is killed in the throne room and his character development, the mystery of who he was, and his significance of engineering the First Order suddenly dead end without any answers. Another empty box opened - and immediately after that comes Reylo in a lightsaber team up. Rey's parents are revealed to be nobodies. Despite so much storyline significance being placed on it in TFA! And some of it carried over into TLJ. That empty mystery box was opened right in the middle of Reylo. So obviously I count that element as a minus.


But adding it up overall I say Kylo was a slightly stronger character in TLJ.

Thanks to you. And thanks to Carrie Poppins.