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queenluaBlah, for some reason I can't pull up the chatlog where I was talking to Krad about this, so I'll just re-type my thoughts out here.
SO, I've seen The Force Awakens twice now, because I was in a city with an Alamo Drafthouse so of course I needed to go see a movie there, right?
And the second time around, I was a lot more fond of Kylo. As a character, mind, not as a TV boyfrand. (My heart only has room for Anakin's Magnificent Hair In Episode III.) The first watch-through, I didn't really know what to make of him—the brief trailer I'd seen made him look like this intimidating, badass silhouette with a crazy lightsaber, and yet here we had some skinny pale kid, wearing a mask for no apparent reason, obsessing over Not Being As Cool As Grandpa, and throwing temper-tantrums onscreen when things don't go his way. Uhh.
But the second time, I was better able to appreciate Kylo on his own terms, and I think they're setting us up for one of two major arcs they could do with his character.
There's Option 1, the Zuko-in-AtlA Route, where they're setting up Kylo for a redemption arc. Zuko spent the first season being pretty dickish, spent the second season doing this weird rogue soul-search-y thing, and finally joined up with The Good Guys in season 3. And throughout that process, we came to see a lot of Zuko's flaws in a different light—the arrogance and anger had been a front to protect himself in a pretty vicious family, and a lot of his blustering became endearing.
...but, there's also Option 2, which I started thinking about after seeing a tweet that referred to Kylo as the "school shooter archetype." People are making fun of Kylo's Hot Topic Emo Kid Status on the Twitters, and the humor's pretty on point. He comes across as this ridiculous, petty, insecure child. (Seriously, how does it benefit you to lightsaber the hell out of your own electronic equipment just because you heard some annoying news?) But, y'know. I remember stumbling on the archives of the website/blog of one of the Columbine shooters a while back, and mostly it looked a lot like any pissy immature kid's ranty livejournal. Unless you were reading it looking hard for signs of trouble, you could probably laugh a lot of it off as some trolly emo kid.
Except the Columbine shooters actually went through with their rants. It's only funny until they grow fangs.
Anyway, the thing is, I think both these arcs are tangible possibilities, and I'm now incredibly excited to see where they're planning to go with Kylo.
There are some inherent difficulties with pulling of Option 1. Zuko had the advantage of only being after the Avatar, and thus fundamentally hadn't done anything truly shitty or unforgivable. Kylo, on the other hand, uh, presumably killed all the other jedi-in-training, and was complicit in that Starkiller stuff, and also killed his dad. The killing-his-dad thing, you could use to build a pretty plausible wow-that-was-fucked-up-of-me-and-now-I-repent thing; the others are a little harder, unless the writer's willing to, uh, just kind of skirt/overlook/avoid talking about those things. (What would be really interesting, but also really challenging, would be doing a redemption arc that treats those past sins with the gravity they deserve. I'm not sure Big Budget Hollywood is brave enough to tackle something like that, but boy I'd be curious to see it.)
Option 2 could have some really effective drama, too. So far we've seen a Kylo that's mostly incompetent, undertrained, and petty. They could let the audience laugh at him a little more, egg the audience on a little—and then change the script and show us what happens when he really becomes scary.
I'm curious if anyone else sees one of these as the major possibility, or if anyone else has other guesses for where they're going with Kylo?
My best guess: so, I am actually quite fond of JJ Abrams's work, but agree entirely with his critics, that he's too BANG BANG ACTION LENS FLARE BLASTERS ON MAX BANG. Like, I enjoyed his first Star Trek movie a great deal, but I had no prior attachment to the Star Trek 'verse, and thus was pretty pleased to just watch two handsome men doing COOL GALAXY ACTION for two hours :D;;; But in general, coming to JJ Abrams expecting really cerebral stuff is usually going to end in disappointment. (whispers this is also a mistake people made with Lost, I enjoyed that show a lot but I was definitely not watching it for the plot after season 2)
Which, alas, seems to make it a little unlikely that they'll pull of A Redemption Arc That Also Takes Kylo's Fuckups Really Seriously—I'm just not sure JJ Abrams has a delicate enough touch.
But I like being surprised. I'm already surprised by how interested I am in Kylo already. Can't wait to see how this plays out.
SO, I've seen The Force Awakens twice now, because I was in a city with an Alamo Drafthouse so of course I needed to go see a movie there, right?
And the second time around, I was a lot more fond of Kylo. As a character, mind, not as a TV boyfrand. (My heart only has room for Anakin's Magnificent Hair In Episode III.) The first watch-through, I didn't really know what to make of him—the brief trailer I'd seen made him look like this intimidating, badass silhouette with a crazy lightsaber, and yet here we had some skinny pale kid, wearing a mask for no apparent reason, obsessing over Not Being As Cool As Grandpa, and throwing temper-tantrums onscreen when things don't go his way. Uhh.
But the second time, I was better able to appreciate Kylo on his own terms, and I think they're setting us up for one of two major arcs they could do with his character.
There's Option 1, the Zuko-in-AtlA Route, where they're setting up Kylo for a redemption arc. Zuko spent the first season being pretty dickish, spent the second season doing this weird rogue soul-search-y thing, and finally joined up with The Good Guys in season 3. And throughout that process, we came to see a lot of Zuko's flaws in a different light—the arrogance and anger had been a front to protect himself in a pretty vicious family, and a lot of his blustering became endearing.
...but, there's also Option 2, which I started thinking about after seeing a tweet that referred to Kylo as the "school shooter archetype." People are making fun of Kylo's Hot Topic Emo Kid Status on the Twitters, and the humor's pretty on point. He comes across as this ridiculous, petty, insecure child. (Seriously, how does it benefit you to lightsaber the hell out of your own electronic equipment just because you heard some annoying news?) But, y'know. I remember stumbling on the archives of the website/blog of one of the Columbine shooters a while back, and mostly it looked a lot like any pissy immature kid's ranty livejournal. Unless you were reading it looking hard for signs of trouble, you could probably laugh a lot of it off as some trolly emo kid.
Except the Columbine shooters actually went through with their rants. It's only funny until they grow fangs.
Anyway, the thing is, I think both these arcs are tangible possibilities, and I'm now incredibly excited to see where they're planning to go with Kylo.
There are some inherent difficulties with pulling of Option 1. Zuko had the advantage of only being after the Avatar, and thus fundamentally hadn't done anything truly shitty or unforgivable. Kylo, on the other hand, uh, presumably killed all the other jedi-in-training, and was complicit in that Starkiller stuff, and also killed his dad. The killing-his-dad thing, you could use to build a pretty plausible wow-that-was-fucked-up-of-me-and-now-I-repent thing; the others are a little harder, unless the writer's willing to, uh, just kind of skirt/overlook/avoid talking about those things. (What would be really interesting, but also really challenging, would be doing a redemption arc that treats those past sins with the gravity they deserve. I'm not sure Big Budget Hollywood is brave enough to tackle something like that, but boy I'd be curious to see it.)
Option 2 could have some really effective drama, too. So far we've seen a Kylo that's mostly incompetent, undertrained, and petty. They could let the audience laugh at him a little more, egg the audience on a little—and then change the script and show us what happens when he really becomes scary.
I'm curious if anyone else sees one of these as the major possibility, or if anyone else has other guesses for where they're going with Kylo?
My best guess: so, I am actually quite fond of JJ Abrams's work, but agree entirely with his critics, that he's too BANG BANG ACTION LENS FLARE BLASTERS ON MAX BANG. Like, I enjoyed his first Star Trek movie a great deal, but I had no prior attachment to the Star Trek 'verse, and thus was pretty pleased to just watch two handsome men doing COOL GALAXY ACTION for two hours :D;;; But in general, coming to JJ Abrams expecting really cerebral stuff is usually going to end in disappointment. (whispers this is also a mistake people made with Lost, I enjoyed that show a lot but I was definitely not watching it for the plot after season 2)
Which, alas, seems to make it a little unlikely that they'll pull of A Redemption Arc That Also Takes Kylo's Fuckups Really Seriously—I'm just not sure JJ Abrams has a delicate enough touch.
But I like being surprised. I'm already surprised by how interested I am in Kylo already. Can't wait to see how this plays out.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-28 12:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-28 01:35 am (UTC)Then again Finn's been brainwashed since infancy to follow the First Order and he threw that off on his own without murdering tons of people. That alone makes Kylo Ben look even worse.
I'm just not sure JJ Abrams has a delicate enough touch.
I for one am convinced he doesn't but he's not directing the next two films.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-29 03:39 am (UTC)the finn thing, i had some friend who, as we were leaving the theater, was speculating that finn must be force-sensitive or something, and used his ability to shake the brainwashing stuff as part of the evidence—not sure what to make of that, though, feel like it would kind of cheapen a lot of finn's appeal
(also what??? no jj abrams for next film??? also why have i never heard of anything this rian johnson guy's made except for those breaking bad episodes, most interesting)
no subject
Date: 2016-01-29 03:47 am (UTC)was speculating that finn must be force-sensitive or something,
Given he picked up the sacred Skywalker lightsaber and used it, I'm pretty damn sure he's meant to be force-sensitive, which is also why I strongly suspect Rey is indeed of the actual Skywalker bloodline instead of a random force-sensitive. Because Finn's the random "didn't see that coming" force user. Yes, it's too neat and dramatically cheap but this is STAR WARS.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-30 09:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-30 02:10 pm (UTC)I mean last I checked Obi-Wan was a celibate space monk who, if he felt improper feelings for anyone past his Padawan phase, felt something for Anakin...
But yeah. SW fandom on tumblr is lousy for many reasons and the reaction to the perfectly reasonable Rey Skywalker hypothesis is one of them.