Thoughts and Disclosure after Seeing TLJ a Second Time
The Last Jedi was so beyond my hopes and expectations that I really couldn’t form coherent sentences about the film after seeing it the first time. Mostly I managed internal screams and felt myself falling into the rabbit hole of obsession that TFA inspired two years ago.
TFA hit me hard on so many levels, reaching back to my childhood love of the original trilogy, but also igniting a passion for fresh characters and the new direction of this trilogy.
Kylo Ren/Ben Solo was always the heart of that for me. Don’t get me wrong. I love Rey. As a woman, how can I not love seeing a strong, powerful, feisty female protagonist? I love Finn too. He’s a Stormtrooper who turns, and his friendship with Rey represents the kind of fierce loyalty we all need from friends in our lives.
But Kylo. For me, he was always a key protagonist. Not only does his f*cked up relationship with his family make sense to me, but his vulnerability got its hooks in me deep. He was so obviously not a clear cut villain. Yes, even after Han.
I know the pushback that Rey IS the protagonist. Yep, she is. But so is Ben. Which is why this all resonated with me so much. In my day job, I’m a writer. A romance writer. I have to balance dual protagonists, who sometimes act as each other’s antagonists, in every story I write. I could see romantic narrative and mythic tropes being used between Kylo and Rey in the first film, Act One, if you will. Reylo had resonance for me, but I honestly was stumped about whether the writers would be able to pull it off and how.
Then Rian Johnson came along with a masterful second act that still has me reeling.
So, I guess, for those who follow my blog, I should tell you I firmly believe the relationship between Kylo/Ben and Rey is the key to this trilogy. If you loathe everything about Reylo, please unfollow or block me now. I respect that there are other ships, other hopes for where this trilogy will go. But I haven’t embraced this narrative because I “ship” them or think Daisy and Adam look really hot together. I mean, they do, but that’s not an accident. Good casting made sure of that.
I believe in the pairing because I watched the films. As a writer, I think I see the moves being made. The dominos being lined up. How are they going to do it? I have some ideas, but I view certain things as impossible now. Kylo cannot simply be the “Big Bad” in Ep9. Even if he tried, he would fail. The only time he’s truly risen up and taken his life into his own hands for the right reasons was in that throne room, for and with Rey. Neither of them will forget that.
Sure, he screwed up immediately after, but you don’t take a “villain” from murdering his father in Act One, to being fully redeemed in Act Two. But Rian Johnson took him further than I ever imagined. We’re at the narrative midpoint. The false high. For Kylo, this begins a retreat into identity, but Kylo/Ben has tasted what it’s like to embrace his essence. His “pull to the light” as he said in TFA.
I came home after my second viewing of TLJ and saw a ridiculous article in Vanity Fair that treated Kylo Ren like a throwaway. “I’d be extremely surprised if Kylo Ren survives the final installment.”
Kylo may be destroyed, but it will only be so Ben Solo can be redeemed. If that character dies at the end of Ep9, what will be the point of his conflict? The message would essentially be, “some people are just too f*cked up, they can only die.” Yet, as I see it, the message TFA and TLJ are repeating again and again is that people who are nobodies, who have been given up on, who have done the unforgivable, or who have willfully given up, can still matter. Can still act heroically. Can still rise to the moment. For love. “No one’s truly ever gone.”
Will Ben somehow sacrifice himself for Rey or the Resistance and thereby be redeemed? Maybe. But it’s not balanced. It’s not the grey middle ground that these films are celebrating and elevating. People will have a hard time with the smashing of the simple dichotomy of good/evil, Jedi/Sith, dark/light. But as one (tall, gorgeous beast of a) conflicted villain says, “You’re still holding on. Let go.”
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