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Star Wars: Flaws and Perfections

Let’s talk about the new Star Wars. And yes there will be massive spoilers here so step in with caution.
I’m gonna talk about Kylo Ren. By this moment, I’ve read enough complains about Kylo not scary enough, that he’s not on par with Vader, a wannabe, that he’s emo, all those stuffs, ha-ha predictable joke, move along.
What I can’t believe is a lot of people seems to overlook what he is as a character. When they say that he’s a poser, that’s what he actually is as a character. Think about it, from the moment he open his mask, it’s pretty obvious that he’s not as dangerous as people (both in the movie and us audience) believe he actually is. The voice change, the speaking tone change, he’s practically a different character when he open his mask. Dare I say, we are literally and figuratively looking at Ben Solo there.
Oh he is strong, he is dangerous. It’s pretty obvious from the way he still able to stand and fight after receiving a blaster shot straight to his ribs when normal troopers got easily thrown in the air the moment the very shot hit them. He’s mean, capable, but on top of that he is still young, his training isn’t complete yet thus why he still have that instability and the need to show off his power whenever he fails.
You know what they say. The more you are capable, the more you will be content and silent.
That’s actually the problem with making this movie parallel with Episode IV, people will expect everything to be the same, including the villain. And like everything in the world, expectation kills. But the flaws are what interesting about him as a character. He’s young, he’s emotional, he’s still unsure about the path he’s walking in, and we most likely will see him grow to be something menacing.

And I like that.

 

I like the fact that he isn’t *that villain* yet, because it gives a lot of room for character improvement and we will see our villain grow alongside our hero.

 

We all know how the stereotype “A Hero’s Journey” goes, that’s what Star Wars is all about. And what I see here, there are three characters that going through that journey: Rey, Finn, and Kylo. Three of them have that story arc during the course of the movie.

 

Though I gotta admit, only Finn that got a complete arc. Kylo arguably is a changed man at the end of the film, and Rey is… there just to be cool.

 

Let’s change our focus for a bit, shall we?

 

Some people have problem with Rey, including me. At first I thought it’s because of her being too perfect, but after some time I realized that that’s not really the case.  The problem with her isn’t about how strong she is, but how not-weak she is. Along the course of the movie, she barely lost; even when she got captured she still wins. She practically spent the entire movie being likeable badass chick. There’s nothing really wrong with that, but we don’t really get a chance to feel her downtime to connect with her. The “fate rejection” when she ran into the forest didn’t work as well as I expect it to be as well. It was too abrupt and there’s not enough setup for that, it feels like it was there for the sake of being there (Hero’s Journey, remember?).

 

I’ve seen people throwing gender card here, saying that: “people are okay with Anakin and Luke being perfect, but once the main character is a female, nooooooo she’s a Mary Sue.”

 

No. That’s not the case at fucking all.

 

First of all, Anakin was laughable on the first movie. Can anyone seriously say with a straight face that Episode-I Anakin was a great character, or even care about him back then? Seriously, the only reason people remember him was for the bad acting and the reason why no people complained about him being a super special space Jesus is because there was too many things to be complained about that movie.

 

Like.

A.

Lot.

 

About Luke… go try watch Episode IV-VI again. Yes he is “special”, he still save the day (not really, actually) at the end. But see how he get through his whole arc; he kept on failing, he got his arm chpped off, he lost his lightsaber, he can’t get his X-Wing out from Dagobah Swamp, and even at the final fight scene, his dad was the one that dealt the final blow.

 

The problem with Rey (at least what I have) is how hard it is for me to connect with her. She’s more into a wish fullfillment. Actually I just realised that putting her side-to-side with Luke isn’t really accurate, it would make more sense to put her side-to-side with Han Solo.

Think about it: Han barely fails, he’s always cool and he get the girl. He shot first, have the last comeback line, and even when he fails he stil get out in a bang being cool as fuck (remember the carbonite freezing scene? He said pretty badass line there).
Maybe this is where the gender issue falls in. Generally speaking, Han is a wish fullfilment for the dudes, while Rey is a wish fullfilment for the chicks. They are the character one wished to be and when the gender got flipped it’d be feel a bit disconnecting. Neither are bad characters, they just happen to fullfil someone else’s wish.
But then again, maybe. I haven’t watched the movie for the seci\ond time so I don’t have time to really dwell into the subtle detail.
Aaaaaaand I got off track. I will write more about Star Wars it seems, so until next time!
– M
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