So you basically are just a right-wing GamerGater troll then? I should have known from the concern trolling and the default avatar and the screenname that screams fake/pretending to be female when the rest of your posts scream male and the whataboutism and the deflection and the concern over “nuance” that actually…

As soon as he took his helmet off w/ that mop of emo hair in FA, I immediately got it: Kylo Ren’s every shitty teenager who just has to be the opposite of his parents. Or, you know: a teenager. It’ll be interesting to see if he continues on his evil track or turns it around like Luke Skywalker doppelganger Theon…

I don’t think they’re that far apart. Classic Vader is still whiny and erratic. It’s just he’s really cool with his deep voice and his sleek black outfit/armor/suit keeping him alive/whatever, so it’s easy to miss how little any of his crew respects him, and how much he’s the emperor’s whipping boy.

We Need to Talk About Kylo

Also, for all that Yoda and Obi-Wan talked about fear, anger and hatred being the path to the dark side, every last sith lord we met in the first six movies was mostly the epitome of self-possessed cool, modulo maybe Vader being a little fast to hand out force chokes to subordinates.

Or, Luke knowing all too well the temptations of the Dark Side, chose to hide that part from Kylo Ren and considering what Vader did to Han and Leia between A New Hope and Empire, I doubt they were too eager to talk about Annikan’s tragic fall and redemption either.

I have the biggest power, Ben Solo!

After 2017, I honestly don’t think “Why would that villain be so stupid” is functional as a critique, anymore.

He’s more like that guy you liked in high school when you didn’t know better. The way he hates everyone and everything makes him seem deep. But then you realize he’s just an asshole. (Adam Driver plays this character a lot and he does it well). He’s a perfect successor to Anakin.

I was extremely dubious of Helmeted Bad Guy being effective without his Dark Helmet, and we knew it was going to come off from the trailers, but I was shocked and impressed by how good a villain he was without the Dark Helmet of Darkness. That was a feat of acting that doesn’t exist anywhere in the prequels beyond…

This might be just me, but did anybody else get a, “Napoleon Dynamite” vibe from Kylo Ren in The force awakens? Like, he as a kind of a gangly, wimpy teenager type that spoke in a sort of breathy voice. His intro was pretty badass but then.... underwhelming.

Kylo Ren is the perfect modern Star Wars villain.

Whoa, that sounds interesting. So we’re going to see Kylo’s justification for his behavior juxtaposed with what he actually did?

Very minor spoilers follows...

Well, Ren seems to be a guy who struggles with using the dark side.  He can’t cut off his emotional attachments.  Probably views Vader’s final sacrifice as a dying failure.

Snoke showed up and told him all that stuff about Vader killing the Emperor was fake news.

I thought the intention was (which I only understood after reading additional context online; Mistake #1) that the "Resistance" was supposed to be a proxy faction for the Republic, so they could claim plausible deniability while the First Order goes about its business (Convoluted explanation: Mistake #2).

I think the explanation is that the Empire never fully collapsed, they still controlled a certain sector of space, and for several years they coexisted with the New Republic. The "First Order" was a fanatical sect that came to power in the Imperial territories and began to expand outside their borders, which lead to…

I remember that being explored to a point in the old X-Wing PC games, especially in the book that came with the original Tie-Fighter game. I think it gave the idea that there were plenty of regular people who openly opposed the Rebellion and signed up in the Imperial army to support the Empire/Republic against…

Except the Empire is racist, tortures political prisoners like it's going out of style, and blows up planets full of civilians to inspire terror.