Waht is your opinion on Ben Solo

[Winter]

(sigh) You know, I get why so many people like Ben Solo for the little screen time he had in Rise of Skywalker. My sister, who Strongly dislikes The Disney Sequel Trilogy, really liked Ben for what little screen time he had. I, however, really don't care for him either way. Adam Driver gives a great performance and he's able to give us an idea of who Ben is and doing so with basically no real dialogue throughout the film which is a real testament to Driver's talents as an actor.

But here's my first issue with Ben, he's completely pointless to the Entire Film. No really, if you cut him out of the film almost nothing would change as he has no real impact on the plot or the characters. To show what I mean, let's go over everything Ben did the moment he decided to be good. He killed the Knights of Ren, got a bit of his life force sucked out by Palpatine, revived Rey and then he died. That's it!

And done of this is really that vital for him to be there. Killing the Knights of Ren, they are so irrelivent to the story that just about every review out there has barely mentioned them, if they're mentioned at all. Getting his life Force sucked out and thus reviving Palpatine, given how OP Rey is and given that the Dyad is barely mentioned in ROS Paplatine could have just sucked out Rey's life force along. And finally reviving Rey, Rey could have just been written to have survived the explosion that killed Palpatine via Force Shield or that her sudden ties to the Jedi gave her some extra protection.

Ben is completely pointless and I honestly wonder if Kylo was suppose to have died on the Ocean Planet given how little he ended up doing just to give Reylo shippers that kiss at the end. Which ended up just pissing them off given how he was killed and it was later revealed in the novels that the kiss wasn't romantic so even THAT was pointless.

Here's my other issue, over the course of this Trilogy we've learned NOTHING about Ben Solo. Let's take a look at Anakin in the Original Trilogy. Based on that Trilogy alone, we know that he was a skilled pilot, a powerful Jedi and most importantly a good friend before he was manipulated by the Dark Side.

By contrast, no one who knew Ben before his fall to the Dark Side ever talks about Ben. Han and Leia only talk about how he was manipulated by Snoke into falling to the dark side and Luke only ever talks about how he had already fell to the Dark Side or was at least tempted by the Dark Side on the night he went on a killing spree.

He might have been a good kid or he could have been an utter twat from day one as both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi don't delve into his backstory that much, if at all and what we do get conflicts with what the other film says. Han and Leia seem to imply that Ben was good and was simply tricked into fall to the Dark Side while Luke implies that he was never the best person to begin with. And the ROS comes around and... tells us nothing. No one who knew Ben before he became Kylo talks about him and for all of Disney's constant flashbacks this series NEVER Bothered to give us a Flashback to who Ben Solo was.

And then we get to finally meet Ben and from what little we see he seems to almost be a completely different character from Kylo Ren. Going back over to Vader, as many have pointed out, Anakin and Vader are, at their core, the same person. Both are selfish short tampered, very loyal to those they consider family, (note how much it took Anakin to truly turn on Obi-Wan, Padme and Ahsoka, and even Palpatine) both also work very similar in how they operate in combat, run head long into the problem and hit it until it DIES!!!

Kylo has no self control over himself, while Ben is so in control that he doesn't even speak when he's fighting. Kylo never goes into any situation unless he feels he can control the outcome and has no idea what to do when he loses control. Ben is a daredevil he literally throws himself into danger just to get a head start and only gets mildly annoyed when things go south. Kylo spends the entire Trilogy monologuing every chance he gets while Ben only ever says ONE Word During the Entire Trilogy (for anyone wondering that word was Ow).

Given this, and what little we get in the tie-ins, Kylo and Ben have NOTHING in common so we can't use Kylo to get into the mind set of Ben and since he only appears at the VERY End of the Trilogy we are given no real time to get to know him outside of action scenes and ROS is already over stuffed with action scenes.

Let's take another look at Anakin and Vader, in both A New Hope and The Phantom Menace both show they are not found of being belittled in anyway, shape or form. When one of the Imperial officers insults the Force, and by extension Vader, Vader responds by Force Chocking him to show him who really has the power. This lines up perfectly with Anakin in Phantom where Anakin's rivalry with Sebulba who spends most of his screen time belittling Anakin and Anakin insults him back at every encounter.

And yet, both are willing to take criticism. Again, only using Phantom and Hope, in the latter when another Imperial Officer outright criticizes Vader for just arresting Leia instead of threatening or chocking him Vader just explains why he's doing what he's doing in a rather calm manner. And in Phantom, when Padme is annoyed by the fact that Anakin has never even finished a race Anakin just smiles and assures her he will this time.

When Kylo is insulted he basically throws a tantrum and breaks everything within lightsaber range, when Ben is insulted... I don't know how he would react because we've never been shown how he acted before becoming Kylo Ren.

Again, Driver gives a great performance but a good performance does not a good character make.

[Artabax]

Irrelevance is usually a criticism, but Indiana Jones is also irrelevant.
If Indiana had not been there, then Nazis would have opened the Ark and their faces would have melted.

What bugs me is that Ben is slightly ugly. They make such a big deal about him wearing the mask. He takes of the mask and Ben is slightly ugly.

[Winter]

Irrelevance is usually a criticism, but Indiana Jones is also irrelevant.
If Indiana had not been there, then Nazis would have opened the Ark and their faces would have melted.

Here's the thing, while it's true Indy didn't really impact the plot all that much there was something he had a profound impact on in not only Raiders of the Lost Arc but the series as a whole, his character. Unlike Ben, we learn everything we can about Indy. In Raiders alone we get all the information we need to get an idea of who Indy is as a person while we learn nothing about Ben which was part of my issue with the character.

But, as Rob Walker pointed out in his essay of the series Indy DOES change throughout the series and is not the same person he started out as. Ben, has little to no character and therefore doesn't truly change. Ben isn't only irrelevant to the plot or the other characters but he's also irrelevant to himself.

Because we learn next to nothing about Ben and since he's only introduced in the last half hour of a almost 7 hour Trilogy means he has no real time to grow and barely enough time for use to get an idea of who he is/was.

With Indy, we learn all there is and see how he grows throughout the series and see how he changes as a person, ultimately for the better. But Ben, there's barely anything and he has no impact on the plot, the other characters (Rey doesn't even mention him during the entire finally), and he has so little character to begin with that means he also has no real growth or development.

That's what I meant when I say he's irrelevant.

[PerrySimm]

Irrelevant? Nah. VII might have shown little more than a jaded Darth Vader wannabe, but VIII was really Ben Solo's movie. Take the guy chewing the scenery out of that movie and the whole thing crumples to the ground. (That is to say, more so than already.)

Ben wasn't essential in IX, sure. But they wasted *everyone* in the BS chase plot. They brought back Lando. They brought back *Han*, even when that was supposed to be impossible. And yet it was all just a sideshow. For what little good IX did for anyone they managed to make the Rey/Ben stuff tolerable. Plus, without Ben's arc, the finale would have ended up being just another overpowered Rey-ex-machina beats the big bad.

[Wargriffin]

Ben/ Kylo is the polar opposite of Anakin

While Anakin is hampered by lousy directing and terrible dialogue and Hayden is barely given anytime to work the character out. Anakin is a fairly complex character with motivations once you understand them that do inform his choices. Of course Anakin's emotional raw in AOTC, he is literally feeling his mother dying for the past few weeks, and then finds her just for her to die in his arms.

Ben Solo on the other hand like alot of the ST characters is fairly shallow and what is there once you give it some thought paints him as a self centered entitled ass whose grabbing power cause he craves it. He is only bolstered up by Adam Driver's ability as an actor. to the point that people legit think Ben is a tragic character but falls apart once you start putting the dots together.

There is a reason why you never get Ben's view of the Galaxy... cause siding with the most Blatant versions of the Space Nazis is nearly impossible to walk back as sympathetic

Hence why the conversations are always Ben was good/ Someone failed Ben instead of WHY does Ben do any of this is left Vague on purpose. Unlike Anakin who basically was pile of self loathing that he lashed out at EVERYBODY, Ben doesn't do nearly enough teamkilling or show disdain for his FO cohorts.

Then again that Ties into the fact the FO are ridiculously Generic when it comes to being villains... Yes they are even worse then the Movie/Vanilla CIS

____


IX is REY'S movie everyone else is irrelevant, Ben's redemption isn't even a plot point and just happens to tie up that loose end and then Palpy and the FO are disposed of in such an anticlimactic way that doesn't mean anything. IX is about coronating Rey as your new Queen.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

He's a principal character that shined in the first movie, got you going with the second movie, and let you down with the third, all in terms of narrative. Steady decline of character development.

[Mecha82]

Over all I found Ben Solo to be okay character. Could there had been done more with him? Sure but then again he did his part in story with considering that Kylo Ren was always more important half of character than Ben Solo. Unlike his grandfather he clearly walked thin line between those two halves.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I feel a sense of superficial familiarity among the characters more than I remember with the original characters. I suppose that goes for the whole backstory of everything. Overall there was no explanation of why the resistance was in the same position as the rebels in A New Hope, and I find myself asking myself this as I watch the movies. Even knowing the backstory that's been disclosed, it is just not a good logical development for movies, period.

I'm really not sure if that bends into Ben Solo completely, but yeah we don't have a sense of dynamic between him and Leia, or even really Luke as he's always just heatedly barking at him when they meet. We didn't get to see any sense of upbringing for him, which could have been great to showcase natural talent for any skill we see in the future.

After the royal fight, which was kicking ass, he immediately tries to kill Luke and take over the first order in a rage of fury with not much apparent attention towards doing any good. I don't question the intimate link between him and Rey, nor her being taken with it. But I'm not really curious about this guy's redemption, unless the third movie was to make him do something monumentally shifting in the takedown of the first order, or something, but instead they just had him do a reverse Five finger death punch.

[Darth Wedgius]

Did they ever explain why he wasn't "Darth Ren?"

[Jonathan101]

Did they ever explain why he wasn't "Darth Ren?"

I assume it was because George Lucas was adamant that "the Sith are gone", and in the early stages they were still going of of his notes, so they decided to go with a new group of Darksiders.

Of course, that got dropped pretty quickly.