Is Kylo Ren a Weak Villain? (Films Only)

[Winter]

This should be interesting.

For me, as far as the films go, yes Kylo Ren is the weakest villain all of Star Wars. Just to compare him with a villain that was designed to be pathetic, Nute Gunray, in the Phantom Menace. Gunray managed to conquer a whole planet, forced two Jedi (one of whom was a full fledged Jedi Knight) to retreat off his ship and later off his planet and required the Naboo to make peace with the Gungans in order to take him down and he almost succeeded in wining the battle when he managed to capture the Queen. Later he indirectly almost caused the death of Padme via bounty hunter which lead to the Clone Wars starting and the eventual end of the Republic.

Kylo Ren... Had trouble with the former Janitor, lost several fights with a scavenger from discount Tatooine who only just learned she had the Force, almost died to a bunch of Red Shirts, failed to destroy the Resistance on his first day as Supreme Leader. Got cranked called by his uncle which is why he lost the Resistance in the first place and did such a bad job at leading the First Order that he needed Palpatine to basically bail him out after only one year of being a leader.

Again, Nute Gunray, a villain who was designed to be a pathetic loser is a more accomplished villain THEN THE GRANDSON OF DARTH VADER!!! Hell Dark Helmet, a PARODY of Vader, is a more accomplished villain then Kylo Ren. Kylo's most notable accomplishments are him killing three unarmed old men who weren't even fighting him, sucker punching Rey two times before she got her powers and blowing up a hanger of parked ships. And speaking of the unarmed old men, if Rey wasn't around when he killed Snoke he might have died because she needed to save him from one of the aforementioned Red Shirts.

And if we count the supplementary material this gets even worse because his most notable act of evil (destroying Luke's Jedi school) is retconned to not have been his fault and he was innocent of that crime. And again, comparing him with Gunray, after TPM he managed to not only holding onto some of his power but became a leader of the Separatist.

Again, I find myself comparing Kylo to a bunch of cartoon characters and find him wanting. Catra, Hunter (The Owl House), Sasha Waybright, Harley Quinn, Terra (Teen Titans) and Zuko all are more accomplished villains before they turned over a new leaf and joined the heroes. Even if was something as simple as making the heroes run away, all proved to be more adept at causing the heroes problems while having some genuinely complex motives that made them more then just a standard recurring villain.

As I've said before, one issue Kylo seemed to have over the trilogy is that he never seemed to have a set motivation. In The Force Awakens, he wants to be like Darth Vader, in The Last Jedi he wants to destroy the past only to want to suddenly rule the galaxy then in Rise of Skywalker he wants Rey... because... Wait why DOES he want Rey?! I mean, sure there's a general sense that he sees her as a means to gain more power but the films imply that he's in love with her but... Why? He only just met her and she's no one with no real connections.

Hell, he becomes fixated on her the moment he hears that she is involved. Not even hearing her name he hears that a girl helped BB8 and he wants to know "What Girl?!?!". And when he meets her he says "The Girl I heard so much about." What did he hear about her? That she flew a his dad's ship and got away? Vader needed to see Luke blowing up the Death Star before he took an interest in him, Catra and Adora & Anne and Sasha were childhood friends. Harley wanted to impress the Joker, Hunter saw Luz as obstacle to impressing his uncle, Terra was friends with the Titans and Zuko needed to Aang restore his honor and gain his father's love.

Kylo hears someone else is involved and she is now one of the most important people in his life. These two don't know each other, hell I don't think they even learn each others names until TLJ.

Just to compare this to another relationship, Sook-hee and Hideko from The Handmaiden. These two are out to con the other and plan to betray each other but spend so much time together and get to know each other that they fall in love, confess that what they planned to do and work to save each other. This all happens in one film and it's believable because we get the sense that they are really working to know each other and can't bring themselves to lead the other to harm. Kylo and Rey know nothing about each other and spend the entire trilogy trying to kill each other.

I'm bringing this up because the villain's relationship with the hero is such a key part of their character and the film's don't really give Kylo a reason to become so fixated on Rey other then the standard "She's the girl, he's the guy, therefore they must be in love".

(sigh) Sorry, it's just, this was on my mind and I needed to get it out of my system but I would like to know what you all think. Is Kylo a weak villain or do you think he's a good or even great villain? Share your thoughts, we're all friends here.

[CharlesPhipps]

Kylo Ren is easily one of the best villains in Star Wars.

He killed his father.

He helped bring down the Republic.

He betrayed the Jedi.

Hell, he killed Luke Skywalker. If Luke sacrifices himself to save the Resistance, he's still dead.

The thing is that the trilogy lacks the courage of its convictions. Kylo Ren works exactly for the reasons that John Walker Lindh or an American ISIS recruit is. He has no real reason to become a Galactic Space Nazi but he did so because he's bored or he wants arete or because he hates his parents. Kylo Ren in the first and even second movies is fantastic because the MOMENT that Snoke tells him to ditch the mask, he already is plotting to kill him. He is such a psychopathic monster that it requires almost NOTHING to turn him against his second teacher the way he betrayed his first.

A monstrously selfish man.

And he's good as a contrast to Vader because for all of Anakin's deep flaws, there's some grandeur to his evil.

Kylo Ren reveals in petty evil and trying to be an edgelord and I'm there for it.

[hammerofglass]

Kylo Ren would have been such a good villain if they'd leaned into the "actually kind of lame" angle. The whole "cosplaying as grandpa because he has no will or personality of his own and lashes out in random fits of violence because he can't manage his emotions" bit they played up in the first movie made him genuinely scary in a bit-too-real way. An angry child with a lot of power. The closest I can think of in fiction is Tighten from Megamind, and that was a comedy (in real life it's [insert most recent mass shooter here]).

Then they dropped it with no fanfare and replaced it with nothing.

[CharlesPhipps]

Kylo Ren would have been such a good villain if they'd leaned into the "actually kind of lame" angle. The whole "cosplaying as grandpa because he has no will or personality of his own and lashes out in random fits of violence because he can't manage his emotions" bit they played up in the first movie made him genuinely scary in a bit-too-real way. An angry child with a lot of power. The closest I can think of in fiction is Tighten from Megamind, and that was a comedy (in real life it's [insert most recent mass shooter here]).

Then they dropped it with no fanfare and replaced it with nothing.

I actually 100% agree. The thing is that Kylo Ren is NO LESS DANGEROUS for being lame.

The psychotic murderous poseur is still a psychotic murderer.

They should have not let him be redeemed.

[McAvoy]

It would have helped Kylo if the movies were consistent with each other. One vision and all. Pre-planned trilogy that followed a path.

But anyway, just going by his motivations in the first movie, I think him being a cosplayer of Vader worked. Actually he really wasn't wearing some variant of Vader's suit but really a variant of Sith garb from thousands of years ago.

His motivations, what were they really? Why was he trying to be a Sith? Or finish what Vader started? Did Luke's momentary weakness (still dumb) truly push him over the edge?

One thought I always had once I learned why Kylo's saber was the way it was. In that while trying to bleed the kyber crystal to turn red, that his instability cracked it. So my idea is that Kylo would finally capture Anakin/Luke/Rey's saber's crystal and finally was able to make a fully functional red saber. Showing he is now full into the Dark Side. Or maybe cracking that one too.

[MithrandirOlorin]

Kylo Ren would have been such a good villain if they'd leaned into the "actually kind of lame" angle. The whole "cosplaying as grandpa because he has no will or personality of his own and lashes out in random fits of violence because he can't manage his emotions" bit they played up in the first movie made him genuinely scary in a bit-too-real way. An angry child with a lot of power. The closest I can think of in fiction is Tighten from Megamind, and that was a comedy (in real life it's [insert most recent mass shooter here]).

Then they dropped it with no fanfare and replaced it with nothing.

That's the premise behind Leto's Joker people keep missing.

[Winter]

He killed his father.

He helped bring down the Republic.

He betrayed the Jedi.

Hell, he killed Luke Skywalker. If Luke sacrifices himself to save the Resistance, he's still dead.

Here's my issue with these points, this was already done by Vader. Literally every point here was one hit by Darth Vader with the only difference being he kills the Obi-Wan equivalent twice and in regards to the comparing it with Vader I think the Original Trilogy AND the Prequels did it better. For me, what Kylo did feels like a check list to make him come off as a Vader type character while all these points with Vader were major moments of his overall arc.

Destroying the Jedi was something that TPT was building up to, with Anakin first seeing the Jedi as heroes only to see them fail him and his wants time and again so he eventually turns on them. Same thing with bringing down the Republic as Anakin turning on it for his "New Empire" becomes the only thing that matters to him because, again, he sees the failings of the Republic as a personal slight against him.

And finally killing his father/brother/mentor is something that was a major moment of him closing that chapter in his life by getting revenge against Obi-Wan for ruining his life as he saw it. Even if you never saw TPT you get the idea that the reason he is in that Suit is because of Obi-Wan "When I left you I was but the learner. Now I am the Master." And on Obi-Wan's side, from the original film only, we know why this conflict is so important to him, this is the man who killed his best friend and he needs to stop him from taking the son of his friend and with the twist in mind it becomes Obi-Wan standing between the his former friend and insuring that he won't have the chance to lead his son down the same path as his father.

The conflict with Han and Kylo is insufferably vague as all we get is that Kylo sees Han as a bad father which is a sentiment Han seems to share and Snoke was somehow involved but it's never fully answered. We get more with Luke and I have already gone into as to why I don't like it but even this is not given full context. We don't know what lead to that moment, if Luke had tried to reason with Kylo, or what lead to Kylo worshiping Vader or why Luke would consider killing his own nephew in his sleep.

We're little to no context with Kylo's past and while we're given little with Vader that's due to the nature of how TOT was written. Lucas had some ideas where he wanted to go but was mostly making things up as he went along so full context wasn't something he truly planned for. The problem with Kylo having the same arc as Vader and thus doing the same things is not The Disney Sequel Trilogy using what came before as a blue print but rather just copying and pasting Lucas' notes.

To go to the point you made that Kylo shouldn't have been redeemed in the end, I felt that way back when TFA was first released and thought that's where they were going. Vader killed Obi-Wan in a fair fight, Kylo killed his father by using the man's love for him to lure him into a trap. It's something that I felt was effective and made me think, "He must pay" and NOTHING in ANY of the film's leading up to his Heel-Face Turn made me think that he was worthy of being redeemed. In fact I'm 99.99% certain that Kylo WAS originally killed in his final duel with Rey as he does pretty much nothing of note until his actual death and the few things he does do can be removed without consequence.

But, for whatever reason, it was decided for that he should live and fight alongside Rey... only to get taken out of the fight right away and get tossed out so Rey could deal with Palpatine on her own (told he didn't really do anything).

Kylo is a pathetic loser who has no actual talent and has lost every fight he has ever been in. And again, we must look to the cartoons. Catra, Sasha and Hunter (and even Amity and Zuko when you get down to it) are all people who've managed to prove to be legitimate threats and yet, are all kinda pathetic when you get down to it. Catra just wants to defeat Adora and prove herself better then her former best friend. Sasha wants to just be the one calling the shots and to be the only person Anne and Marcy care about. And Hunter, Amity and Zuko wants to prove his worth to their abusive parents.

And yet, despite their many successes they still believe themselves to be inferior in some way to their rivals or peers so they keep digging themselves deeper until they hit rock bottom and realize that they are just as pathetic as they think they are, and they have no one to blame for that but themselves.

Kylo is just pathetic and I never ONCE (even at the start of the series) considered him a real threat. Yes, he was a psychotic man child and that can be terrifying (Hell a brat child can be scary) but Kylo never succeeds at anything he does and the few things he does do well are treated as a minor event by the films themselves.

Killing Han? The Last Jedi has barely anyone talk about him and Rey even wanting to get with Kylo despite the fact that he KILLED HAN!!! Killing Luke? The Resistance has the most powerful Force user in the history of the franchise who can master the Force after only having it for a few days so he would have been useless.

Destroyed the new Jedi Order? See previous comment about the aforementioned Uber Jedi.

Destroying the Republic? Didn't actually do that, that was Hux and Starkiller Base and in the end the First Order was destroyed more easily then the Empire which was in charge for 5 years while the First Order BARELY lasted One year.

Even killing Snoke didn't do anything except put him in charge of running the First Order and, again, he did such a bad job that it ended up getting destroyed within a year of him being in charge. And even then he needed Rey's help to kill Snoke and Survive killing him.

Catra taking co-command or the Horde was something that the last 3 seasons before hand set up by showing her skills as a leader and while she never won a straight up fight with Adora she defeated her in other ways like in Princess Prom, The Promise, Once Upon A Time In The Waste, Moment Of Truth and Mer-Mysteries. Kylo never defeated Rey in a fight and never outsmarted her. And even him defeating Luke was more of a result of Luke using his powers to hard rather then anything Kylo did.

A Villain should be someone who can threaten the heroes on some level, not someone who is only a minor announce who can only win because the heroes make bad choices.

[clearspira]

Kylo Ren is easily one of the best villains in Star Wars.

He killed his father.

He helped bring down the Republic.

He betrayed the Jedi.

Hell, he killed Luke Skywalker. If Luke sacrifices himself to save the Resistance, he's still dead.

The thing is that the trilogy lacks the courage of its convictions. Kylo Ren works exactly for the reasons that John Walker Lindh or an American ISIS recruit is. He has no real reason to become a Galactic Space Nazi but he did so because he's bored or he wants arete or because he hates his parents. Kylo Ren in the first and even second movies is fantastic because the MOMENT that Snoke tells him to ditch the mask, he already is plotting to kill him. He is such a psychopathic monster that it requires almost NOTHING to turn him against his second teacher the way he betrayed his first.

A monstrously selfish man.

And he's good as a contrast to Vader because for all of Anakin's deep flaws, there's some grandeur to his evil.

Kylo Ren reveals in petty evil and trying to be an edgelord and I'm there for it.

Just because he has achievements doesn't stop him from being a lame villain.

Dr Soran from Generations is technically the most successful villain in all of Star Trek as he WON. Not only did he manage to kill both the original James T Kirk and destroy the Enterprise-D, not only did he manage to make that stick (no Vulcan magic or time travel bullshit coming to the rescue), but technically, he is still in the Nexus. He is still enjoying eternity with his wife and kids on the backs of a genocide. And we know this because Guinan is still in the Nexus even though her physical form is outside of it.

Doesn't stop Soran from being a boring ass villain that no one cares about. Most fans jump straight from General Chang to the Borg Queen and don't look back.

[Winter]

Kylo Ren is easily one of the best villains in Star Wars.

He killed his father.

He helped bring down the Republic.

He betrayed the Jedi.

Hell, he killed Luke Skywalker. If Luke sacrifices himself to save the Resistance, he's still dead.

The thing is that the trilogy lacks the courage of its convictions. Kylo Ren works exactly for the reasons that John Walker Lindh or an American ISIS recruit is. He has no real reason to become a Galactic Space Nazi but he did so because he's bored or he wants arete or because he hates his parents. Kylo Ren in the first and even second movies is fantastic because the MOMENT that Snoke tells him to ditch the mask, he already is plotting to kill him. He is such a psychopathic monster that it requires almost NOTHING to turn him against his second teacher the way he betrayed his first.

A monstrously selfish man.

And he's good as a contrast to Vader because for all of Anakin's deep flaws, there's some grandeur to his evil.

Kylo Ren reveals in petty evil and trying to be an edgelord and I'm there for it.

Just because he has achievements doesn't stop him from being a lame villain.

Dr Soran from Generations is technically the most successful villain in all of Star Trek as he WON. Not only did he manage to kill both the original James T Kirk and destroy the Enterprise-D, not only did he manage to make that stick (no Vulcan magic or time travel bullshit coming to the rescue), but technically, he is still in the Nexus. He is still enjoying eternity with his wife and kids on the backs of a genocide. And we know this because Guinan is still in the Nexus even though her physical form is outside of it.

Doesn't stop Soran from being a boring ass villain that no one cares about. Most fans jump straight from General Chang to the Borg Queen and don't look back.

Or another example on the flip side, Sevika from Arcane.

Sevika spends most of the first season (no idea on the later seasons as they're still not out yet) being the universal punching back. She loses both her fights with Vi, get quickly owned by Jinx without even getting the chance to put up a fight and is last seen trying (and failing) to light a cigar waiting for her boss to come back. And yet Sevika is LOVED by fans and seen as a badass and the reason for that is simple, she's a badass.

In her first fight with Vi she's mostly winning and almost kills her and only stopped because Caitlyn saved her. She is the one who plants the idea in Jinx's head that Vi now cares more about Caitlyn then Jinx. She is one of the major reasons that Vander is dead and she will likely be the one who takes over Silco's criminal empire.

And she could do it because she's not dumb muscle. She's someone who can get a good read on people and is actively moves things in a direction that fit her desired outcome and, well let's be honest, she's got a great design. I look at Kylo and all I see is a knock off Revan outfit without any of the elements that make that outfit iconic. Sevika is an amazon beauty, who's built like a boxer and DAMN is she tall as she towers over almost everyone and the few that she doesn't is only because they're at her level, literally.

We can take a villain losing so long as they still put up a good fight and have SOME victories. Sevika's first fight with Vi left her klinging to life and she was mostly playing with her. Kylo had trouble with the Janitor who lost to a random storm trooper and got defeated by scavenger who only just learned she had the Force and had trouble with some random red shirts and needed said scavenger to help him.

[Nealithi]

Is he a weak villain. . . Yep.

I simply wasn't impressed with him. No that is not true. When he first arrived and people seemed concerned. Okay new villain. Kills the old guy, orders village destroyed, okay. 'Caught' a blaster bolt. Not simply deflected it with a lightsaber or his gauntlet. Froze it in mid air. Okay this is badass.
Then they got the Poe Dameron bit with "So do I talk first or you talk first". That felt like such a stumble. He seemed meh as we go on. I mean someone recovered Vader's helmet from Endor and he keeps it in a terrarium. Wants to finish Vader's work. Uhh not sure on these motives but okay I guess. Temper tantrums where he just slashes up monitors. To a taunt, and not a great taunt, makes him remove his mask. Seriously, if you are gonna take that off just because someone asked why you were hiding your face. Why wear it?
So he felt like a minor boss. Something the heroes beat on their way to an actual threat.
The next movie did little to improve things. Snoke acts like an abusive father. 'Oh you like that mask? Destroy it so you cry.' 'Oh was your pretty face marred? Cry for me emo boy.' Snoke did not come across as a great evil either. I can't see this petty excuse for a villain to have actually rebuilt an army. He takes too much pleasure in being a bully.
Compare Kylo to Vader. Bad news, slash up machinery. Got talked back to. "I find your lack of faith disturbing." And a small gesture where someone is being choked to death. Spared because someone ordered Vader to release him. Oh and Vader did not act like a subordinate there. The casual "As you wish." Was Vader chose to comply.
Vader comes off as powerful and someone you need respect. Kylo comes off as a child throwing a temper tantrum. Had these to faced one another, Vader would have disarmed Kylo and crushed him with a line like. "Luke was a better opponent with less training."
Next movie comparison. Vader fights Luke and with very few bits initially where Luke surprises Vader. Vader is on top. When Luke finally tags him, Vader stops playing around and ends the fight. Kylo never dominates a battle like that. He never seems 'Strong', he feels like he is waving his sword around trying to look tough because he has a lightsaber.

Vader left iconic images and memes. "I find your lack of faith disturbing." "I am altering the bargain. Pray I don't alter it further."
Kylo: