okay but how are we all going to forget that in the commentary for TFA, JJ clearly says, “… and it’s this moment that allows her (Rey) to fall for this guy (Finn).”? like, how are we all going to forget that? smdh.
Yeah like… JJ has pulled some truly eyeroll-worthy shit in the past, but I never got the impression he was the specific type of misogynist to sexualize a woman’s suffering. And if anything Darth Nipple’s treatment of Rey became worse in TLJ. The already paper-thin “they’re enemies in wartime” excuse is ripped to shreds–he’s shown exactly how he’d treat her as an ally.
I don’t think Vic has actual say over the story, but I sure would be happy if JJ listens to her and Ava DuVernay, not to mention the actors! I share your other wishes too, and still would like it if Keri Russell were a Knight of Ren, though I’m pretty sure she’s too old to fulfill most reylows’ fantasies of an ingenue baby factory.
Vic is an assistant director I believe, so not really much creative input, but she does have a voice and we know JJ actually listens to his crew, cast and friends. He listened to Oscar.
Ava Duvernay was the one that came up with this shot for JJ after suggesting Rey needed to be more fierce in her fight with Kylo:
Plus JJ personally brought in Vic since that’s that’s the only way it seems POC can get a job at Lucasfilms.
Vic is Second Unit director which is in its own way a lot bigger deal for her than being assistant director. On one hand she “only” gets to shoot stuff like scenery and secondary cast scenes, on the other hand she has in those shootings complete creative freedom as long as she follows the script. A assistant director works under the direct supervision of the director and needs to gets all their shootings accepted by the director. Ultimately JJ will make the editing, but the shootings is Vic’s to decide on her own how to do.
Second Unit director is often the last step to be a full director, so for Vic to land this job being fairly unknown, not having that much of resume and being a Black woman to boot – no mater how light skinned – is an enormous deal. Especially for her. It could eventually mean her getting a full director job for LFL, but that’s till in the future.
What Vic does not have is any kind of influence of the script or plot. A Second Unit director doesn’t work with the main cast at all. In addition to this the script – and hence the main plot – was done in February long before Vic was hired.
Any and all plot decisions is on JJ and the Story Group. Vic has no say in it. If she has any influence beyond what being Second Unit director usually has, it’s because JJ is open to listening.
In fact, if the rumor that Kathleen Kennedy has stepped down – or been forced to step down – from position as director and any creative influence on EpIX means that everything is on JJ. And possibly the story group, but I could imagine that if Kathleen has been forced to step down Bob Iger has given JJ as free reigns as Rian had.
Which could be interesting but all that happens is on JJ then, not on Vic.
But yes, JJ has always been open to influence and listening to others. And for all his flaws he can usually recognize a better when he sees one such as the scene above or the change he made in Finn’s and Rey’s chemistry.
So yeah, Vic has no influence on the plot or the main characters and people need to drag her into this. It’s a great opportunity for her but means nothing at all for John, Daisy and Oscar (and Kelly, bring back Rose JJ!).
What’s making me hopeful is John being as happy as he is when shooting starts in two days and the fact that JJ is known to listen and be influenced by cast, crew and people he trusts such as Ava.
Thanks for the add on. I really wasn’t sure what her actual title was. When she was hired I was pretty much not interested in hearing much Star Wars news due to TLJ.
Rumors are, so grain of salt of course, that Kathleen Kennedy isn’t on board with 9 at all and JJ is in full control of the project.
I’ve been following JJ Abrams since his time on Lost, Super 8, Star Treck, and I have also watched his producing work like on West World. The man has flaws like any director, but he not only acknowledges them, but also improves from them. He also listens to people who say things like X doesn’t make sense.
I think he’ll take things like Finn’s backstory not getting time, Rey’s lack of a definitive origin, and Poe’s lack of screen time and fix it. I hope Rose is back. I really feel sorry for people like Kelly, Mark, and Laura who got stuck with RJ.
I hope Vic actually gets her own SW project. If D&D, RJ, and the dudes from 21 jump street got one, she definitely can prove herself their better.
Reblobbing for the excellent discussion, and if I may add another rumor to the pile one of the more credible leaks says Rose will be in a scene with Finn and Poe in a scene involving the Hutt cartel (link, via @diversehighfantasy in this post), so fingers crossed for her return!
My problem with the “omg the First Order aren’t Nazis” crowd isn’t that people read the First Order differently. We all come at fiction with our own cultural and historical background, we’re all going to see different things. My issue arises when people claim that JJ and Lawrence never intended for them to be the in-universe Nazis when JJ specifically said that that was what they were meant to be.
That kind of erasure of authorial intent is a severe problem when done so a Jewish creator. It’s straight up a silencing tactic, that we can’t mean what we mean because it makes goyim uncomfortable that we’re using out own trauma and demons in a place that they find “inappropriate”.
It becomes an even greater problem when people are doing it because they have a hard on for the leading Nazis in the First Order. These people are literally valuing a fictional neo-Nazi allegory over a real life Jewish person.
Reylos: “JJ is going to redeem Ben because why else would he have made him sympathetic and human”.
Me: *looks at Nero, Admiral Marcus and Khan* “Oh idk my dude, maybe because that’s how JJ usually likes to make his villains?”
This also looks like it may be a result of the differences between the Jewish and Christian concepts of evil. I’ve seen soooo many commentaries, not just in reylowland, about how complex and fascinating Kylo Ren is and how he can’t be just a villain because he’s not some unfeeling demon and I keep thinking, but he can have feelings and be evil… the always-cringey Filmcrit Hulk has even said Kylo Ren is the only character who makes sense as a person in TFA.
I’m already tired of fandom screaming “Rey’s mom!!”
@beyourowndensity I thought it was very likely at that point, too. What passed between Luke and Rey in TLJ is, at the very least, not commensurate with all the foreshadowing of their connection in TFA or even just the resonance of that final shot.
I wonder also what prompted Daisy to say RJ may have thrown out JJ’s outlines even while she professed not to know their contents–could she have had discussions with JJ about the parts that pertained to her character? Writers do that with actors sometimes, giving them spoilers so they can act the part right. JK Rowling privately gave Alan Rickman (rest in peace) spoilers about Snape (rest in pieces) because the 7th book was not out at the time the first films were coming out. Geoge Lucas had a fake line spoken on set at the parentage revelation in ESB, “Obi-Wan killed your father!” Instead of “I am your father!” to prevent leakage, but told Mark the real line to get the appropriate reaction. So if anyone would be given that kind of secret tip, particularly at the last shot of TFA, it’s Mark and Daisy, making Daisy one of the few people who could possibly tell RJ had deviated from the outline for VIII without having read it.
That said, I believe that train has left the station and there’s almost no way to make Rey a Skywalker or Solo without making the revelation weirdly cursory and abrupt or, alternately, making it so big as to swallow up all of Episode IX. I’d really prefer if the matter were laid to rest and I’m not at all adverse to the Skywalkers dying out with a genocidaire and patricide. The blood worship was my least favorite part of the franchise and fandom anyway, let the Skywalkers die and stay dead.
Why he’s not getting more work? My dad said that Mark Hamill was
in a lot of real flops after SW whereas Harrison went on to be the big
star, and Mark sort of drifted into other things like voice work. I
really don’t want that for John. I just feel like maybe being in SW
might have hurt rather than helped him because they said Finn was the co
lead and he’s treated like the second string in TLJ. Idk, I am just not
happy that he’s not getting the opportunities others in that franchise
are (2/2)
There could be a lot of different reasons, and I’m not worried. I think John has been smart about his career, doing other jobs between SW movies so that he won’t be associated exclusively with Finn. He may have gotten some advice there; one reason Mark’s acting career didn’t work out so well was because he was too strongly associated with Luke. I know he missed out on at least one musical role for that reason.
It’s simply not true that John can only get commercials. He’s been in other movies, he’s been in plays. It could be that he’s negotiating deals, or maybe he’s focused on other things at the moment. We already know his ambitions are bigger than acting–he wants to create
opportunities for others as well through his production company.
So yeah, just because we’re not hearing about work he’s doing right now doesn’t mean he isn’t working, or isn’t getting opportunities. I think he’s preparing things that will amaze us down the line, whether it’s as an actor, producer, or otherwise.
(And I’m not sure what you mean about Adam winning an Oscar this year? For his work in the upcoming Spike Lee film? I’d be happy for him if he does, but it is not possible for anyone to win an Oscar this year, that would be in February 2019 for films opening in 2018.)
I actually think John’s career has been going well. Especially compared to some of his co-Stars. I just think John is choosing the right things so that his face is known not only critically but also in a main stream way.
John was in the critically acclaimed movie Detroit by Kathryn Bigelow and had his performance praised for it.
And while Pacific Rim didn’t receive the praise the original did, the film made a profit, had its sequel greenlit and John was said all around to be the best part of the movie and proved he can be THE leading man.
Plus John has been spending his time getting to know the right people in the business and also supporting his friends in the business.
I really don’t think it’s a stretch to think that John will eventually be joining the MCU soon since he was in the running for getting in the Black Panther. I’ll bet he’s even gonna he in the sequel.
If anything I think Daisy will have the harder time and might suffer from the same problem Mark did. Which what happen to Mark was a shame because he was a damn fine actor, but back then Hollywood was looming for the Harrison Ford type. Not woman like Carrie who were outspoken or Mark who wasn’t you’re typical masculine man.
John is trying to avoid what happens to a lot of actors in big franchises, and that’s not getting type cast. So he’s picking good roles that display his talents but also get him recognition. It would help his career greatly though now that JJ is back. I can honestly say John gave it his all in TLJ.
If there is anything to love about the dumpster fire that was TLJ and Finn’s story arc is that John was fucking amazing in every scene he was in.
John was everything from comedic to hauntingly serious and I hope JJ delivers with bringing Finn back to the leading role in ep 9.
JJ told John he’s the new star of Star Wars and he’d better deliver on that promise. Personally I think a large part of the reason he came back for IX was for John/Finn’s sake.
Yeah considering how close JJ is with John and Daisy I wouldn’t be surprised if he came back for them. Like I’m sure having your story hijacked is frustrating, but I imagine seeing these two new kids you hired being wasted and suffering professionally because you left would be more upsetting. The fact that Daisy cried when she heard he was coming back says a lot about their relationship.
For the actual quotes if anyone wants to read them:
Here’s John’s statement:
And JJ’s
JJ Abrams pretty much started John and Daisy’s career and are close friends with as well.
It’s no secret that Daisy had reported that she was having trouble on set and John’s enthusiasm seemed to only be bts of hanging out on set.
JJ Abrams more than likely not only wanted to save the story and characters HE created, but protect the actors he cares about.
To add further to my reply, JJ Abrams is not only a protégé of Steven Spielberg, but of George Lucas.
While writing The Force Awakens, JJ sat down with George and Spoke with him, got his advice on where to take these characters and what to do with them. There is a reason why so many of the characters in TFA seem like they were based from legends, that’s because they were.
Jaina Solo and Ben Skywalker were the template for Rey
Kyle Katarn and Finn Galfridian were the template for Finn
And Jacen Solo was the template for Ben Solo/Kylo Ren.
JJ Abrams knew what he was doing. If there was anyone who you would want to do episode nine, it would be him and I’m happy he’s back.
This warms my heart. Also the return of the JJ shows the idea that LF is totally happy with RJ for the bullshit it is. Like Daisy said, RJ was the logical and expected choice for IX after Jurassic guy was gone. Why get–or accept–JJ back if RJ could just pick up where he left off?
Kylo Ren really is a great example for how sci fi/fantasy writers should tailor their worlds to fit the times, so it could resonate with the actual audience reading them. There would be no point in making a Hitler villain anymore, because we’re not afraid of Hitler, we’re afraid of the 25-year-old malcontented white boy who fondles Hitler memorabilia while sulking in his room.
Somebody pointed out to me that the First Order aren’t coded as Nazis, they’re coded as neo-Nazis, which is worse, because these are people who looked at horrific historical atrocities with the benefit of hindsight and went, ‘Yes, that’s exactly what we should do again, but this time more’
People complaining that Starkiller Base is a rip-off of the Death Star and that Kylo Ren is a whiny emo fanboy don’t realize that this is exactly the point
I like the reading but a big part of me thinks that these weren’t intended. The Force Awakens came out in 2015, which means it was probably written in 2014, and frankly I don’t think Disney execs (and probably the writers) were aware of the growing threat until 2017.
The script writers for The Force Awakens are Jewish, and wrote the script in a way that really reflected Jewish views of the Nazis as opposed to normative Gentile American views, and which drew heavily on the Jewish collective memories of the Holocaust, something I discuss at length here: [Link]. The Jewish community has in fact been very aware of the rising tide of explicit white supremacy on the Right for a long time, and like many other minority communities, we were (and are) afraid and not exactly quiet about it. The only people who were really taken unawares were white gentiles, something the writers were not. I think it’s almost insulting to suggest that Jewish people writing topical Nazi and neo-Nazi coded villains is somehow unintentional.
Reylows: We can read the canon perfectly… the intricate layers of
story symbolism J.J. set up… it’s all an open book to us… trust us,
we’re English majors and reylow is canon. J.J. is a genius and we read
his mind!!!
Caption: “That all came out of conversations about what would
have happened if the Nazis all went to Argentina but then started
working together again?’” Abrams said in the interview.
“What could be born of that? Could The First Order
exist as a group that actually admired The Empire? Could the work of The
Empire be seen as unfulfilled? And could Vader be a martyr? Could there
be a need to see through what didn’t get done?”
The faceless black mook Stormtrooper who became one of the saviors of the galaxy, who is a kind hearted man, resourceful strategist and a potential Jedi.
The Scavenger girl from a backwater planet who turned out to be a a fierce warrior, the Legacy of the Skywalkers and a Jedi with a gentle heart.
The dashing Latino rogue, turned out to be a caring rebel pilot and soldier who is willing to look past a uniform and at the character of someone.
The son of 2 war heroes who turns out to be the villain of the movie and rejects the redemption of family love and accepts darkness within himself.
The big bad of the series is an actually not a sadist or even a Sith, but a cool, calm, and collected chess master. Not even losing his super weapon will force his composure to slip.
A badass female Asian fighter pilot who isn’t shoved into a forced romance or dies, but instead contributes to blowing up the super weapon.
A dangerous and calculating young general who stands on even ground with the dark forces in the film and outrught definitely asserts his authority.
The princess turned badass General who now leads an entire army against the big bad of the series.
The non believer who is willing to die for his family, yet still puts the mission of saving thousands first.
An interracial romance between two overlooked and damaged people. A Stormtrooper and a scavenger, who became the hope of the New Republic and the galaxy.
The Force Awakens was diverse, empowering, and full of more subversion than that white bread, tasteless Reddit fanfic that was TLJ
I don’t understand the people who say that Kylo would have worked better if he had been a random, I really don’t. Kylo’s connection to the Skywalker bloodline, along with the lack of clear motive for his actions, is the entire point.
See, he’s a Nazi.
Okay, so technically he’s an allegory for a neo-Nazi in a space fantasy setting, but given that this hellsite has a distinct difficulty with complex concepts I’ll keep it simple. He’s a Nazi.
Why did Nazis do what they did? Why do neo-Nazis do what they do?
If you peel away all the embellishments and propaganda it comes right down to this: they see themselves as having a special legacy, a special bloodline to protect and they have a right to do so because they feel they’ve been chosen.
JJ has said that the early concept of Jedikiller only started working when they made him connected to the Skywalker bloodline, to the chosen family in Star Wars.
Kylo’s motivation, like that of all Nazis, is that he’s doing this because he belongs to the chosen people and thus have a right to rule. Not because he’s qualified, but because he belongs to the destined people.
No it’s not deep or complex, but it was never meant to be. Kylo is an antagonist and one JJ always meant to emulate a neo-Nazi. Giving him complex motivation would have detracted from this and, like with the real life equivalent, made it possible to justify what he’s doing because he has X, Y, Z motivation. Instead JJ gave him the most basic motivation of Nazis, he’s right because he’s chosen and because he has the strength to do what he does.
It’s not glorious. It’s pathetic, sad and ultimately someone who’s irredeemable. Not because he couldn’t choose differently than he does but because it’s not a motivation that makes anyone want to see him redeemed.
Of course, even people who sees Kylo as a villain and antagonist have a really hard time accepting him being a Nazi, so maybe this view isn’t really that surprising.
I mean the actor himself told us that Kylo Ren is an elitist (link), it’s not that deep people.
[Adam Driver] refuses to see his character as bratty. “There is a little bit of an
elitist, royalty thing going on,” he says, reminding us that the
character’s estranged mom is “the princess. I think he’s aware of maybe
the privilege.”
Cass Sunstein has criticized TLJ in part because Kylo didn’t fall due to losing a loved one (link), but maybe that’s because… Kylo is no Anakin… and is not nearly as sympathetic?
Mr. Dark Side, Kylo Ren, does have a bit of a struggle, and in that
sense, Johnson maintains continuity with Lucas’s vision. But in this
movie, at least, the struggle turns out to be a head fake. Because
Kylo’s descent doesn’t have the precipitating cause of Anakin’s – the
loss of loved ones – and because we don’t see Kylo suppressing the
better angels of his nature, the film doesn’t come anywhere close to the
depths of Lucas’s films.
If anyone is positioned as the new Anakin–but with a happy ending–it’s Rey, in struggling with the loss of loved ones, or at least her idea of them, and also in resisting manipulation by her would-be abusive mentor Kylo where Anakin fell to Palpatine’s manipulation. It’s interesting that Sunstein couldn’t recognize this story when it manifested in a female character, though to be sure it’s a common enough blind spot and RJ didn’t make it easy for anyone.
Precisely.
People, not just Cass here, are obsessed with having Kylo be the next Vader/Anakin, but he isn’t. Not to mention they’re even more obsessed with the reason why he fell to the Dark Side than they are with Rey’s parentage.
But let me ask you something. Did we know why Anakin fell in the OT? No, we didn’t, because the reason for it wasn’t relevant to Luke for whom Vader was a foil.
Is it relevant to Finn or to Rey why Kylo fell? So far we’ve been given not a single reason why this information should be relevant to either of them, so I don’t get why people are so upset about not knowing.
Except as yet another case of prioritizing the white guy over the two actual leads in the ST. Kylo’s motives for turning to the Dark are no more interesting or relevant to the narrative than Vader’s were in the OT. It’s not a plot hole, it’s not a flaw in the storytelling, it’s intentional. Only the parts of Kylo and his actions that are pertinent to Finn and Rey are relevant to the story, and unless someone can come up with a good reason why either of them should remotely care about it it’s going to remain irrelevant.
All too true. (You and @lj-writes are killin it with the meta lately).
It’s funny, too, because Rey’s “nobody” revelation effectively removes the possibility that he fell because of a lost loved one. The Rey Solo theory revolves around a Solo family tragedy before Kylo’s fall (Leia implies in TFA that the family was dealing with something that led to sending him to Luke, which is open to interpretation but fit with the loss of another child). Rey was taken and believed to be dead, throwing the family into turmoil and pushing a grieving Ben toward the Dark Side. The Rey Solo theory doesn’t always attribute Rey’s disappearance to Kylo’s fall, but when it does it gives Kylo a sympathetic reason to embrace the darkness. (The death of Anakin Solo was a turning point for Jacen Solo/Darth Caedus in the EU, so it isn’t hard to get onboard with the idea that Rey was a combination of Anakin and Jaina Solo.)
Rey being nobody shatters that. Fandom rejoiced because it meant they could get together and have Pure Force Babies (something the narrative has never suggested was a goal of Kylo’s even with his Nazi mindset), but it gives him no reason to be like he is other than toxic entitlement based on bloodline.
(They’ll say the reason is Snoke’s supposed brainwashing, but that ignores the fact that the ST remains firmly about choices.)
Yes. It’s important not to ignore the fact that Kylo’s entitlement stems from his lineage. He is the only Star Wars villain (iirc) who’s actual ideology aligns with Nazism, where others wore it as an “evil” aesthetic. Sure, the Empire and FO are human supremacists, but Kylo represents white supremacy in a much more tangible way.
When he confronts Rey and Finn on the crumbling Starkiller Base, it’s almost heavy-handed, but for the fact that most of the audience didn’t see it. A volatile white man holding on to his flickering “birthright,” demanding a woman and Black man return the power (Luke’s saber) that he believes belongs to him.
That’s not subtlety. Nor is the scene where Kylo orders the slaughter of the villagers. Especially when Finn was very clearly put into the position of a soldier “just following orders” (the Nuremberg Defense), but chose to disobey.
Fans remove Kylo’s culpability because he didn’t pull the trigger, but do we consider the Nazis who issued the orders but didn’t kill firsthand less culpable? FUCK NO.
So people can hem and haw about how it’s wrong to say Kylo is a Nazi/white supremacist parallel, but it’s in the narrative, especially under JJ’s watch.
You right, JJ isn’t remotely subtle. He never was and in this case the only way he could have been less subtle about would be to name them Nazis and give the characters names such as Adolf and Hermann.
And no there’s never been a quite this obvious Nazi analogy in Star Wars before. The Empire was simply about might makes right and the rule of the strongest, in many ways it was simply generic fascism with some Nazi aesthetics on top to make it look cooler.
The whole “preserving/claiming a birthright/legacy” is a new theme for a Dark Side character. Or rather, it is Kylo’s own fucked up version of the past and his birthright he’s trying to claim. Just as with real life Nazis it’s not actually their past, culture and people they’re trying to claim and protect, it’s their own private, revised, fucked up version of it they’re on about.
As a lot of people have pointed out his words to Vader’s helmet doesn’t make any sense because what Vader really wanted was to protect his family. But I’ll posit that they’re not supposed to make sense in the historical context of the universe because it’s not even Vader/Anakin’s legacy Kylo is trying to protect or claim, it’s his own revised, fucked up version of it.
Yes Rey Solo or I’d argue even Rey Skywalker could have given Kylo a sympathetic motive for turning to the Dark Side, but as things stand he doesn’t have.
More than that, TFA does everything it can to make Kylo look unsympathetic and paint him in a negative light without making him completely one dimensional.
Like this is a universe where the space Nazis after being defeated fucked off to “space Argentina” but rather than just lay low and die out they get right back at it becoming proud space neo-Nazis.
One organization that was an important the Nazi Germany was Hitlerjugend. It was a paramilitary organization of which membership was mandatory for all German boys between the age of 6 and 18. It was meant to not only teach them proper Nazi values and ideals, but also turn them into good soldiers.
In a universe such as the present Star Wars one where the in-universe Nazis fucked off and restarted the in-universe version of Hitlerjugend would absolutely be an important thing too.
Does it sound familiar? Do we know of a character who had grown up under such conditions?
Indeed we do.
Another thing.
Ideologies and organizations such as the (vague) one the First Order espouses is supposed to attract people who feels disenfranchised, are economically disadvantaged and/or have a great need to belong to someone or some place and struggles with their identity.
Do we know of such a character in the story?
Well, look at that.
But it isn’t Finn or Rey who turns to the First Order, though they should have every single reason to. No, the one who embraces it is this asshole:
Ben Solo. Raised with just about every single privileged know. Loving parents, financial secure, erudite and educated. He is the one who embraces the First Order, because his own fucked up, revised version of his “legacy” entitles him too.
Or so he thinks.
Which leads me back to the beginning of all of this.
JJ stripped Kylo of all ideological motivation to make it impossible to use that to excuse or defend his actions. In creating Finn and Rey as the characters he did, JJ also undermines every personal motivation Kylo could use to make himself look good.
The last two years have been something of an experience watching fandom trying to justify Kylo’s actions and argue that he’s actually, deep down good, when everything in the narrative told us the opposite. Even TLJ could justify his actions, instead it just ran avoidance tactics on the topic never addressing it. Even Rian knew that in a story where Finn and Rey exists, where Kylo has no ideological convictions beyond claiming his birthright, it isn’t possible to make him look sympathetic.
On a closing note. The whole “pure Force babies” thing always made me want to thrown up. Do these people realize who and what they sound as spouting that shit. I’ve hears actual Nazis be more circumspect in their phrasing than these people.
If you had asked me a year or two ago if they were aware or not, I’d have said they weren’t. Now I’m no where near as sure that these people aren’t 100% aware of who and what they sound as saying that shit. I’m wondering if they think they’re cool doing that.
The part about the FO attracting disenfranchised people like Rey is 100% canonical and intentional. That’s one of the FO’s schticks, positioning themselves as the great hope for those who are underprivileged and desperate. Not only that, there are at least two high-ranking FO characters–Gallius Rax and The Cardinal–who are actually from Jakku and trapped in poverty until the FO picked them up and gave them opportunities. Though not from Jakku, Phasma in her novel was similarly from a poverty-stricken, constantly warring post-apocalyptic world. I have pointed out before that the FO thrived in part due to the Republic’s failure to provide economic justice (link).
Also, your analysis reveals more clearly why Kylostans have gone the path of either arguing he’s brainwashed or justifying his actions. JJ purposefully took away the traditional ideological or emotional “justifications” for the character’s actions, forcing Kylostans to either show their ass and say his actions are inherently right/understandable or fall back on saying his character is essentially a puppet.
I remember when I delved deep into Reylow meta and came out of it a committed anti, one of the first things I noticed and an early turn-off was how distinctly fascistic the rhetoric sounded, like Kylo believes in the rule of the strong over the weak (that’s accurate) and Rey is powerful (uh-huh) and that makes them a perfect match (what?!). (Link) The Force Baby shit only upped that impression, and really that was never what SW was about. Both Anakin and Leia married non-Force users, and Luke as far as we know never had children at all in this continuity. The fact that a subset of fans think SW is/should be about Force eugenics in contrast to everything it’s actually stood foris seriously disturbing. Idk why people seriously think JJ wou do that.
L.J.'s Obsessions 