[controversial] did ben have to die?

So Girls with Sabers retweeted this guy, he is awesome! A older dude father, he actually loved TROS however he does like reylo and most important to him is Ben Solo. He doesn't believe he's gone. Says not until I see a force ghost. He's citing all the vergeance stuff in the visual dictionary. Totally recommend! He's super passionate about bendemption. Saw he wrote something for younger his son too.

https://twitter.com/AaronQuinton78/status/1211529904816304128

@rey09

I'm glad to see open minded guys around! There is another I recommend, he is a writer https://twitter.com/alexjkane

He, it's uplifting to see so many guys are into it.
If one thing is really annoying me, it's that they keep banging on about toxic masculinity and abusive ships.

If there is anything toxic in this it's femininity. I'm genuinely disturbed by all this 'strong women don't need men' rubbish.
People need each other. Of course we need men'. Men need women. Those of us who are gay or lesbian need their partners. We are pack animals by nature but we need the stability of a loving relationship.
As for 'abusive'......oh please.
Who gets hurt? Not Rey. Rey doesn't getca slashed face and shoulder. She doesn't get stabbed in the stomach while unarmed.

You want Reylo to be an abusive ship? Fine. But Kylo isn't the abusive one.

For all this c*** about strong womanhood these toxics have failed to realise that by their own reasoning, women can be as abusive as men. Kylo isn't an abuser, he's a victim.

That guy actually brought up something that I was thinking, in the movie palps says about the dyad he hasn't seen in generations; they made revan canon too, so perhaps revan bastilla (revastilla? XD) were a previous dyad. That stuff is fascinating, wonder if disney is smart enough to explore this. Probably not LOL.

I'm hoping to get back to this thread over the weekend. Great idea this thread!
At the moment, I'm thinking the decision was made that, to end the skywalker saga, they had to obliterate the bloodline. I think they thought they could do this and still have a hopeful ending.
[IMHO Spectacular Fail!]
I wonder if GL had always seen the 9 movie saga ending that way too.

Did the Skywalker bloodline have to die?

@DeeBee personally i find the obsession with blood lines rather ... iffy. i hope that i would have been able to invest in the characters without them being related to anyone. i would have loved for the audience to struggle with investing in kylo ren as a separate dark lord and rey as his soul mate. wouldn't that have been interesting enough?

anyway, so, sod the skywalkers tbh.

Ben Solo didn't have to die for me,
I wouldn't have wanted them to follow the old path, redeem him  and then sacrifice him for another person. However let's look at how they reduced the other characters in this trilogy, even if for me it is not a trilogy because it lacks everything, they have no respect for their characters and  the old ones? no comment .  The heart and love for this franchise is missing.
Now the ending is open .... unless soon they say that Ben Solo is dead, I have doubts.
What do we know about the ghost of force?
Obi and Luke are gone but we saw them later as ghosts of the force , the same thing as Leia even if for some strange reason she didn't disappear immediately and this fact is connected to Ben in my opinion.
Ben is gone, it's a fact, but where did his ghost come from?
It would have been nice to see him with his family on Tatooine. Don't you show him to me? then I think he's hidden somewhere ...

rey09 wrote:So Girls with Sabers retweeted this guy, he is awesome! A older dude father, he actually loved TROS however he does like reylo and most important to him is Ben Solo. He doesn't believe he's gone. Says not until I see a force ghost. He's citing all the vergeance stuff in the visual dictionary. Totally recommend! He's super passionate about bendemption. Saw he wrote something for younger his son too.

https://twitter.com/AaronQuinton78/status/1211529904816304128

@rey09

that's right, this guy said some very interesting and logical things.
moreover, they could bring back the Skywalkers, just like Kennedy said. Mark and Adam. If not with movies,
with comics or books. pick one

Teo oswald wrote:Ben Solo didn't have to die for me,
I wouldn't have wanted them to follow the old path, redeem him  and then sacrifice him for another person. However let's look at how they reduced the other characters in this trilogy, even if for me it is not a trilogy because it lacks everything, they have no respect for their characters and  the old ones? no comment .  The heart and love for this franchise is missing.
Now the ending is open .... unless soon they say that Ben Solo is dead, I have doubts.
What do we know about the ghost of force?
Obi and Luke are gone but we saw them later as ghosts of the force , the same thing as Leia even if for some strange reason she didn't disappear immediately and this fact is connected to Ben in my opinion.
Ben is gone, it's a fact, but where did his ghost come from?
It would have been nice to see him with his family on Tatooine. Don't you show him to me? then I think he's hidden somewhere ...

What annoys me is the hate for TFA and TLJ centred around how the OT cast were treated. They didn't like the idea of Luke, Han and Leia making mistakes. To me it simply made them human. Neither Han or Leia were really suitable to be good parents, both were too wrapped up in their own lives. Luke was a Jedi first and foremost. Yet the characters were treated with respect.
Kylo wasn't. He was sacrificed on the altar of Rey's godhood. The pity is.....Han died trying to save his son. Luke gave his life not only saving his sister but preventing his broken nephew from having any more of his family's blood on his hands.
If, as someone suggested, the original ending had Leia dying to revive her son with the last of her life force it would have been a lovely send off for her.

But no. Another thing sacrificed on the altar of Saint Rey the Glorious, the Pure and the Sanctimonious.

Ugh.

I only know that every time I see the scene where Ben falls back and he just disappears I say unbelievable: what the f****!
and I've seen that scene a hundred times.

Which is why I find it so.... wrong.
When Darth Vader died, he had a beautiful scene whewithre he looked upon his son with his own eyes. They said their farewells. Luke wept. He built a pyre for his father. At the end, he joined his friends and sister celebrating but there was a lingering sadness about him, until he saw the Force ghosts.

Ben died. And that was it. No mourning, no mention of his sacrifice. No Force ghost. This is why I am convinced something was changed. I just want to know why.

If that was the plan, equal parts bad strategy and bad execution. But hey, good luck with the EU 2.0, I sure remember all those times I was in a bookstore after the OT ended, seeing them on the shelf, and passing by going "Nahhh, not interested." But the same sliver fans who stuck around for that and who're jazzed about the new season of The Clone Wars will probably lose their minds over more periphery characters whose ridiculous names and blank slate personas/backstories they can obsess over.

I'm sorry but I've never heard of this guy. Could someone please enlighten me as to who he actually is?

he's Slashfilm editor. Journo with industry ties.

ben didn't have to die at all. Leave him in UR. Close the path to UR so he couldn't return to GFFA. Whatever. It could have been done.

They wanted all Skywalkers dead and Rey to be the new Skywalker a spiritual successor. So with that in mind, any blood skywalker was doomed. Apaprently character's popularity couldn't change the course of his future. Adam's award nominations couldn't change the course. I dunno, I'm sure Marvel wouldn't pass on Ben if he was their property but LFL runs the business differently.

Thanks.

They really haven't a clue have they?

Rey was at her best when interacting with Kylo. Kylo meanwhile, could carry an entire franchise on his own. Rey couldn't carry a paper bag.
And no, it isn't Daisy.....it's the character.

They have a 'we know better' mentality which is going to destroy them.. Idiots.

motherofpearl1 wrote:Which is why I find it so.... wrong.
When Darth Vader died, he had a beautiful scene whewithre he looked upon his son with his own eyes. They said their farewells. Luke wept. He built a pyre for his father. At the end, he joined his friends and sister celebrating but there was a lingering sadness about him, until he saw the Force ghosts.

Ben died. And that was it. No mourning, no mention of his sacrifice. No Force ghost. This is why I am convinced something was changed. I just want to know why.

@motherofpearl1

I tend to believe that this is what shocks people the most. Had DLF just handled  his death a little more carefully and respectuously toward the character,  this directing choice could be widely accepted. SW death is not the equivalent of real life death. No matter how deep we feel emotionally attached to the dude for valid reasons, it doesn't erase that he was a high commander of a war crime organization that activelt killed millions of human beings who contrary to him probably won't get the chance to come back as FG or have any conscious afterlife. The fact that he died happy, loving someone and knowing  he was loved despite his past choices, is already something to be happy for him. Even if DLF never brings him back, it's safe to assume that he and Rey will be reunited in afterlife and maybe that time doesn't feel slow at all in afterlife. Given his trajectory in TROS, it's hard to picture another fate that would feel fair for everybody except, maybe sentencing him like 20 years to forced exile with a specific purpose to achieve. I just don't like that they left his fate ambiguous and were so hypocritical with that ending on Tatooine.

They were rushing towards Rey Rey Skywalker ending. That's why her trio mates were dropped like hot potatoes without closure except for Zorii rejecting Poe, lulz. They wanted that line and twins fan service and nostalgia planet and that didn't work because Tatooine meant something to audience but not to Rey so audience was aware of the discrepancy. On top of that, leia had no fond memories of it. I mean:

I wonder how many died on Starkiller when heroic Poe and his friends blew it up.

SKB actually had enough time for evacuation. Even Hux had enough time to a) chat with Snoke and b) pick up Kylo (and novelization says with a deliberate delay).

A lot of people obviously. Nobody denies it.  As much as both sides have blood on their hands and the Resistance isn't all white, sorry but there is a fundamental difference. The difference is that the Resistance had no other choice but to destroy Starkiller Base in order to prevent the death of millions of beings. The Resistance is not some fascist war organization that willingly constructs a weapon of mass destruction whose purpose is to destroy entire planets with millions of civilians, most of them having nothing to do with war ideologies and/or business. And Leia ain't willing to send her soldiers like cannon fodder, which is an important lesson she teaches to Poe and that Poe eventually learns. I don't see the point of comparing Kylo with Poe because their situations aren't comparable. I may relate to Ben and feel a deep emotional attachment to that character, I just don't feel it's fair not to take into account the darkest side of his personality/ actions. He is the metaphor of victims of abuse and/or addiction who aren't well accompanied and struggle to get out of their demons. But there is also another side which is that the mask that Ben uses as a protective toecap lead to dreadful actions that he can't erase from his past. That's why I felt actually more sick after TLJ than TROS because the way TLJ ended his arc made me painfully aware that it would be hard to get a HEA. No matter how we may justify his actions with trauma, he still gave the order kill his uncle and all people in that cave without mercy. And TROS makes it clear that Palpatine was poisoning his mind all along but it also shows that Kylo could take his own decisions to some degree. The movie isn't clear enough if Leia's sacrifice severed the connection of Palpatine thus freeing Ben from this evil presence.

Kylo Ren isn't a saint. But TFA went to great lengths to point out he had nothing to do with the destruction of the Hosnian system. At the end of TLJ whatever he intended to do with the Resistance he was prevented from, by Luke's sacrifice, another reason it was so powerful.
In Bloodline it was mentioned how many non military personnel died on the Death Star. Poe got half his comrades killed in TLJ for a d*** waving exercise and got away with a demotion and a slap.
In real life a number of war criminals avoided prosecution, or were pardoned because they had scientific knowledge. And at the end of the day, this is a fantasy - and one that supposedly is based on hope.

As vaderito said, Ben Solo was killed off purely because LF/Disney wanted to replace him with Rey. Let's get rid of the tainted Skywalker and replace him with a 'pure' one. The corporation wanted to kill off all of George Lucas,'s characters. They wanted Star Wars. They didn't want the Skywalker/Solo family.
Fine for them. But for me that family WAS Star Wars. I like the Mandalorian but it'll never replace the Skywalkers and Solos in my affections.

What's really ironic is that they've killed off all of Lucas's heroes....and let the last descendant of his worst villain inherit everything.

All valid points. I just wish that all the materials that explicitly pointed to the fact that he was abused, that he was neglected and that he never wanted to harm anyone would have made it in the last movie in one way or another. If I don't read the TFA novelization, I am not supposed to know that Kylo tried to convince Snoke not to destroy Hosnian Prime. If I don't read the TLJ novelization, I am not supposed to know that Kylo was absolutely scared when he saw Luke on Crait and had just a PTDS reaction. If I don't read The Rise of Kylo Ren comic, I am not supposed to know that he actually never intended to destroy the Temple because it was an accident. That's the issue here: the movies and the additional materials don't convey the same vibe despite Adam's amazing performance. That's why I don't blame the average viewer - i.e. like my bro - not to feel enough sympathy for the character to consider that he should have survived and got a HEA. The more I think about the more I feel that the last part of the movie lacks a decisive scene where Ben should have been confronted one last time to his inner demons. It's too bad that TROS was all about Rey overcoming her dark legacy and struggles while the entire franchise was all about the Skywalkers dealing with that all along. The "I have been every voice you've ever heard inside your head" line, the dark Rey scene and the Reylo fights could have been a meaningful set up for Ben overcoming his struggle for good when the Galaxy would have needed it the most. I would have found so powerful if after Rey died Ben would have been the last hope to desactivate the flotte from Exegol and the only way he could do it was to overcome all the poisoning voices by experiencing feeling of love instead of having a bad*** moment like Rey. That kind of scene alone would have been more than enough to tie the Skywalker franchise alltogether (i.e. with flashback of Anakin's fall because of Palpatine), giving Anakin a key role in guiding his grandson and Rey being the motivator (she may be dead but what she fought for still lives on). With that kind of moment, I don't think that the GA would have needed tons of scenes about Ben's backstory to feel sympathy because all the scenes where Kylo pushes Rey to the edge would have made more sense, not only served to expose her backstory in a damaging way that makes him just look like a manipulative a**. The fact that people end up having such divisive opinions about Ben and his dynamic with Rey even after TROS shows that the movie wasn't explicit enough and that a key puzzle piece is missing. In general, the feeling that I get is that DLF wanted to test how far they could go with that character by leaving the "Last Judgment" to the viewers, giving us every reason to sympathize and not sympathize with him. From that, it's understandable that people have different reactions to the characters, his actions and his fate.

The worst thing about TROS for me isn't Ben's fate, even if it broke my heart. It's that it's a bad movie.
It's terribly made. The dialogue is embarrassingly awful. The plot is non existent. The characters have regressed rather than developed.
It should have been moving, inspiring, unforgettable. Instead it's possibly the most unsatisfying film I've ever seen. It seems as if it's been cobbled together from half a dozen better films. The editing is abysmal.

I can't believe they spent two years writing this film. It's like a B movie put together in five minutes.

Death does not equal redemption - and I wished the writers and directors had actually utilized TLJs setup of internal conflict within the First Order to channel a redemption arc for Ben. It would have been different, more nuanced and opened up plot avenues for so many characters that were seriously lacking one in 9, e.g. Finn and Hux. Also, Snokes death allegedly being at the hand of Rey was just accepted or they could have addressed her not wanting or allowed to go on missions off planet (in the beginning of TROS) due to the fact that the supposedly zealous First Order sees her as enemy number one or something.

I'm also so tired of the many people who think that Ben had to die because of his actions - But the most hilarious, thing is that there's this popular line of thought that Kylo was absolutely responsible for the destruction of Hosnian Prime - almost like they watched an alternate scene with him pushing some big red button labelled 'genocide', while cackling Palpatine style. Theres also a fervent belief that TFA somehow definitively or unambiguously lays the deaths of Luke's students on Ben's hands. Han was so vague and so speaking as Obiwan, that you had to know there was more to the story.

On a cynical note, I once thought that Han dying by and for his son, meant that Ben would not die, so as to not devalue his sacrifice and hope for his child till the end. How wrong was I...