Right Wing Reylo

I was reading through The Last Jedi reviews and essays on conservative websites. They almost all share two things in common: 1) They dislike the movie 2) they're big fans of Reylo.

Ross Douthat in National Review:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/454743/star-wars-last-jedi-review-lost-space

In these new movies, Abrams and Lucasfilm and Disney have found exactly what the terrible, dreadful, I-still-can’t-believe-how-bad-they-were George Lucas prequels lacked above all: a compelling human portrait of a young Jedi slowly being claimed by the Dark Side, and a compelling, sexually charged relationship with a young woman who tries to draw him back to the light. But instead of that human drama being embedded in the sweeping story of a civilizational calamity, the fall of an old and corrupted republic, it is embedded in a political-military narrative that at best is derivative and disappointing, and at worst is just infuriating garbage.

David French at NRO, I think I've seen posted around here:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/454739/it-could-have-been-great-my-spoiler-heavy-critique-last-jedi

Imagine a different ending, with Luke and Leia escaping a newly-united Kylo Ren and Rey. That would be the kind of ending that replicates the craziness of Empire. One of the things that made Empire so great was its willingness — as the middle chapter — to embrace ambiguity. There was no happy ending. We were shocked by Luke’s identity, fearful for Han’s fate, and wondered what the father/son bond between Luke and Vader would mean for the next chapter. A Ren/Rey alliance (convincingly created) wouldn’t mean she’d gone to the dark side or he’d gone to the light. It would mean the story was up for grabs, and it would have built an incredible amount of anticipation for the next chapter.

Ben Shapiro at the Daily Wire, who hates seemingly everything except Reylo and agrees with, mroe or less: Kylo should accept Rey's counter-offer and then rule the galaxy together.


I'm kind of curious about this phenomenon, and especially the part about one or the other accepting the other's offer and ending the film in the throne room with Rey and Kylo in alliance.

As a former conservative (I am no longer a conservative), find that most conservatives are uncomfortable with anything that might strike them as political.  I can see how, they would feel uncomfortable with the resistance plot line because most (yes i am generalizing) like black and white thinking.  About liking Reylo, most people love a good romance, in my opinion.

Again, I am generalizing.....just to be clear.  I do not feel everyone falls under a certain umbrella.  I am just trying to remember my own thinking, the way I was raised and my former conservative family views.....

Ahahaha, seriously? Well first off, my standard answer to the topic of Ben Shapiro is that he can go f**k himself. And Douhat is a lightweight who tries too hard and produces offensive vapid bothsideisms like trying to argue that we actually need Stephen "It puts the lotion in the basket" Miller as a necessary evil. That'd be my guess why they're drawn to the possibility of the relationship as some type of team up (though in their version, likely Rey would have the Force mansplained to her)

If I wanna get my right of the political dial Star Wars discourse, I prefer Economics professor from George Mason, Tyler Cowan. Who's argued that the Jedi were failed to doom because it's the Darksiders who pursue Survival of the Fittest

The public choice economics of Star Wars: A Straussian reading

The core point is that the Jedi are not to be trusted:

1. The Jedi and Jedi-in-training sell out like crazy. Even the evil Count Dooku was once a Jedi knight.

2. What do the Jedi Council want anyway? The Anakin critique of the Jedi Council rings somewhat true (this is from the new movie, alas I cannot say more, but the argument could be strengthened by citing the relevant detail). Aren’t they a kind of out-of-control Supreme Court, not even requiring Senate approval (with or without filibuster), and heavily armed at that? As I understand it, they vote each other into the office, have license to kill, and seek to control galactic affairs. Talk about unaccountable power used toward secret and mysterious ends.

3. Obi-Wan told Luke scores of lies, including the big whopper that his dad was dead.

4. The Jedi can’t even keep us safe.

5. The bad guys have sex and do all the procreating. The Jedi are not supposed to marry, or , presumably have children. Not ESS, if you ask me. Anakin gets Natalie Portman; Luke spends two episodes with a perverse and distant crush on his sister Leia, leading only to one chaste kiss.

6. The prophecy was that Anakin (Darth) will restore order and balance to the force. How true this turns out to be. But none of the Jedi can begin to understand what this means. Yes, you have to get rid of the bad guys. But you also have to get rid of the Jedi. The Jedi are, after all, the primary supply source and training ground for the bad guys. Anakin/Darth manages to get rid of both, so he really is the hero of the story. (It is also interesting which group of “Jedi” Darth kills first, but that would be telling.)

Legal scholar Cass Sunstein (not a libertarian like Cowan) has spoken and written about Star Wars and wasn't thrilled with how TLJ handled its themes

Having studied the topic with care, Lucas is also insightful (and enduringly relevant, above all in the much-maligned prequels) about how democracy falls and how authoritarianism rises. He captures the populist allure of the all-powerful leader. As one of his characters puts it, “So this is how liberty dies ... with thunderous applause.”

Anakin Skywalker himself insists, “We need a system where the politicians sit down and discuss the problems, agree what’s in the best interests of all the people, and then do it.” Ominously, he adds that if they refuse, “They should be made to” -- and if that sounds like dictatorship, “Well, if it works ...”

“The Last Jedi” has a lot to say about the Light Side and the Dark Side, but there is nothing about grief and loss, and it’s banal about democracy. What it does with good and evil isn’t nearly interesting enough. Rey, our heroine, is never truly tempted. That’s boring.

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.

@Kylo Men I am in no way, shape, or form a conservative, and I agree with them about this. The ending of TLJ could have been much better if Rey and Kylo had at least shown signs of splintering away from either the FO or the Resistance.... I realize maybe that's still in the offing and they didn't want to do it for TLJ, instead deferring that question/outcome to IX. Who knows. But it would have been a helluva ending... just like it was in the trailer (which ended with his profered hand to her/albeit the editing being deliberately misleading).

@snufkin love the quotes. I actually liked the prequels... mainly AotC and RotS.

snufkin wrote:
6. The prophecy was that Anakin (Darth) will restore order and balance to the force.  How true this turns out to be.  But none of the Jedi can begin to understand what this means.  Yes, you have to get rid of the bad guys.  But you also have to get rid of the Jedi.  The Jedi are, after all, the primary supply source and training ground for the bad guys.  Anakin/Darth manages to get rid of both, so he really is the hero of the story.  (It is also interesting which group of “Jedi” Darth kills first, but that would be telling.)

And this was exactly what Kylo proposed to Rey.

snufkin wrote:
Legal scholar Cass Sunstein (not a libertarian like Cowan) has spoken and written about Star Wars and wasn't thrilled with how TLJ handled its themes

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.

He did kill his father, and that was a harsh and deep loss. But unlike Anakin, it hasn't precipitated a further fall to the DS (although it may look that way). In fact, it engendered the opposite reaction.

snufkin wrote:

“The Last Jedi” has a lot to say about the Light Side and the Dark Side, but there is nothing about grief and loss, and it’s banal about democracy. What it does with good and evil isn’t nearly interesting enough. Rey, our heroine, is never truly tempted. That’s boring.

@snufkin
So true, TLJ could have been so much more, I was hoping for deep mythic lore and a discussion on human nature itself but nope, just lots of chase and battles. It's frustrating because it could have been so much better. Like I wish SW could reach the depth of like blade runner or interstellar, sci-fi movies that really grapple with humanity and relationships important to us. SW brushes the surface but never gets to the pivotal point. And as rian said recently, SW just doesn't have time apparently to go into that stuff, which is a shame.

About the politics, I've always wanted to know political affiliations of reylo shippers lol. It sounds like many here are pretty liberal and yet we get a lot of backlash from the left for the toxic masculinity etc. And now I learn some conservatives are into reylo (which strengthens the liberals' agenda) but then you also have the anti-women(?) of the right hating TLJ. It's a toss up. I think it comes down to a lot of how people view Kylo Ren, whether they are sympathetic to him or not.

Dar-ren19 wrote:@snufkin love the quotes. I actually liked the prequels... mainly AotC and RotS.

snufkin wrote:
6. The prophecy was that Anakin (Darth) will restore order and balance to the force.  How true this turns out to be.  But none of the Jedi can begin to understand what this means.  Yes, you have to get rid of the bad guys.  But you also have to get rid of the Jedi.  The Jedi are, after all, the primary supply source and training ground for the bad guys.  Anakin/Darth manages to get rid of both, so he really is the hero of the story.  (It is also interesting which group of “Jedi” Darth kills first, but that would be telling.)

And this was exactly what Kylo proposed to Rey.

snufkin wrote:
Legal scholar Cass Sunstein (not a libertarian like Cowan) has spoken and written about Star Wars and wasn't thrilled with how TLJ handled its themes

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.

He did kill his father, and that was a harsh and deep loss. But unlike Anakin, it hasn't precipitated a further fall to the DS (although it may look that way). In fact, it engendered the opposite reaction.

@Dar-ren19

Honestly, I don't know what the hell Cass Sunstein is talking about here. (And FYI, I actually was taught Constitutional Law in law school via his books).

Kylo Ren's fall doesn't have the precipitating cause of Anakin's? He was a long-term abuse victim by an evil darksider, and his uncle, wonderful Jedi Luke Skywalker, didn't protect his nephew from said abuser, trained his nephew for his own (Luke's) personal glory, and when he read the kid's mind he was two seconds away from killing said kid in his sleep, thus throwing him into the arms of his evil darksider abuser.

Anakin had a dream. A dream! A dream made him kill thousands of people so his wife wouldn't die like she seemed to in the dream. Give me a break!

I saw a video of Cass Sunstein being interviewed about his SW fascination. I was not impressed. In fact, I was shocked how unimpressive and goofy he seemed, especially since probably half of the law schools in America use his Constitutional Law books. This remark about Kylo vs. Anakin's fall is just another bit of evidence that he needs to go back to his ivory tower.

rey09 wrote:

snufkin wrote:

“The Last Jedi” has a lot to say about the Light Side and the Dark Side, but there is nothing about grief and loss, and it’s banal about democracy. What it does with good and evil isn’t nearly interesting enough. Rey, our heroine, is never truly tempted. That’s boring.

@snufkin
So true, TLJ could have been so much more, I was hoping for deep mythic lore and a discussion on human nature itself but nope, just lots of chase and battles. It's frustrating because it could have been so much better. Like I wish SW could reach the depth of like blade runner or interstellar, sci-fi movies that really grapple with humanity and relationships important to us. SW brushes the surface but never gets to the pivotal point. And as rian said recently, SW just doesn't have time apparently to go into that stuff, which is a shame.

About the politics, I've always wanted to know political affiliations of reylo shippers lol. It sounds like many here are pretty liberal and yet we get a lot of backlash from the left for the toxic masculinity etc. And now I learn some conservatives are into reylo (which strengthens the liberals' agenda) but then you also have the anti-women(?) of the right hating TLJ. It's a toss up. I think it comes down to a lot of how people view Kylo Ren, whether they are sympathetic to him or not.

@rey09

I think that you are right about the viewpoint of Kylo Ren, and I don't think that has a liberal/conservative divide because there are all kinds of different flavors of people that are thrown into those categories and plenty of people who don't fit in either (me being one). I am not a liberal in the sense of how you see it on some university campuses, where negative consequences are meted out to those who don't agree with every single aspect of the dominant campus liberal orthodoxy and who think it's okay to silence, attack or shout down people with a different viewpoint than them. But I am the kind of liberal who absolutely believes that Larry Flynt, and other "bad" speakers like him, needed to win their cases at the Supreme Court, who thinks public defenders need just as much pay and money as the prosecution teams because the disparity effs up the process of justice, and who thinks the government should put a ton of money into early childhood education where they are not pushing early reading, but are helping kids learn life-long coping skills and helping them to calm their emotions when there is chaos around them, because if kids have a good neurological base, they have stronger executive decision-making skills later in life.

On the other hand, I don't think it's my obligation to send my kid to a public school no matter what, even if it's crappy. I am suspicious of large government bureaucracies because they seem to eff up a lot and hinder innovation and reward mediocrity (I actually work for one). I am also from a family of veterans and immigrants, so I am pro-military and very much love America, because compared to where my people came from, America has done a lot more right than wrong, and was a gift to my family. So that part throws me to the conservative side.

In the end I think whether or not someone likes Kylo Ren has to do with their view of psychological damage to people. If people are blinded by an overwhelming viewpoint like "he needs maximum punishment" or "he is the epitome of evil toxic masculinity" on the other side, they are not looking at people's individual histories or circumstances, whether it's about a real life person or a character. They look at people with labels or categories.

But if a person looks to a person's history, circumstances, genetics, etc., they can get a nuanced view of a character like Kylo Ren no matter their political viewpoint.