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Hey brother.
Okay, guys.
It is no mystery that there is no one out there
who hates Star Wars more than people who love Star Wars.
It is such an incredibly unique and unusual fandom
to be a part of where the thing
that you love the most might be the thing
that someone else absolutely despises.
Personally, I believe that this stems from the fact
that it is a franchise that has, literally,
been rolling out over the past 40 years.
Meaning, it's not only hit a huge variety
of fans at varying stages of life,
but it's coming out during different eras
of technology and just modern history.
And the most recent sequel trilogy
of this series came out during a period
of time when fans arguably were
at their absolute most well-informed.
A time where channels like this one
that you're watching right now have gone through
and carefully dissected every frame
of every movie or trailer.
Where we were just constantly in search of clues
or hints as to what might come next.
For me, to this day,
I remember the moment when I spotted this statue inside
of Anakin's room in "Phantom Menace,"
and was 100% certain that it was going
to be a future reference to Maz Kanata.
Like, oh my gosh!
How are they gonna connect these dots? I mean, after all,
she did have his original light saber
that Luke lost at Cloud City.
The people making this stuff were sticking to the details.
But, that's the thing about this trilogy too.
It's literally helmed by two different directors
with two very different visions for how it should go.
And they ended up being cinematically sandwiched together,
meaning that some of those visions were either just ignored,
abandoned, or just literally argued about onscreen
in front of us.
- The Jedi's weapon deserves more respect.
- And as a result of all this, I think we have a franchise
that has literally captured the attention
of millions of people over four decades.
Facing one of the greatest uphill battles
in all of cinematic history.
And that is coming to a conclusion that we can all agree on.
Part of me actually thinks it was an impossible task,
but after two years of contemplation myself,
I have come up with one change in each of these movies
that I think would make it palatable.
Because that's what we're really shooting for, isn't it?
Palatable.
Kidding you guys! I love Star Wars!
Let's do this!
(star wars type music)
(Palpatine laugh)
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Okay, so to be fair,
I think there are a lot more than three simple changes
that would be necessary to cover everything meaningfully.
For example,
Poe, Finn and Rose all deserved
significantly more character build out.
My two second version of this is that I think each
of them very nicely could have represented a different path
that an individual inside of a galaxy, so at war,
might have taken.
Moving on.
Rey, strictly speaking, doesn't need to be a Palpatine.
Although for the purposes of the rest of this video,
I'm going to assume that she still is.
And then there's Phasma, who was an utter disappointment.
Like, come on!
You get Gwendoline Christie to play a character
and don't use her?
What?
But so let's kick things off.
And of course start with "The Force Awakens,"
which, full disclosure,
is my favorite movie in the entire series.
If there's one thing that I think the series got right,
it is the introductions to all of these characters.
- Who talks first? Do you talk first? I talk first?
- But the thing that I love the most about this series
in particular is the way that it flipped the story,
as we know, it on its head a little bit,
especially when it comes to Kylo Ren.
Because we've seen Anakin and Luke both kind
of go through very similar paces.
They are effectively innocent to the greater galaxy,
discover and trained under the Jedi.
However, also feel the pull towards the Dark Side.
Anakin ultimately turns and Luke ultimately doesn't.
They pretty much explored the two available routes there.
But with Kylo,
they were able to do something a little bit fresh.
They effectively have this new young,
Darth Vader style character who is insanely powerful.
Like, can stop a blaster in the air, powerful.
I remember sitting in the theater when
that happened and was like, whoa snap?
Like what are even the physics of that?
A blaster is like lasers,
lights.
The point is Kylo is, very obviously,
already following the path of the Dark Side,
but is actually feeling the pull of the light.
This goes against everything we've ever seen
in Star Wars before.
And it really comes to a head at the climax of the movie
where Kylo has to come face to face with his father,
AKA Han Solo.
This scene is kind of wonderfully staged almost literally.
You have two opposing characters,
positioned quite literally center stage
with both sides of the argument watching.
On the one hand, you have Rey, Finn and Chewy and the other,
literally The First Order.
Whatever happens here is not behind closed doors.
It's on public display.
There will be implications.
It's kind of your classic good versus evil,
light versus dark.
But in this moment,
what we're really witnessing is those two ideals,
not literally at war with one another.
That is to say Han versus Kylo,
but instead it's a much more internalized war.
Ben Solo versus Kylo Ren.
And the ethics involved here are seriously complex.
Kylo can strike down his own father
and basically sever one of his last final ties
to the Light Side of The Force or he can do nothing.
It's honestly a little bit of an impossible situation
and he's under a huge amount of pressure.
And there's literally no one for him to turn to.
That is other than Han himself,
who is also in a rather unique situation.
His very life is not only at stake,
but at stake at the hands of his own son.
Gah! You guys!
the scene is so good, which brings me to change number one,
which is right here, freeze it!
Change number one,
Han presses the button here to turn on the light saber,
not Kylo.
And now to be fair with this scene in particular,
it's kind of ambiguous to this day.
It's very possible, this is just what happened.
So, the change that I am actually proposing is
that we eventually learn, for sure,
that that is what happened.
In my mind, everything about this change,
changes everything.
Han can clearly see that his son is in deep
and is willing to do anything
to help him out in this moment.
Including making the ultimate sacrifice.
- I know what I have to do,
but I don't know if I have the strength to do it.
- And in doing so there are a few major implications.
One, is that Ben is now forever incapable
of harming his own father.
Two, is that Han's final moment is super heroic
and not in a, hooray we blew up another Death Star,
kind of way, but like in a down to earth,
meaningful kind of way.
And three, while it might be easy to say like,
well, no, if that happened,
wouldn't Ben just start turning to the Light Side.
I don't even think it would because Ben's relationship
with the Dark Side is kind of unique.
It's not this like grandiose rule the galaxy type of thing.
It's very internal.
I don't read Ben as someone who is actively trying
to achieve some type of great power.
So much as, he's literally trying to make sense
of his own trauma, which is significant.
And as such,
I think the loss of his father,
any which way is much more likely to drive him further
to the Dark Side, at least for now.
And so this is where we move on to the next film.
And if "The Force Awakens" was all about Ben's relationship
with his father,
then, I think "The Last Jedi" is all about his relationship
with his mother, AKA Leia.
Before their big moment,
we have another scene that I think,
really nicely illustrates this idea
that Ben's allegiance isn't really
to the Dark Side of The Force.
So much as it is just simply darkness.
He has this really severe sense of abandonment.
This idea that the people that he's looked up to,
betrayed him or let him down.
When he got powerful, his parents sent him
to another planet where his uncle
tried to kill him.
But what we see in "The Last Jedi" is,
he's receiving this abuse from the other side as well,
where Snoke is completely badgering him about his mask
and being bested by Rey and his torment over the loss
of his father.
- Bested by a girl who had never held a light saber.
- If anything, even more than the loss of Han.
I think this scene right here is way more likely
to start driving Ben towards the Light Side of The Force.
It's that realization that it's not just mentors
on the Light Side of The Force
that could make you feel alone or abandoned.
And we see this very thing, play out a little bit more
in the following scene
where he's piloting a tie fighter
on an attack at Leia's ship.
In this scene,
there is one very specific thing that we see happen,
that I think is critically important
for Kylo Ren's character.
And that is we see him very clearly sensing the presence
of his mother on that ship.
He has his finger on the trigger and doesn't pull it,
but someone else does.
And this is, once again, almost a circumstance where one
of the only other ways that Ben could fully commit
to the Dark Side of The Force is taken away from him.
This distinction feels important
to me on how he reads this situation.
He had these opportunities to commit fully to the dark.
First, with his father who ultimately ended up helping him.
And second, with his mother who is attacked
by someone else on his team.
These moments reflect others that we've seen inside
of the saga as a whole.
First, with Anakin and the Tusken Raiders,
who abducted his mother
or Order 66 when he's to wipe out all of the Jedi,
even the younglings.
And for Luke,
this moment is when he's fighting his own father.
He's won the battle, Vader is finished
but the emotional toll of taking his father's life
is the choice he doesn't make.
And that's what saves him.
Or for that matter.
Even if we're to fast forward to the next movie.
This is exactly what Palpatine is trying to get Rey to do.
- Kill me and my spirit will pass into you.
- Kind of see what I'm getting at here?
If Kylo has been deprived of these opportunities,
especially for supportive or heroic reasons,
then it effectively cuts off his path
to the darkness entirely.
And that is where, I think,
we can start inching our way into change number.
Leia, of course, survives this attack
and floats through space.
I'm sorry, you can love the scene if you want to,
but I personally do not, but it's fine.
I'm not even changing it, I'm keeping it in.
Leia surviving here doesn't throw off my plan.
Oh, but can I just,
can I just kind of say,
it's not even the floating that bothers me.
I'm lying.
It does.
What gets me is the surviving
in the cold dark vacuum of space
after your ship's cabin has been blown up,
like, what?
You know what I'm past it.
I always knew that part was gonna be hard for me.
We did it.
But here is where I think "The Last Jedi,"
really needed to make a change.
They spend a lot of time setting up Laura Dern's character,
Vice-Admiral Holdo, and she is awesome.
Leia trusts her, Poe doesn't, Poe is wrong.
It's a whole thing.
In the end, it turns out she can lead.
She can fill Leia's shoes.
She can be in the future of the rebellion,
which is good because Leia just took a really serious blow
when her cabin was blown up and she was thrust into the icy,
cold of space.
So the point is, though, that later,
when they realized they can turn the ship around
and make the jump to light speed at The Supremacy
and tear it in half,
there is this beautiful passing
of the baton opportunity available to us.
Leia is hurt and frail,
and we literally just spent the entire movie establishing
how this really awesome character is capable of leading,
even leading Poe, who was not a very leadable character.
All we need,
all we need is someone who is able to sit in the chair
and pull a handle and make the jump to light speed.
Let this person be Leia.
Ultimately, what this would do
for the story is have given Ben solo the opportunity
to take a shot, make the decision not to take that shot
and let Leia go out like a freaking boss
in the most incredible silent space explosion
I have ever seen.
Again, this accomplishes more than one thing.
It completely closes off any pathway
that Ben Solo may have had to fully commit
to the Dark Side of The Force.
And it allows for both Han and Leia to go out
as heroes for the resistance.
But, and again, I still think this is important
for Ben's arc as a character,
does not mean that he would return to the light, yet.
If anything, once again,
I think this further isolates it, because at this point,
Snoke is gone, Han is gone, Leia is gone,
Luke eventually will be gone.
Everyone he has ever looked up to is out.
Meaning, maybe for the first time ever,
he needs to start finding his own way,
but we're not there yet close, but not quite.
This brings me to the third installment of the series
and what would be my third change in
"The Rise of Skywalker."
I think it is completely understandable that at this point
in time, Ben is just a straight up loose cannon.
He is filled with emotions,
it has absolutely no clear direction.
That is basically the definition of a loose cannon.
Cannon balls be emotional.
At this point, all he knows is
that there's this girl from the desert who showed up,
who has been kicking his butt the entire time
with his light saber.
Like his frustration with Ray can come from a myriad
of different places.
It literally doesn't even need
to be this like light versus dark conversation anymore.
I mean, from his perspective,
she beat him in the forest,
she saw his own father Han Solo as a father figure,
she went to Luke,
his former master for Jedi training
and ultimately declined his hand in partnership.
This is no longer an intergalactic battle.
This is a fight between two people,
which means their feud is with each other.
And it has got to come to a head and it does.
I think their final battle with each other can be slash,
should be slash, simply is cathartic.
This go round, unlike in the forest, he has her beat.
She saw Han as this father figure,
just the same way that he did.
She trained with Luke, just like he did
and everything is being unraveled
in this situation for Ben solo.
He can finally see just how similar these two people are.
They follow nearly exactly the same paths
and clearly she can still be good.
I'll admit this might sound a little over the top
or even a little dramatic.
But I think what we're realizing here is
that Rey's simple existence
is literally resolving his trauma.
And I think that Han arrives here
as a ghost to make this clear.
- Kylo Ren is dead.
My son is alive.
- Which brings me to my final change
because at this point we have come full circle.
We're watching the exact same scene, play out again.
Han explains the Ben that while his mother is gone,
what she stood for lives on.
And again, just like before Ben says,
- I know what I have to do,
but don't know if I have the strength to do it.
And again,
just like before we see him start to raise his light saber
and then turn around and throw it in the ocean.
And right there,
that moment when he raises the light saber cut scene,
that is what I would change.
Do not have him throw the light saber into the ocean.
Instead fast forward to the final battle with Palpatine,
Rey, is completely outmatched and outnumbered.
Her back is against the wall.
When out of the darkness,
we see Kylo Ren's iconic light saber turn on again,
except this time, instead of angry in red,
it's pure, white and smooth.
The transformation back to Ben solo is complete
and we get an absolutely epic moment
of visual storytelling coming to fruition.
In a single, I think we, the audience,
would understand everything.
Who is it that showed up to help Rey?
And what does this change in color mean?
Kylo Ren's light saber is one
of the most iconic artifacts to come from this trilogy.
And I think that it perfectly encapsulates
his entire journey.
His inner struggle from Ben solo to Kylo Ren and back again.
So while Star Wars tends to exist in this kind
of grand scale intergalactic, good versus evil.
I think that Ben as an individual represents
a much more relatable and human version
that all of us can relate to.
And that is our own trauma and whether
or not that's something that pulls us towards the dark,
or if it's something that we can actually learn
or grow from, and maybe even be stronger.
Guys, I have to tell you that writing the script,
I got chills like 50 times.
And when I started, I genuinely did not intend
for this to be about Ben Solo's character arc in particular.
It's just kind of what everything kept gravitating back to
for me, but I am very curious to hear what you guys think.
Is there something about the sequel trilogy
that you would change? Let us know
in the towel section down below,
but guys as always, thank you so much for watching.
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but otherwise until next time, bye.