#anti kylo

[antianakin]

@theneutralmime

Oh this could get long, I don't talk about the sequels often lol. But I recently had to rewatch the entire trilogy as research for the podcast, so I have some more solid opinions on this now, so let's go.

Rey is a character who suffered from a fairly basic set-up in TFA that went exactly nowhere when her trajectory changed in TLJ and they couldn't figure out how to fix it in TROS (and the studio execs came in and enforced certain things to happen because they figured it would make certain fans happy). Rey IS her own character, she's not just like... Luke 2.0 or whatever, but the general set-up of "young hero stuck on their own in their life they can't escape and who ends up forced into an adventure when adventure happens to find them" is... not the most original thing in the world. It can be REALLY GOOD when executed well, there's a reason it's popular, but nothing about Rey was like... insanely original aside from the fact that she was a woman as (one of) the main character(s) in Star Wars films for the first time.

And then Rian Johnson took this pretty basic set-up that everyone understood and went "what if I threw this on the ground and spat on it and crushed it for good measure to be Edgy" and that's how we got TLJ with "Rey Nobody" who somehow already knows everything she needs to know which makes her ENTIRE JOURNEY to go find Luke completely meaningless and shifts the story from being about HER to being about LUKE. It's dumb, it's stupid, and it was bad writing.

Not following the very obvious character arc set up for her in TFA means that Rey as a character vacillates back and forth between motivations and characterizations in each new film. So it's hard to know like... who Rey even IS as a character, what's important to her, what she cares about, why she even WANTS to be a Jedi, what kind of Jedi she'd actually be, etc. In the first film, she's on a very basic journey of learning to let go of the idea that someone will come back for her on Jakku in order to recognize that it's better to find ways to connect with new people than push aside those relationships for one that has already gone. This is why she leaves Finn at the end of the film to find Luke in the first place, she can't let her connection to Finn be what holds her back any more than she could let her connection to her parents hold her back. She has a greater destiny out there to follow that she can only answer if she learns how to let go. In the second film, her entire motivation surrounds saving Kylo Ren for some reason and, as mentioned before, she apparently already knows everything she needs know and doesn't need any training or guidance of any kind which leaves her exactly nowhere to go as a character. In the third film, it's all about figuring out how to connect to the Jedi of the past for... reasons and struggling with the sudden revelation that she is Palpatine's granddaughter and therefore has extra capacity for darkness in her or something.

There's nothing consistent about her across the three films which leaves Rey and her story just... in the dust. She could've been a perfectly good and enjoyable hero character had they just let her follow the path she was set up on in TFA, and instead we got... the mess she became. I LIKE Rey, I think she's occasionally fun and I like the relationship she has with Finn and Poe in TROS, but she got absolutely SLAUGHTERED by this trilogy.

But that is NOTHING compared to what happened to Finn.

Finn is unarguably the most interesting and unique character introduced in TFA. A stormtrooper deserter with the potential to be Force sensitive AND the main love interest for the other main female character? A stormtrooper who could become a JEDI, the clear potential for a stormtrooper rebellion, the parallels and connection between Finn and Kylo that so clearly demonstrated that theme of choice (with Finn being someone raised in darkness who chooses selflessness and compassion anyway vs Kylo who was raised in light with all the support and resources he could ask for and still chooses selfishness and darkness), the possibility of having true CO-LEADS for the first time with Finn and Rey as like two halves of one hero with the romance being there to lift them BOTH up rather than relegate one of them to the side. The potential here with Finn was LIMITLESS, it was INSANE.

And ALL OF IT got squandered. Every last ounce. Finn got COMPLETELY sidelined in TLJ, separated from all of Rey's storylines and replaced by Kylo Ren, his Force sensitivity was not further explored, the entire story with the rebellion could've been what jumpstarted his stormtrooper rebellion plotline and instead he got thrown off into some weird casino c-plot bullshit to try to thrust him into a new romance that wasn't with Rey, and he was just constantly being physically hurt by other characters as though it was a joke of some kind. TROS attempted to bring SOME of it back by having him going on more missions with Poe off-screen, allowed Finn, Poe, and Rey to be an actual trio with a relationship together, and hinted at the Force sensitivity more than once. But by the time TROS came around, the damage had been done and it couldn't manage to come back from that, so Finn ended up developing nowhere in that film and does basically nothing but follow around Poe and Rey wherever they go, more sidelined than ever but at least he's not constantly being hit and he IS still involved in the main storylines in a way he wasn't in TLJ.

The options were all SO GOOD for Finn and we got resolution for exactly none of them and because of how badly John Boyega and his character got treated, we'll likely never get any real resolution for his character EVER because he is understandably not going to come back to Star Wars after this. I haven't yet forgiven Rian Johnson for the choices he made in TLJ that ruined Finn.

I actually like Kylo best in TFA because I think, much like everybody else, that's where we see the real potential for what the character could've been. Kylo in TFA is really set up to just be "another Anakin" where he went dark but can still be saved by the love of the father/son bond and then he ISN'T. They set the audience up SO HARD for that eventuality, for Kylo to be secretly not as evil as he seems, for him to be someone who can be saved like Anakin was saved, so you're sitting there expecting that to happen during that scene on Starkiller Base with Han, which is why it comes as such a shock when he kills Han anyway and turns the ENTIRE NARRATIVE on its head by telling you that Kylo IS NOT ANAKIN and isn't going to be saved the same way if he can be saved AT ALL (and it's heavily implying he CAN'T BE SAVED). TLJ basically just redid this entire narrative from TFA all over again except with Rey and the dyad, but because they did it with Rey and the dyad, there ended up being a bunch of people who ended up VERY invested in Reylo as a thing and so the studio then caved to that in TROS and saved Kylo despite that never being in the original plan according to Adam Driver.

And I think it would've been kind-of interesting to have this character who seems like he should be able to be saved like Anakin, but not everyone CAN be saved, not everyone WILL ultimately make better choices when given the option, some people are just going to double down on their darkness and commit to being evil. I like the subversion of expectations from what we were given with Anakin, the way he's like the inverse of Anakin in so many ways and looks up to "Darth Vader" as a role model of sorts without ever understanding the choices Anakin actually made, both good and bad. And if TLJ had actually, you know, expanded upon what TFA had already established instead of just saying the exact same thing all over again, maybe we could've gotten a more interesting story out of his character.

Which leads us to Luke and his role in "creating" Kylo. Here again we get what seems to be a lack of agreement between the people in charge about what this story was supposed to be and say. TFA sets up that Kylo is making his own choices, he's not brainwashed, and his primary problem seems to be with his parents. TLJ then turns around and says it was all LUKE'S fault, that Luke had a moment of weakness and it threw Kylo into a fury he's never come back from, but Luke's mistake is what ultimately led to everything that followed. And like... this isn't Luke. Maybe some people really enjoyed seeing Luke be this broken old man who just makes the same mistakes over and over again, but this wasn't Luke to me. I don't buy that Luke had an instinct that caused him to ignite a weapon in response to feeling the darkness in his nephew's mind, something he's only feeling because he's literally INVADING HIS NEPHEW'S MIND AS HE SLEEPS. There is nothing about his choices here that are in line with anything we knew about Luke from the Original Trilogy. Luke would never do this to someone he cared about, he just wouldn't.

The movie's insistence on making Luke into this broken beaten old man is also, as I mentioned above, a massive mistake because it turns the story in TLJ from REY'S journey into LUKE'S journey. Rey isn't the one who has to learn things and develop in this film, LUKE is. LUKE is the one who fucked up, LUKE is the one who lost hope, LUKE is the one who has to be taught a lesson about what it means to be a Jedi in the end. Rey does shit all in this film.

It also moves the focus away from it being KYLO'S CHOICES that led to what he's become to this weirder story about how Luke screwed up and has to fix it by... trusting that Rey already has it covered I guess? Instead of focusing on how Kylo made selfish choices and what actually PROMPTED those selfish choices despite all of the support he had and the legacy of his parents and the way that that parallels the choices being made by Rey and Finn, it focuses on LUKE, someone whose story has ALREADY BEEN TOLD. Kylo ends up a little bitchass victim in this instead of a character who is making clear and concise choices, something that was established when he killed Han in TFA, so his choice at the end of TLJ when he kills Snoke and takes over as Supreme Leader doesn't have the same impact when we've already see him make that choice in the climax of the last film. It's redundant and walking back the choice from TFA sort-of undoes everything that it's trying to say about the character and makes TLJ's conclusion feel wishy washy. Is he a tragic victim who has to be saved, or is he a villain who just needs to be eliminated? It's unclear by the end of TLJ.

Luke's role in "creating" Kylo was stupid on so many levels, both structurally and in terms of character. It never should've happened and it's an insult to who Luke is and has been to this story and I haven't forgiven Rian Johnson for THIS choice either. TROS does attempt to fix this and walk it back, as well, but much like with Finn, the damage was done.

So as far as I'm concerned, TFA is a solid film with a really interesting concept of taking a premise we all think is predictable and then subverting those expectations pretty intentionally, but the other two films are a complete and utter mess that aren't worth the 10ish hours of my life they have taken from me by watching them each twice now. There's a few fun moments in TLJ and TROS but I can't say that either film is like... a good or enjoyable film overall.

[mfshipbracket]

[infinitepunches]

*watches Sith kill his friend with his bare hands*

"He dropped his saber. The Jedi Code demands that I let him recover and escape."

[icedsodapop]

Reylo and kylo ren asshole stans who harassed John Boyega and made his life hell really have no business going crazy over Manny Jacinto 😒😒

[pastel-kaleesh]

WHY WAS THE NEW SHORT RACIST???

(Vivziepoop, trate de no ser racista e ignorante, nivel del reto: imposible)

IT WOULD'VE MADE MORE SENSE IF IT WAS IN MY HOMELAND SINCE THE CHUPACABRA IS FROM PUERTO RICO

BUT WHY MEXICO. WHY????

[darklinaforever]

It kills me that the nostalgia that makes part of the Star Wars fandom idealize the Jedi and refuse to see them as flawed and corrupt in their system is so powerful. Just look at the critical receptions from some viewers to The Last Jedi, and now The Acolyte. It's amazing that these idiots didn't learn from their mistakes and reproduced the same pattern of criticism on the show. Idealization of past figures due to nostalgia, therefore refusing a more nuanced or even negative treatment which is objectively true (with Luke, therefore the Jedi and again the Jedi in The Acolyte), misogyny (against any female characters present / with It matters even more if the main protagonist is therefore a woman) racist (against any character who is not white, and even worse when it comes this time to the two main protagonists of the story) and anti romance (against Reylo and Oshamir, while Wtf Anakin and Padme, Han & Leia, Hera & Kanan, Jyn & Cassian or even Revan & Bastilla from the Legend extended universe ?) on the program !

[kelzen]

[missourielephant]

I am laughing at the news The Acolyte was canceled, and laughing even harder at the way the shills are melting down. If you want people to die just because a television show was canceled, then you are an immature unhinged lunatic. Kind of like Kylo Ren.

[willow-lark]

there is nothing cool or sexy about kylo ren he literally fucking sucks. like yeah anakin was also a homicidal facist but the difference is anakin was camp. he was hot while doing it. he had the dramatic flair. he’s badass. he’s intimidating. he’s the most iconic movie villain of all time. kyle is literally just an emo neo nazi. there is zilch that is interesting about his character. sorry for speaking the truth

[fanfic-lover-girl]

Demonization of the Enemies to Lovers Trope

I find it very disingenuous when Zutara antis compare or lump Zutara with problematic ships like Reylo and Dramione. Anyone who makes a claim like this should have not any opinions about ATLA respected. Because they obviously did not watch the show.

There are major differences that set Zutara apart from Reylo and Dramione.

Zutara vs Dramione - Friendship

Zuko and Katara reconciled and became very close friends in season 3. Draco and Hermione disliked each other in canon and the best of their relationship was civility. Dramione could have served the same narrative function as Zutara by representing union after war but Dramione lacked the canon building blocks that Zutara had.

Zutara vs Reylo - Redemption

Zuko has a powerful redemption arc. But even when Zuko was an antagonist, he was never truly evil. And Zuko's actions towards Katara (eg tying her to a tree) were not completely monstrous. Zuko and Katara never crossed any boundaries while enemies. When Katara starts showing compassion to Zuko, it is in season 2 when Zuko is no longer an active threat (eg. offering to heal Iroh and their emotional moment in the catacombs). Compare this to Reylo where there are all these romantic undertones while Reylo and Kylo are still enemies. Kylo also has a worse record than Zuko: murdering his dad, oppressing countless people, killing civilians, and maiming people. And Rey for some reason, before Kylo does anything to deserve it, begins to feel sorry for him. Unlike Zuko, we don't see Kylo truly atone for what he did to Rey. Not to mention the abusive elements in their relationship such as Kylo calling Rey worthless.

The point is that people need to stop demonizing enemies to lovers ships. And stop lumping healthy ships like Zutara with more toxic ships like Dramione and Reylo. It's not a fair comparison.

[antianakin]

@theneutralmime

You might have to be more specific than that. Most of what we see done with the Force is perfectly normal, like being able to block blaster bolts with a lightsaber and stuff, so I guess I'll try to hit on some of the bigger more controversial uses of the Force and see if these answer your questions. Keep in mind that the Force is generally a pretty SOFT magic system and while there are definitely some guidelines to it, there's a lot you can get away with via "rule of cool" here.

Somehow Palpatine returned: Arguably Palpatine living is actually perfectly within canon given that we have examples of Sith characters living through shit that should've killed them, most obviously Maul (something done by Lucas himself so we can't just blame it all on Disney bringing characters back). But within Disney canon there's also the Grand Inquisitor and Reva who both live through injuries that seem like they should've killed them by utilizing the dark side to sustain them. So Palpatine living is actually perfectly do-able within canon in terms of "how the Force works", regardless of how stupid it was NARRATIVELY and how annoying I find the trend in general.

Luke's Force projection: This doesn't seem like that weird to me, it's definitely NEW and not something we saw anybody else doing in prior films, but it's also not something anyone else would've truly benefited much from and given that it kills Luke almost immediately afterward, it's clearly a VERY last resort option and only really useful as a distraction anyway. It's not that far off of the whole Force Ghost idea to me and sort-of draws on the idea that the Jedi are empaths to some degree, so I'm not too fussed about this. It's fun and I appreciate all the clues about what's happening that are THERE if you look for them but not necessarily super obvious before the reveal.

Leia saving herself from the vacuum of space: I don't dislike this one either, actually. Leia's got a couple of seconds or so in which she can react to a warning from the Force somehow and while we don't see any other Jedi actively fighting in space without a suit or anything, we DO see Plo Koon fighting in space with nothing but his air mask which should still kill him and somehow doesn't, so it's not like Leia surviving this is completely out of the realm of possibility to me. Besides, it's the first super explicit use of the Force Leia got in the films and pissed off a lot of crybaby fanboys who were convinced Leia wasn't Force sensitive, so I'm willing to give it a lot of grace for that alone.

The Force dyad: I actually don't have an issue with the mechanics of the dyad and more have an issue with the way it's utilized in the narrative. Personally, I find it a little silly that some sort of extra special Force connection would exist between two people at THIS point in time and not like... when a literal child of prophecy was alive. If I was going to believe there was a special Force connection between ANYBODY, it would've been Anakin/Obi-Wan (narratively foiled anyway and involves a child of prophecy) or Luke/Leia (twin children of the child of prophecy separated at birth for their own safety). And of course, if it HAD to be in the Sequel trilogy for whatever reason, we all know it should've been Finnrey, for a MULTITUDE of reasons. The other issue I have with the dyad is that they change it from Snoke creating it specifically to mess with Kylo in TLJ to their connection being some sort of special prophecized thing by TROS, so it's not even clear in the narrative what precisely the damn thing even IS or why Rey and Kylo even HAVE IT because the stupid directors and studio execs couldn't agree on it I guess.

Force healing: I know some people have major issues with this one and I get why, but it honestly doesn't bother me that much. TROS explains it as being a byproduct of the dyad anyway, something ONLY these people can do because being connected the way they are allows them to access powers no one else could. It's one of the ways I think the dyad DOES work in the sense that if they're going to give these two characters this special connection then hey fuck it why not use it to let them have a special Force power a lot of fans want to see but that wouldn't really make sense in any other context? I'm obviously NOT a huge fan of "Force healing resurrection via True Love's Kiss" or whatever, but the general concept of Force healing coming from the dyad works fine for me. It's a little heavy handed and on the nose, but... it's fine.

Leia saving Kylo through... "Force whammy"?: This is the big one I hate, this is the one I cannot STAND. If Sith/Dark siders could just be Force whammied into not being evil anymore, WHY DID NOBODY DO THIS TO ANAKIN. Why isn't Obi-Wan trying this from Tatooine, why doesn't Ahsoka try this, why doesn't Yoda or Luke try this? Yes, it kills Leia to do it, but if it whammies Anakin away from being dark and turns him against the Emperor earlier, WHY NOT DO IT. And where would Leia have even LEARNED HOW TO DO THIS, why did she WAIT so long to do it if she knew how this whole time? But the biggest reason I hate this is because it fucks up the entire theme of Star Wars which is CHOICE. If the Sith and Darksiders can just be Force whammied into goodness again, it takes away the CHOICE they need to make to be good. It's SO SO VITALLY IMPORTANT that these characters CHOOSE TO BE GOOD AGAIN if that's the path they're going to go down. It's important that they chose to evil and it's important that they choose to be good again. A Force whammy isn't a fucking choice, it's Leia just... jumpstarting Kylo's brain or whatever. It's just wiping out the things causing him to be evil I guess so that it's just no longer a problem. It's cheating, it's STUPID. And if they'd gone with the idea that Kylo was genuinely being like mind-controlled by Snoke into doing the things he's doing and that none of this WAS his choice and so the Force whammy allows him to finally make his own choices again, that would be one thing, but both TFA and TLJ emphasize that this isn't the case, Kylo is MAKING THESE CHOICES ON HIS OWN and continues to make them no matter how many people offer him another chance to do better. It doesn't matter if it's his father or Rey or Luke, Kylo just KEEPS MAKING THE SAME CHOICES, even after Snoke is dead. A Force whammy should do NOTHING to Kylo because he's not being controlled and it takes away the entire point of Kylo's story being that he CHOSE TO BE EVIL and that he, unlike Anakin, cannot just be saved by love alone. This one stinks, this isn't how the Force works, and it's not how this narrative works.

The only other controversial thing I could think of was how quickly Rey learns to do things, but that's not so much a matter of "how the Force works" because everything she does is pretty basic Force skills like telepathy, telekinesis, and mind tricks.

[third-generation-female-warrior]

Okay, so, fair warning, this is an anti-Reylo, anti-Kylo Ren, long analysis of The Acolyte, so if you choose to read this and get mad at me for bashing Kylo Ren, that's called a you problem.

Basically, seeing people compare the "situationship" between Quimir and Osha with whatever the fuck Reylo was and putting them on equal pedestals gives me the ick and I think I figured out why.

For clarity, I can't fucking stand Reylo for a lot of reasons, but for the sake of my analysis, I'll keep it condensed for why I can't stand Kylo Ren.

He is the warm mayonnaise of characters.

Don't get me wrong, he was generally interesting in The Force Awakens, when he was framed as the monster with a human face, and that's because the narration in TFA treated him like the goddamn villain he was supposed to be.

And then the pants were shat and the spine was broken when the narrative with The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker was doing backflips on a trampoline trying to give him pathos, trying to make him empathetic, while also decimating literally every other character to put him on a pedestal he didn't deserve on his spit-washed "redemption" arc.

To me, it was like they didn't know what to do with him. Those movies might have been okay if they just stuck with making him the villain and continued to treat him as such. But they didn't, even when he was making bad choices and did nothing but make BAD choices up until the actual last fight, and instead, framed all of this BAD CHOICES as "he's complicated~~ <3" and that's where it all fell apart because the narration didn't like, punish him AT ALL for making these bad and barely even framed these as objectively bad choices.

Now, the Acolyte is different.

In the middle of lavishing us with the eye candy that is Manny Jacinto, and Qimir's apparent lack of threat and honesty to Osha, the narrative did something interesting and brilliant that I hope they continue to lean into.

While showing us how non-threatening Qimir can be, we are given a very rude awakening.

When we cut back to Khofar, it is a very long, very uncomfortable lingering shot of Jekki's dead body, as she is positioned towards the audience with open eyes, not quite looking at the camera, but forcing us to look into the eyes of Jekki all the same.

It is a rude awakening, a reminder that Qimir is a deceiver, and, most importantly THE VILLAIN OF THE SHOW!!!!

Under the facade of the hapless sidekick to Mae was the Sith Master waiting to strike her down should she fail.

A reminder that, through his honesty and intentions with not harming Osha, he is a murderer who could remorselessly justify his own slaughter of an actual child.

We look on as it shows Yord in the dirt, and the pile of dead Jedi bodies and we see that what Qimir has done was terrible and devastating he does not care, even if we do.

And THEN, ohohoh!!! AND THEN! We see how his dark deeds were not solely committed on Khofar, but he is continuing to do terrible things on Ahch-To the Unknown Planet.

Oh, we thought, we thought Osha was safe because she could pin him with his own lightsaber, she could kill him, she could leave!

But it becomes very evident in the last 30 seconds that Osha was never safe as she puts on his helmet, surrounds herself in dark, and symbolically succumbs to it as she closes her eyes.

He has been corrupting her this whole time and that's treated AS A BAD THING, and THAT'S where The Acolyte succeeds and The Sequels failed!

Qimir for his apparent defensiveness, is still treated as the villain, his act of corruption and seducing Osha to the dark side is treated as a scary thing, where you shake your head at the t.v. and beg her to not do it even if you know she's going to anyways.

And then you realize the answer to his riddle to Mae.

You realize this is how you kill a Jedi without a weapon.

And it's all very very wrong.

And, better yet, to finish this off, even though the narration establishes MOTIVE for his anti-Jedi stance, with his scar leading to his supposed backstory of betrayal (that we have to take at face-value for now, even if I think there's more to reveal), the motivation is just narratively justifying him or his actions, and he is STILL THE VILLAIN WHO MUST BE STOPPED!!

[mfshipbracket]

[theautisticcentre]

People fr be sleeping on Han and Leia's son...

Poe Dameron!

(Yes those last two were intentional cause we stan Finn x Poe)

[pastel-kaleesh]

Dragon Ball has better representation than Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel.

Queer rep: gay, lesbian, aroace, nonbinary/agender, and polyamorous

We have disabled characters that aren't infantilized (Tommy, the blind boy that befriended Buu)

And after several years of donut lips on Black characters, we have accurately drawn and portrayed Black characters in DB (Uub, Janet, Sharpna, ect.)

Here are some awesome examples:

Piccolo: aroace and agender, also part of the main cast

Kakunsa and Bikal: confirmed and open lesbians in a relationship. Not fetishized or shown as queerbait.

Janet: Pan's preschool teacher and an accurately drawn and portrayed Black character, with a loveable design.

Caulifla and Kale: implied lesbians in a relationship. Not fetishized.

And we can't forget about our fat magical girl, Ribrianne. Not shown as a hated greedy glutton, and with an adorable and loveable design.