A fan campaign is popping up in the skies and on the streets, pushing Disney to resurrect a scrapped Star Wars movie centered on Adam Driver’s Ben Solo.
They are using the hashtag #TheHuntForBenSolo, complete with missing-person flyers taped to poles in Los Angeles and planes circling Burbank with banners demanding the movie’s revival.
The problem is simple: this movie should stay dead — and bringing back Kylo Ren would drag Star Wars deeper into the same pitfalls that tanked the sequel trilogy.
The Character’s Arc Is Finished
Ben Solo died at the end of The Rise of Skywalker. His sacrifice was the only part of the film many fans agree worked emotionally. Undoing that moment would cheapen the ending and feed into Star Wars’ long-running issue with treating death as nothing more than a temporary inconvenience.
The franchise already stretched credibility by bringing back Emperor Palpatine, reviving Darth Maul, and rewriting the fate of Boba Fett (how’d that work out?). Audiences complained then — and would complain louder now. Kylo Ren isn’t just any villain; he’s the central antagonist of a trilogy that already struggled to hold its own. If Lucasfilm starts erasing the few stakes that trilogy did stick the landing on, the entire era collapses further.
Disney executives reportedly rejected the film because they “didn’t see how Ben Solo was alive.” That’s the most grounded, reasonable creative decision the studio has made about Star Wars in years.
The Sequel Trilogy’s Backlash Still Matters
While THR tries to spin the narrative that The Rise of Skywalker derailed Star Wars theatrically, the damage was done long before that. It was The Last Jedi that broke the franchise. Fans watched Luke Skywalker — the hero of the original trilogy — reduced to a bitter hermit who planned to kill Kylo Ren in his sleep, all inside a story that contradicted decades of established character work and basic Star Wars logic.
The backlash was immediate and massive. Audience scores plummeted. Merchandise slowed. The brand’s momentum stalled. By the time The Rise of Skywalker arrived, it was already attempting to clean up a mess that couldn’t be cleaned. The reception to both films left Lucasfilm with nowhere to go, and Star Wars movies were iced for half a decade, with next summer’s The Mandalorian & Grogu marking the first theatrical release since 2019.
Trying to rebuild Star Wars around a character from that era is backward-looking and risks reigniting all the old arguments. Even The Guardian wrote that Disney made the right call by refusing the movie because Kylo Ren’s story is tied to a trilogy that remains deeply divisive.
Fans chanting “Bring him back!” aren’t the majority of the audience. They’re a small faction fighting for a story that most viewers already moved on from.
Bringing Him Back Weakens the Franchise
One of Lucasfilm’s biggest problems is the constant recycling of legacy characters. Instead of moving forward, too many projects try to reanimate past storylines. Bringing Kylo Ren back would only reinforce that pattern.
Star Wars needs new characters, new eras and new ideas, not more attempts to fix a trilogy that Disney itself seems ready to walk away from. Spending the next decade explaining how Ben Solo is alive, why he’s alive and where he’s been would waste creative runway on a narrative that already exhausted itself.
Even Steven Soderbergh’s involvement doesn’t change the fundamentals. A great filmmaker can’t solve the core issue: the story doesn’t make sense unless the franchise caves in on itself.
The Current Fan Campaign Doesn’t Change the Reality
The fan movement is energetic, but it doesn’t signal genuine widespread interest. The posters, banners and street campaigns feel similar to previous internet pushes that generated noise but no real results. Disney isn’t going to resurrect a character because a plane flew over Burbank.
Fans can keep shouting into the sky, but at some point the franchise needs fewer nostalgia-driven resurrections and more clear, confident storytelling. Letting Ben Solo stay dead is the first step.
Star Wars Needs To Move Forward, Not Backward
Adam Driver is one of the strongest actors to ever appear in Star Wars, and Kylo Ren remains a visually compelling villain. But compelling doesn’t mean resurrectable. His arc ended. The Skywalker Saga ended. The sequel era has already done enough damage.
Bringing him back would signal that Lucasfilm hasn’t learned anything. Leaving this movie on the shelf is the rare correct call by Disney.
Star Wars doesn’t need The Hunt for Ben Solo. It needs to hunt for better ideas.
