Adam Driver reveals the original plan for Kylo Ren in the Disney Star Wars Trilogy was to have the character be more evil and go the opposite path of Darth Vader.
Instead, they switched gears and Kylo Ren became good.
Adam Driver recently appeared on The Rich Elsen Show and revealed (likely J.J. Abrams) wanted Kylo Ren to fully join the Dark Side at the end of the Trilogy.
“I had an overall arc in mind that he wanted to do, which then changed,” Driver said. “His idea was almost the opposite journey of Vader, where Vader starts the most confident, the most committed to the Dark Side, and by the last movie he’s the most vulnerable, and weak, and he wanted to start at the opposite, where this character was the most confused and vulnerable, and by the end of the three movies would be most committed to the Dark Side.”
Too much fan service?
As we all know, that didn’t happen and in The Rise of Skywalker, Kylo Ren teamed with Rey against the Emperor.
Regarding why things changed, it’s known Disney didn’t have much of a plan when it came to the new Star Wars Trilogy and seemed to play things by ear.
So possibly following the backlash to The Last Jedi, along with what they did in The Rise of Skywalker, Kylo Ren instead of becoming like Darth Vader in A New Hope, became Darth Vader at the end of Return of the Jedi.
Man fans think the major problem with The Rise of Skywalker is that Abrams did too much fan service in an attempt to fix the franchise. Abrams didn’t direct The Last Jedi, which was directed by Rian Johnson. Even Mark Hamill disagreed with what Johnson did in the movie.
“I said to Ryan, I said, ‘Jedi’s don’t give up. I mean even if he had a problem he would maybe take a year to try and regroup, but if he made a mistake he would try and right that wrong,'” said Hamill back in 2019. “So right there we had a fundamental difference, but it’s not my story anymore. It’s somebody else’s story, and Ryan needed me to be a certain way to make the ending effective.”
Hamill continued, “That’s the crux of my problem. Luke would never say that. I’m sorry. Well in this version, see I’m talking about the George Lucas Star Wars. This is the next generation of Star Wars, so I almost has to think of Luke as another character. Maybe he is Jake Skywalker. He’s not my Luke Skywalker, but I had to do what Ryan wanted me to do because it serves the story well, but listen, I still haven’t accepted it completely. But it’s only a movie. I hope people like it. I hope they don’t get upset, and I came to really believe that Ryan was the exact man that they need for this job.”
