After months of Star Wars fans campaigning with billboards and banners flown over Disney HQ, Kylo Ren/Ben Solo actor Adam Driver has driven the final nail into the coffin for anyone hoping for a revival of The Hunt for Ben Solo. Responding to a question on The Rich Eisen Show about Kylo Ren's return, Driver confirmed the dream was over. We tried to do one more, but they’re like, ‘No, he’s dead.’” When Driver revealed that he and director Steven Soderbergh had been working on a secret Lucasfilm project about a redeemed Kylo Ren, the Star Wars fandom erupted.
Driver, Soderbergh, and screenwriter Rebecca Blunt believed Kylo Ren still had much more to offer. Although former Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, vice president Cary Beck, and former chief creative officer — and current Lucasfilm co-president — Dave Filoni were interested, Disney studio executives Bob Iger and Alan Bergman shut the project down. While it is deeply ironic for Disney’s reason not to continue Kylo Ren’s story due to their inability to see how they could bring Kylo back to life — ignore us pointing to previously dead characters brought back to life, like Darth Maul, Asajj Ventress, and Emperor Palpatine — we can’t say that we’re particularly upset about the loss of The Hunt for Ben Solo.
It’s not that Kylo isn’t an intriguing character, far from it. It’s just that, of all the characters the sequel trilogy failed most, Kylo Ren is at the very bottom of the list. Even from the first introduction of Kylo in The Force Awakens and the reveal that he is the son of Star Wars legends Leia Organa and Han Solo, it’s obvious that Kylo struggles with who he used to be — the kind and caring Ben Solo who loves his family — and who he has become due to the influence of the villainous Supreme Leader of the First Order, Snoke.
When he kills his father, Han, we see a major shift in Kylo, challenged only by Rey's desire to bring him back from the Dark Side of the Force in The Last Jedi. Though the film ends with Kylo wanting Rey to join him as he builds a new First Order under his rule (a very Anakin Skywalker move) by the time The Rise of Skywalker begins, he's once again uncertain about who he is and what he's become. It’s not a particularly well-executed arc, to be honest — especially since JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson clearly had very different ideas about where to take the trilogy — but it does have some meat to it.
And, more importantly, it actually feels like an arc. Characters like Finn, Poe Dameron, and, hell, even Rey herself can’t say the same. Although Rey wants to find her place in the world among people she loves, her relationships and identity become so wrapped up in saving Kylo from himself that the friendships and bonds established earlier — like those with Finn and even lovable droid BB-8 — fall by the wayside.
The result is that the sequel trilogy, which was set up to follow Rey's journey, instead becomes wrapped up in all things Kylo. This still particularly stings, considering the sequel trilogy was the first time Star Wars followed a female protagonist in the starring role. Let's keep our fingers crossed that the Rey movie actually happens.
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