The circus around Star Wars‘ Sequel Trilogy never seems to take a break. Adam Driver has revealed that Ben Solo’s redemption in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker wasn’t planned from the start.
During an appearance on The Rich Eisen Show, Adam Driver spoke about the arc he was told about when he first started playing Kylo Ren in Star Wars. “I had an overall arc in mind that he wanted to do, which then changed,” he 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.”
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Of course, the “he” Driver is likely referring to is director J.J. Abrams, who helmed the first film in the Sequel Trilogy, The Force Awakens, and returned for The Rise of Skywalker after Colin Trevorrow was booted from the project. And it appears that it was Abrams’ reappearance that changed things for both Driver and his character.
“With Rian, he took it in a different direction, but it still tracked with the character,” Driver said. “And then the last one, it changed into being, you know, about them and the dyad, and things like that. And evolving into Ben Solo. That was never a part of it. He was Ben Solo from the beginning but there was never a version where we’d see Ben Solo when I first signed up for it.”
Kylo Ren was easily the most popular character to come out of the Sequel Trilogy. For the most part, fans thoroughly enjoyed his arc and were sad to see him die in the final movie. However, just like most everything else in the Sequel Trilogy, they now know it all came together on the fly.
