I will say re: the lightsaber, TLJ implies that Rey will rebuild it along with the Jedi and the rebellion. Her thing is taking the past and moving forward with it and making it her own. So rebuilding it serves the story of the character, though if the new design is basically just the old lightsaber again with minimal difference it’d be a less effective way of making that point than a more significant change to the saber (but you don’t want to go too far and make it look completely different).
Kylo is about killing the past. Which is why the mask being back is a headscracher. There’s probably a few ways you could logically explain it (good intimidation that was working before he broke it), but it’d muddle the symbol it holds for his character. Then again, we don’t know for sure where his character is at in IX yet.
Hmmm with the lightsaber explanation I don’t mind it so much, that’s a good take on it. Still can’t think of a story reason for Kylo that would be regressive.
One thing that’s certainly possible is that Kylo himself is regressing in some ways. He’s an emotionally volatile character so it’s possible, but would have to be handled carefully. He’s easily what I’m most excited/anxious about when it comes to IX. His relationship with Rey will be very interesting too. That’s something that will have definitely regressed back to them being enemies, but there’ll always be that underlining connection between them and it’ll be fascinating to see how that plays out. So there might be a way to have Kylo regress a bit with the mask or whatever but still have those underlining progressions nagging at him. Impossible to say at this point though, all we have is literally just one image to go off of.
And I mean who knows, there’s a chance he could wear it in like one or two scenes tops. Plenty of TLJ marketing stuff where he has the mask but obviously it has very little screen time.
But still, I was hoping for a double bladed lightsaber for Rey using the two halves of Analins crystal. But hey, I’m not a creative director
I know this was a common hope, what with Rey having a staff to begin with. Personally I don’t mind it not being a thing as I never found the double bladed saber to be as cool as it was supposed to be.