I still don’t understand why redeeming Kylo would have made it his story as much as Rey’s.
I’m not saying that. I’m saying his path to redemption needed to serve her story, ultimately, because the sequel trilogy IS REY’S STORY first and foremost. It’s not his. That’s not a logical leap. It’s not his story, it’s not structured as such, and it doesn’t play that way. It’s her story, and his role as villain is in service to that story. If you’re going to make him a good guy, it needs to happen in a way that resolves her arc just as much (preferably moreso) than his. Otherwise you’re just dividing focus and introducing confusion. This was also a big problem with the prequels, there wasn’t any unified focus to the storytelling.
The redemption of Kylo Ren is poorly done in TROS for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest is that it doesn’t really serve her story or close any of her arcs. His redemption isn’t a key want of hers as she heads into the finale, so when it happens, it’s not as meaningful as it should have been. Not only is his redemption not done very well, it’s not thematically clear who its for. If it’s for HIM, then it’s out of place because it’s not his story. If it’s for Leia, it’s really out of place because the only way that has any impact is through the audience carrying ALL of the water for Abrams via metatextual familiarity with the series. If it’s for Rey, then it needs to be the last piece that slots into her arc that reallizes it’s successful completion - but the movie tells us THAT happens on Tatooine, when she buries the sabers and takes a last name.
Just on a basic level though, why does Kylo’s redemption have to be a part of Rey’s story? Why can’t it be a story in and of itself in the way that Finn’s is? Just because he’s the villain? I don’t know if I buy that argument on paper in the general sense.
And again, regardless (and I know I’m repeating this a million times), there’s plenty of ways his redemption could have fed into Rey’s story.
I’m not going to argue that his redemption wasn’t done sloppily in TROS. But even still, you could make the argument, if you were so inclined, that it does serve Rey’s story in many respects.
So it’s a redemption that doesn’t have a clearly stated purpose, doesn’t serve a primary thematic need, and isn’t done very well on top of all of that. I’m not saying it couldn’t have happened. I’m saying the way it did happen was very unsatisfactory on a number of levels, and the idea that other possibilities were tossed out before even being explored simply because “that’s not very star wars” was probably a mistake.
Personally, I find it very hard to see a scenario where an unredeemed Kylo Ren is a fitting continuation and conclusion for the character and the themes that have been established in the previous two movies. In my mind that’s the main reason to toss the possibility out, even before you get to what is and isn’t Star Wars.
So for me, it’s more a matter of, if you’re going to do this thing - making Kylo go full evil - that is seemingly in direct contradiction of what’s been established so far in this trilogy and in the saga as a whole, you need to have a better reason for doing it than “because redeeming him wouldn’t serve Rey’s story” and “we need to do something Star Wars hasn’t done before.”