Well why the hell did Vader deserve redemption?
He didn’t, we tolerated it because Vader was well written and it was easier for us to feel that his love for his son was enough to make him turn back.At least Kylo had layers, some obvious conflict.
Mm, this is an odd one. Vader had many more layers than Kylo. Vader was always in conflict, he was a slave to the dark side. Kylo chose to be the monster he became and I honestly don’t think the movies gave us reasons for him to have let darkness grown inside of him.
But that’s not true according to the OT. Vader was a straight up bad guy in ANH - choking dudes to death, torturing princesses, killing Obi Wan (quite happily I add - “this will be a day long remembered…”), and shooting down X-Wings. In TESB he relentlessly pursues the rebels, kills his subordinates for human error, tortures Han and Leia to get Luke’s attention, and finally gives Luke a ‘join me or die’ ultimatum (“don’t make me destroy you”).
Only in ROTJ is it suggested that Vader had ‘good in him’, and that was purely because Luke (see Lucas) suddenly decided it was so.
I agree Kylo had no backstory whatsoever, but the conflict within him is/was evident from the get-go. Vader had given himself over to darkness and was pretty comfortable with it in the OT. Kylo was not so adept at evil. In fact the way way Adam Driver played Kylo was how I wish Anakin had been played in the prequels, a truly conflicted soul. That “I want to be free of this pain” moment in TFA had more raw emotion in it than all three prequels put together.
By the way I’m not against Vader’s redemption at all, in fact I thought it was a great idea. I just hate Luke’s POV. I do not understand why Luke was suddenly all gushy about Dad in ROTJ, nor do I understand why this took precedence over everything else that was going on. I’d have preferred a darker movie - one where Luke would be disillusioned with the whole Jedi thing (having been lied to by everyone concerned) and Vader’s turnaround would be a nice surprise while Luke was busy doing everything in his power to defeat Palpatine. But that’s just me. I cannot fathom why saving a war-criminal’s soul would make anyone a legend.
I mean, Luke’s primary influence from the moment he joins Ben in ANH - is his father’s legacy. He wants to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like his father. From that, he essentially follows the path his dad took, right down to when he brushes with the dark side in ESB. He ignores Yoda and Ben’s warnings by rushing in to confront Vader, and save his friends.
That’s when he sees an outcome of following that quick and easy path - Darth Vader - and is faced with making different choices than his father. By ROTJ, Luke has empathy for Vader because he finds that by following his father, he is Vader. He’s more or less been where he’s been. Everything he believed about his father had to be true at one point, but then he took a wrong turn somewhere, which Luke after ESB understands now more than anyone.
It definitely has potential to be naivete, but Luke ends up being right. The idealism that it is, is what makes him a legend. The fact that you, and probably many others in the galaxy, would become disillusioned where Luke didn’t is the point. That doesn’t really say anything about how you personally would have preferred the movie to go, but that’s the theme. It makes sense and isn’t “sudden.” ROTJ just contextualizes the previous set-up. Not that it couldn’t have gone in a different direction - that who knows, I might have preferred myself - but pretty much all the heavy lifting for it is done in the prior two films.