The sympathetic Vader/Kylo figures are ultimately THE focal point of all 9 Skywalker Saga movies. There might be something between that focal point and why ultimately the saga is unsatisfying dramatically and emotionally, is all I’m saying.
If you’re saying that Darth Vader’s redemption in the OT was “unsatisfying dramatically and emotionally”, I’m afraid we weren’t watching the same movies. Kylo’s character arc was bad because they wrote his character badly, not because he was a “sympathetic fascist”.
Star Wars came out shortly after the country (barely) survived a Nixonian hellscape (and it can be argued it wasn’t defeated, it just metastacized into its current form) and that simplistic take on good and evil is historically cited as one of THE biggest reasons it was a feel-good four-quadrant success. In that instance, it WAS very good to simplify one side.
We could use that now, is what I’m saying. Instead of yet another iteration on the “redeem the bad guy” narrative.
But I could also argue that in a time of such heated political debates, with both sides seemingly willing to start a second US civil war at the flip of a switch, I don’t know if a movie that says “your enemies are beyond all hope, kill them all” is what we really need right now. Lord of the Rings and other related fantasy stories got away with it, because their villains were literally inhuman embodiments of evil. But when the villains are living flesh-and-blood humans, the whole “kill all the villains” plot line seems a bit wrong.
Trevorrow’s Duel of the Fates script, despite all its flaws, did do one thing right: the idea of a stormtrooper rebellion. It portrays these normally faceless villains as being helpless puppets of an evil regime, and allows them to get a second chance and fight for good instead of evil. That’s downright inspiring, and I’m incredibly disappointed we didn’t get it in the final movie. That sort of stuff is what I want to see in Star Wars, not another simplistic story were everyone on the wrong side suffers horrible deaths.