hydrospanner said:
Physically weak? I thought it is pretty clear that he was severely wounded from when Chewy shot him with the bowcaster, so sure he is definitely weakened from a physical standpoint.I was speaking more about his physical appearance when he took off the mask. He was, shall we say … less than intimidating. But to your point about him being wounded…
Well Darth Vader wasn’t quite as intimidating when he took his mask off either…
First of all, even if he were wounded, that is terrible storytelling. Chewie shot him with a blaster and so our protagonist, Rey, only gets to defeat a weakened version of the villain? That is awful storytelling.
Second of all, I would contend that he was evidently not wounded enough to prevent him from running and spinning and jumping and twirling about with his lightsaber.
All of that is the worst of storytelling.
I don’t see why it is such awful storytelling? Would you rather have had him be completely crippled by his wound? Or would you rather have him lose at full strength? I think both those alternatives would have made for a far worse story.
hydrospanner said:
Mental breakdown? He just killed his own father who apparently still loved him enough to caress his face after he rammed a lightsaber straight through his heart, so I am sure he actually did have a lot going on in his head.Did you miss the part when he took off his mask and dropped it to the ground? The part when he told his father he didn’t want to be a bad guy anymore and asked for help?
I would say he was having an identity crisis.
When did he say he didn’t want to be a bad guy anymore? He did say he was torn I believe. I am understanding it as the help he was seeking was for Han to let him kill him to get help rid the feeling of the call to the light he spoke of earlier.
hydrospanner said:
Force weak? Didn’t he use the force to slam Rey into a tree? Could someone who was weak in the force do that?That was force strong and consistent with his character. When he suddenly stopped using the force and got his ass kicked later in the fight, that was force-weak. All of that buildup, showing him stopping blaster bolts in mid-air, freezing people in place, throwing them against trees … where was it when he was suddenly threatened?
I think this is nitpicking and you could ask the same questions of consistency of force use in the OT. Why didn’t Vader just force choke Luke from his fighter during the trench run? Why didn’t Vader just grab Luke with the force when he took the dive at Bespin and pull him back up just like when he just used the force to toss all those heavy metal objects at Luke a few minutes ago? Why didn’t the Emperor who sensed everything sense Vader about to turn and pick him up before he tossed him down the shaft and zap him before he was able to? Probably because it wouldn’t have made for a very fulfilling story.
hydrospanner said:
He also made it clear he wanted to take Rey under his wing and teach her so you could argue he wasn’t trying to murder her and he was caught off guard by her skills when she really started using the force.This was all great up until a point. He should have been momentarily caught off guard and then the chasm should have separated them … saving Rey, not Kylo. It still would have been a dues-ex-machina ending, but at least better from a storytelling perspective than the one we were given.
Maybe this would have been better. I kind of like the idea of it ending in a stalemate, but I don’t have a problem with the way it was presented.