Can we talk about this Ben Solo thing?

All/Other, Sequel Trilogy 3 Minutes

Hello friends 🙂

I don’t usually do “Star Wars News” posts, at least not in a separate post, but I have a few thoughts about this latest news. If you haven’t already heard, Adam Driver recently stated in an interview that he and director Steven Soderbergh had developed a script about Ben Solo that takes place after The Rise of Skywalker called “The Hunt for Ben Solo.”

Whaaaa????

As a sequel trilogy fan, a Kylo/Ben fan, and an Adam Driver fan, this is hugely exciting. The two brought the script to Kathleen Kennedy and Lucasfilm and got a green light there. But when they brought it to Bob Iger (head of Disney) he said no. His reason? He can’t see how Ben Solo is still alive after TROS. End of story.

Excuse me? Disney Star Wars, where somehow…Palpatine returned? Not to mention Maul, Asajj Ventress, and Boba Fett all made miraculous returns after death? Adam freaking Driver, perhaps one of the best actors of his generation, and who brought his considerable acting chops to Star Wars, wants to do a movie, which was greenlit by Kathy Kennedy and Lucasfilm, and you’re just like, “Nah” ????

I know that the sequel trilogy wasn’t perfect. It was, in fact, Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren who carried a lot if it with his performance. And one of the things that hugely disappointed me was Ben Solo’s death. Yes, I get it, he’d been a monster as Kylo and even though he turned back to the light, how would the galaxy ever forgive him, blah blah blah. Easier to just kill him off, like most redemption stories in Star Wars. Crosshair in The Bad Batch was a great exception to this rule, as he has to live with his sins and try to atone for them somehow. We need to see more of this.

But Ben’s death left a huge hole in my heart. We only got a short, tantalizing glimpse of Ben Solo, a few amazing scenes in which he says nothing at all (and yes, actions speak louder than words, but his last word was “Ow.” Come on, man!) I NEED more Ben Solo in my life, please, yes, please. And I was content to maybe get some books or comics about him; lately all we’ve been getting are comics about Kylo Ren. I’m not complaining, exactly, I just want more Ben. But to have Adam Driver actually want to reprise the role in some way and bring him back to the big screen–dreams do come true! I was under the impression the guy was done with Star Wars and Kylo, but no, it looks like Driver had some unfinished business with Ben himself. And that’s just amazing to me!

But Bob “I’m an idiot” Iger said no. Now, there is a question as to how Ben would come back. As we don’t have access to the actual script, we can’t really know what Driver had in mind. But based on all the other characters who have been raised from the dead, in a sci-fi fantasy story, no less, there are endless possibilities.

At the end of TROS, Ben disappeared into the Force. Maybe he’s in the World Between Worlds and needs to learn some lessons there? Maybe it’s about young Ben Solo and his childhood and Driver isn’t in it at all, he just has the idea for the character and wants to executive produce? I don’t know. But I’m sure there’s an answer there.

He’s a complicated man. Sorry, he WAS a complicated man.

Anyway, I’m very disappointed and a bit flummoxed as to why it was shot down. It seems to be a huge missed opportunity. I’m sure there are other fans out there who feel “He died, end of story. He sacrificed himself for Rey, and if he comes back that would cheapen it, blah blah blah.” I get it. As someone who is a big Bad Batch fan and has been embroiled in the whole #TechLives thing on social media, I get it. The point is valid. The thing is, I don’t care, lol. If I can’t have Tech back, give me Ben Solo. I’d forfeit Maul, Ventress, and Boba Fett, all of them, in an instant to get either one back. Anyway, that’s my rant on the whole Ben Solo thing.

What do you think? Should Iger have agreed to this? Or did he do the right thing? Let me know how you feel about #thehuntforbensolo in the comments and we’ll talk about it!

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Published by Tina Williams

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10 thoughts on “Can we talk about this Ben Solo thing?”

  1. So I was going to write a post about this exact thing, but I got sick 🦠 while on holiday, so I currently should be in bed right now. But BEN SOLO will always ALWAYS call me back, most likely from the brink of death 🥴 I read both articles of the original interview and one of the entertainment posts that were all over the internet this week. At first, I was kinda mad. Mad because I had been pushing for #bensololives for years after the last sequel movie ended everywhere people could read it. And although my feelings on Ben Solo’s fate have pivoted a bit from my “Ben Solo should not be redeemed” to #bensololives, having Adam Driver back in ANY capacity in Star Wars again was all I ever dreamed of for a long while.

    You can say what you want about the character Kylo Ren, and I’ve read some awful comments people made online about his character. But hardly anyone had anything bad to say about Ben Solo. And nobody has ever had anything bad to say about Adam Driver. Even from the depths of the abyss where some fans dwell, nobody said a thing because everyone thought Adam Driver was a saving grace of the sequels and even for Star Wars as a whole.

    Adam first mentioned in an interview a while back that the script and ideas he was initially sold on ended up being something entirely different by the end of it. You could see that he had been wanting to tell people that for some time, saying the story we got to see on film was not what he signed up for. And now he is finally able to reveal what really happened with his character and that he was pushing for more Ben Solo the entire time dating back to 2021.

    So yeah, I am kinda ticked off to be polite about it, but also extremely happy to know the truth finally. Will this revelation about Adam’s push for Ben Solo to have his day in the sun make a difference at all, given Disney said no? Probably not. But it changes everything now that we know he had a much stronger connection to the character than initially revealed.

    I thought Disney were screwing things up before I knew about this, but my god… this is absolute BS. Disney were basically given an opportunity to give a character that deserved to tell their story, whatever that would have been. I’m not saying Ben’s story is better than anyone else’s in the fandom. But when you take into consideration what it could have meant for the storytelling aspect alone, it’s pretty mindboggling to know that Disney said “no” to that but “yes” to The Acolyte.

    And just to clarify, I enjoyed The Acolyte, but in comparison to having a feature film all about Ben Solo? It’s not even in the same league. It just kinda looks to me like Disney must be okay with the way the Star Wars franchise is looking — at least dating back to 2021. If they can say no to an opportunity like that, practically handed to them on a silver platter by an actor of Adam Driver’s calibre, it doesn’t look too good for the future of the franchise. In particular, the Skywalker saga.

    Thanks to Adam for trying. Hopefully, we’ll be able to finally move on with Ryan Gosling’s feature film, which seems to be a bright star on a very dark horizon right now.

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    1. Agreed. This really highlights the difference between the creative team (Lucasfilm) and the executives who only care about the bottom line (Disney). It’s a big tug of war and it sucks but it’s the world we live in. I’m still hoping for a book! Lol. Oh, and feel better soon, Julie. 🙂

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  2. Hello there, now I haven’t read any articles about this but did hear about it. My first though when I did hear was “Iger and The Mouse don’t really get Star Wars and BOTH are being controlled by ahem…outside forces that at this time would frown on a story about a living Ben Solo (and I refer to outside political influence…some folks don’t like stories that go against the word of a certain good book or group). I won’t stray further than that but with past censorship news recently you can guess the situations I refer to.
    BUT….the idea of a Ben Solo story I like a lot. And IF he were to come back there are ways that it could happen. I mean, wasn’t Ben and Ray supposed to be parts of a Dyad, and had immense powers? Well we haven’t really had an explanation of what those powers could be except that a single Jedi can take a Sith Lord out now. We saw a Dyad in an episode of Star Wars Visions IIRC too but I still don’t know much more about the phenomenon.
    I don’t know really, but it’s getting to the point where even I’m burned out with the whole SW thing as I am priced out of watching new material, nobody can agree on anything so NOTHING makes sense anyway, then there are real world issues….I think I’ll just curl up with the original trilogy VHS tapes I have and enjoy my own head canon…..where a courageous, brave Jedi who fought at Bal’Demnic and was critically injured ended up being stranded on a strange planet named Terra whilst searching for a medical treatment for his injure….oh wait, that’s MY story!

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    1. Oh yeah, I forgot about the dyad thing! Lol. Anything is possible then. Yeah, the real world is real sucky right now, and SW has always been my go-to comfort galaxy, lol. But I’m going to catch up on some Marvel stuff this weekend, which is interesting since you just did a Rocket saber (which is really cool, by the way, lol). Hang in there, FT, and MTFBWY.

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      1. Thanks, glad you liked “The Boom” – it is a bit out of my regular wheelhouse really but I have to expand into other props and designs. And thanks for being a friend (along with Julie too) there to remind me that there are still genuine fans of SW out there. I just have to stop “doom-scrolling” YouTube vids by the so called SW “experts” that say anything and everything to contradict each other!

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      2. Same. I stick to Star Wars Explained, who are nontoxic and are in it for the joy and not for click-bait. It’s harder on Facebook groups, where a lot of trolls live, lol. Keep creating cool things!

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