>Less pithily, a serious question for those who have seen the picture:
>Is this guy somehow... I don't even know, somehow significant
>on film?

Consensus in the house is split on whether he's an actual villain or not, but it's pretty much a given that we all think he should have just been called Darth Emo and been done with it.

He's not only not impressive, he's spectacularly un-impressive. While he's got the mask on he doesn't do a bad job -- to the point where I wondered if maybe he had a body double wearing the mask, and if so, hire that guy instead -- but when he takes it off he's just laughable.

In one sense he does an amazing job, and if it's intentional then I have to give props to the actor. There is nothing menacing about Kylo Ren. He is an angsting emo teen ("My soul is a black pit of despair", etc) with huge parent issues and a pitiable lack of self-control. He is not villainous; he does not come across as any sort of threat, certainly not one on the scale the movie would like you to think he is. And if that's what the actor was trying for, he whacked it outta the park. I don't think it was.

And that's where it really fails, I think. Because in most respects this is a great movie, but there's nothing there for the Good Guys to play off of. Darth Vader he is most emphatically not.

--sofaspud
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