This winter we’re going to learn more of Ben Solo’s turn to the dark side in ‘The Rise of Kylo Ren’ but it is an origin story of evil that won’t please every fan out there. Writer Charles Soule wanted to warn readers of this in advance but if the “Star Wars” franchise is anything it is divisive among fans so this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Even so, Soule is warning fans likely be to try and prevent the kind of commentary we saw popping up after ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi.’
If anything, it is a great marketing technique as now we’re all going to want to know what so many might not enjoy reading!
Soule has described the “tragic” story he is telling us, as it will be about “the potential of him from the day he was born, everyone around him saw or thought they saw what he could be. So he was put in all these different paths, and we’ve kind of seen how that’s gone wrong in the films so far. This is a story about Ben Solo, understanding some of the choices he made.”
As to what some fans might not like?
“Sometimes Star Wars stories are like telling a great story and having a great time playing in this sandbox. And other times, Star Wars jobs are like ‘OK, we’ll give you an incredibly key piece of the overall mythology that you have to nail.’ You guys would not be very happy with me if I screw this up. And everyone here might not be very happy with the choices that I made.”
He would go on to share that like every licensed “Star Wars” tale at this point it needs the green light from the “Star Wars” Story Group so they can verify it falls into what they consider canon. However, telling a story in this constraint can be challenging:
“Any significant change in Star Wars, that isn’t just a little shade of a character that we know really well, it’s vetted to make sure that it feels like Star Wars, that it fits within the Star Wars Universe, that it balances within the story universe, and that isn’t in conflict with the Story Group. So you’re in this weird game of chess with invisible chess players, you can’t see the moves, and the only people who have a sense of the board are not really playing it with the story.”
You have to wonder what writing in this format could have potentially changed the story that Soule wanted to tell compared to what he is giving us.
Are you looking forward to “The Rise of Kylo Ren”? What do you think Charles Soule could have written that will be divisive among fans? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
