SPOILER THREAD: SW: The Force Awakens

[Magnus]

With regard to the fight at the end and how Kylo Ren was beaten:

Kylo Ren took a shot from Chewie's bowcaster. The wound slowed him down and made him less effective in combat, but one observation that someone made was that he was punching himself in the wound to make himself feel pain and anger, which would fuel his dark side power/connection. Still, the pain would be distracting.

Kylo is probably also feeling conflicted/distracted, maybe even guilty, from killing his father just a few minutes prior.

He's not very disciplined - you see this in his lightsaber-swinging tantrums. Compare this to Vader at the end of The Empire Strikes Back when the Millennium Falcon escapes - Vader simply walks off the bridge instead of erupting into a rage.

Basically, Kylo Ren isn't as effective as he could be; he can't concentrate and is injured.

Now, to Finn and Rey:

Finn has most likely had melee combat training, being an ex-stormtrooper, so he's probably handled melee weapons at some point. He's already handled the lightsaber, so he has a vague idea how to use it, if not handle it with appropriate technique. He may even have had some unseen practice messing around with it aboard the Falcon on the way to Starkiller base.

Rey has melee combat experience - she used the staff to good effect on Jakku, so she's agile and has good body control, and her use of a staff goes some way to helping her handle a sword. Plus, her newfound proficiency with the lightsaber was a way of showing her newfound Force ability.

[GoktimusPrime]

He's not very disciplined - you see this in his lightsaber-swinging tantrums. Compare this to Vader at the end of The Empire Strikes Back when the Millennium Falcon escapes - Vader simply walks off the bridge instead of erupting into a rage.

I really don't know if Vader's much better though. When Ren has a tantrum, he damages property. When Vader gets mad, he kills his own officers! When Ren gets mad, they send in a repair crew. When Vader gets angry, they send in the coroner.

One of my favourite abilities in the Star Wars Miniatures game is this Commander Effect from Darth Vader, Dark Jedi:
Whenever an allied character without a Force rating gets a natural 1 on any roll, that character is defeated and all other allies without a Force rating get a +2 Attack. (These bonuses stack)
So what this means is that if any non Force-user on Vader's team rolls a 1 on a 20 sided die roll (which means a critical failure), Vader kills that character, which then scares the Poodoo out of the rest of the team who all fight harder (hence the +2 to Attack) because they don't want to be next! And if another character rolls a 1, they also get killed and everyone else gets another +2 to Attack (hence it becomes a +4, +6, +8 etc.). Every time I played a squad with Darth Vader, Dark Jedi in it and I'd roll a 1, I would put on my Vader voice and say, "You have failed me for the last time," and make choking noises as I removed that defeated piece off the map!

Vader seemed able to draw strength from his rage, whereas it might be more of a liability for Ren. But this may further serve to demonstrate that Ren's (attempted) conversion to the Dark Side hasn't been nearly as comprehensive as Vader's. He's arguably more of a wannabe Sith.

[Ralph Wiggum]

I've heard the Disney Infinity game has given away Rey's background. Apparently there is a section where Kylo refers to Rey as his cousin.

[Paulbot]

I've heard the Disney Infinity game has given away Rey's background. Apparently there is a section where Kylo refers to Rey as his cousin.

It's been debunked by the person that started it.

YouTube personalty Joe Vargas, A.K.A Angry Joe, posted a video online claiming that Disney Infinity 3.0 spoiled the currently mystery parentage of Rey.

...


It sounds like he says, “Face me cousin!”

....

Kylo Ren merely says “Face Me!” before a barrel explodes above him, making him say “Curses!”. It was just well timed so they sounded like a complete sentence. Joe ended up taking his video down and confirming his mistake in a tweet.

[CBratron]

I like to think he's new and Snoke isn't a full blown Sith.

We need someone like Grand Admiral Thrawn. Not Force sensitive but just as big a threat.

[Trent]

I like to think he's new and Snoke isn't a full blown Sith.

We need someone like Grand Admiral Thrawn. Not Force sensitive but just as big a threat.

The only EU books that were any good were the original Thrawn trilogy. I agree that someone like him would be much better as the Big Bad

[GoktimusPrime]

General Hux has the potential to be such a threat.

[Sinnertwin]

General Hux has the potential to be such a threat.

By talking the Alliance into submission?

[griffin]

It's a shame that they decided to go down the route of Ren eradicating all the new Jedi and Luke running off to not train any more, as this is a story universe of the Force and the Jedi/Sith... and yet we are back to one or two amateur/half-trained people running around occasionally lighting up a saber.
That was the one thing exciting about Ep1-3, was finally seeing the Force in action by MANY fully trained and active Jedi/Sith... it was exciting after 20 years of teasing us with two slow old farts and a half-trained kid in Ep4-6.
I was hoping/expecting to have a dozen or so Jedi in various stages of training in Ep7... after all, that's what the title implied to me (the Force was reborn and the Jedi order was being re-established).
Luke appears to be the last person who has any real knowledge of the old ways of the Force, and if he stops passing on what he knows, or gets killed off, anyone new will just be Force sensitive and never be true Jedi (without hundreds of years of re-mastering the skills and abilities of their true potential - like Rey needing to be told of a couple of tricks, which saved her life at the end of the Movse, because they don't just automatically know what they can do).


One thing I'm hoping to see in the next movie (which I was really disappointed that I didn't see in this one), is Leia being confirmed as a fully trained Jedi, from her Brother during the last 30 years. She should be as powerful as Luke with the Force, and a long time has passed since ROTJ.... so Luke would need to first pass on as much of the old Jedi knowledge to someone close or trusted, before going off to hunt down new Jedi padawans all over the galaxy.
She doesn't need to be a master saber wielder or be active as a Jedi in the film, but I think it would have been more exciting to see her written into a situation that showed her using some sort of Force ability, or reveal her very own hidden lightsaber to defend herself or someone else before going back to being a supporting character at their secret base for the rest of the movie.
Maybe (hopefully) that's a major plot point of the next movie, as she has to exact revenge for the death of her husband, by needing to kill her son in a duel. (because Ren is not a worthy or interesting enough villain to be around for a whole trilogy like Darth Vader... Darth Maul was a more interesting villain, and he was "killed off" after one movie - if you only go by the Movies)

[Magnus]

I really don't know if Vader's much better though. When Ren has a tantrum, he damages property. When Vader gets mad, he kills his own officers! When Ren gets mad, they send in a repair crew. When Vader gets angry, they send in the coroner.

I'll concede that one. My point was that Kylo Ren seems to be less disciplined in comparison to Vader, and that Vader in general is far more 'controlled' and less likely to erupt in rage.

Vader seemed able to draw strength from his rage, whereas it might be more of a liability for Ren. But this may further serve to demonstrate that Ren's (attempted) conversion to the Dark Side hasn't been nearly as comprehensive as Vader's. He's arguably more of a wannabe Sith.

I think Kylo Ren is trying - he knows that anger and pain are linked to the dark side, which is why he kept punching himself where he was shot by Chewbacca while fighting Finn and Rey. He was trying to augment his dark side power to compensate for the fact he was injured.

Interestingly, Ren (and to a lesser extent, Snoke) is concerned with 'corruption' from the light side. It's an interesting contrast to the recurring idea that the Jedi are on guard against corruption from the dark side.