It’s no secret that I think Kylo Ren is the greatest Star Wars character yet. It’s also no secret that I believe “The Force Awakens” is the best of the Star Wars movies as well. The reasons are too lengthy to go into in one or one-hundred blog posts but there is one thing I can touch on briefly — the wonderful use of allegory.
Consider the allegory of the light and its relationship to darkness, power and the sun/son.
The “son” (Kylo Ren) is pulled to the light just as planets are pulled by the sun. That’s pretty cool in and of itself as far as allegory goes but go watch the movie (again) and notice that at the very same moment we are witnessing the depletion and destruction of the 2nd literal sun during the film we are also watching the climatic fight with Kylo Ren & Han Solo in which Ren’s “light” is completely snuffed out and replaced with darkness. The pull is gone. The power “of the darkness” is there.
Pair all of this with Finn and Leia’s earlier exchange which is fraught with foreshadowing as they talk about Starkiller Base. Finn says,
It uses the power of the sun. As the weapon is charged the sun is drained until it disappears.
To which Leia replies,
The first order is charging the weapon again now. Our system is the next target.
Read those quotes again… this time mentally replace “sun” with “son” and also think of the “system” Leia mentions as herself, Han and Kylo (their family) and you will hopefully get one small glimpse of why this film is so amazing.
