Since I’m fresh off having seen The Force Awakens for the sixth time yesterday, I wanted to write an analysis of the fight scene and the dynamics of the action. It’s a really fascinating sequence, and it’s worth considering in detail.
It begins when Finn and Rey are confronted by Kylo Ren in the forest. He is dishevelled and wounded – blood leaks from his side, and he beats his fist against his injury to fuel his pain and rage. Finn and Rey are both disgusted and frightened by him, and Rey is impassioned when she calls him a monster – this ties back to the interrogation scene, where Rey referred to Kylo as a “creature in a mask”. While he attempted to undermine that impression then by removing his mask and revealing his human face, the Rey who faces Kylo at the film’s climax – the Rey who witnessed the murder of Han Solo – is wiser and has learned that monsters can have very human faces. And Kylo himself has dispensed with any niceties. He tells Finn and Rey that Han Solo cannot save them, positioning himself as a predator preparing to attack two helpless, orphaned children lost in the woods. It could hardly be more fairy tale-esque if it tried.
I’ve seen various people say that Kylo was attempting to murder Rey by flinging her back into a tree after she attempts to fire at him, and while it’s clearly a cruel and violent gesture I really don’t think that was his intention. I think he planned on stunning her, which is exactly what he achieved. Kylo is painfully aware of Rey’s burgeoning powers (thus the many brief scenes of him stalking around Starkiller Base looking for her and receiving updates from stormies – he is conscious that he needs to stop her, and stop her quickly), and he knows immediately that she needs to be removed from the equation. His only miscalculation is in not knocking her out thoroughly enough – he merely dazes her, leaving her semi-conscious.
I analyse what’s going on with the “TRAITOR!” moment thoroughly here, so won’t repeat myself. Suffice to say that Finn inspires a frightening pitch of rage and malice in Kylo, and that this comes through in how he fights him. Particularly striking is the moment when Kylo and Finn have locked lightsabers, with Finn pressed against the tree and the crossguard of Kylo’s lightsaber burning a hole into Finn’s shoulder. Kylo’s face is alive with sadistic pleasure and malice as Finn screams in pain, and that’s the scream that stirs Rey to consciousness. Kylo is utterly indulgent of all his darkest impulses with Finn, and he demonstrates not even the remotest flicker of pity or respect for his victim. By slicing Finn’s spine open, Kylo wants to damage and ruin him – it’s the ultimate payback for Finn’s treachery, in all its manifestations.
The scene where the lightsaber flies past Kylo to Rey is easily one of the most powerful moments in the film, and it’s stupendously played by the actors. They form a tableau against the snow, with Kylo seeming to move his arm in slow motion as he regards Rey with a strange mix of awe, wonder and disbelief. When he looks at her in the film, it’s the same moment where he says “it is you” to himself in the novelisation. He knows who she is, and is electrified by that knowledge.
The main fight between Rey and Kylo can be neatly divided into two stages: before and after the offer. Before, Rey is very much at a disadvantage – while her strength is extraordinary, her fear and inexperience are vividly on display, and she focuses most of her energies on putting distance between herself and Kylo. She’s constantly scrabbling up rock faces and staggering back, aware she needs the distance if she’s to stand a chance. For his part, Kylo fights mostly defensively when Rey attempts to strike him – he takes a few swipes at her feet, presumably to try and disable her, but isn’t truly on the offensive. His approach with Rey could hardly be more different from his approach with Finn – he shows no desire to destroy or humiliate her, only a need to stop her.
When they both reach the precipice, the moment is a filmed in a way that underlines Rey’s massive disadvantage and apparent helplessness. Her body is bent backwards, close to falling, from the power of Kylo’s blade pressing fiercely against hers. Her face is contorted with fear and despair, alight with terror, and Kylo is clearly on the brink of victory.
And this is when he makes what is perhaps his singlemost ruinous error of judgement. Instead of finishing the fight as logic dictates he should, he offers to become Rey’s teacher. There is no mention of Snoke or even the Dark side – Kylo is intent only on Rey, and the offer he makes is an offer made between the two of them. In short, Kylo is ruined by his self-indulgence – his regard for and fascination with Rey win out over his duty to Snoke. He selfishly wants her to himself, and his vanity and arrogance mean he thinks he has her in a position that will force her to submit.
When Rey closes her eyes she is clearly drawing on the Force for strength. Ridley’s performance is particularly brilliant here, with her face transmuting away from exquisite peace and serenity the moment she adopts an animalistic snarl. While the Light side of the Force enabled her to steady herself and resist Kylo’s temptation, the Dark side of the Force is what empowers her to strike back against Kylo with rage and fury. The Dark side is fuelled by passion, and that’s the word that best describes Rey in the second half of the fight. She is transformed by her rage, becoming unstoppable and relentless. She is slender and small, and her size alone should mean she doesn’t stand a chance – but she’s powered by something greater than herself, something that means she can wrestle with a man far stronger and taller than she is and overpower him.
At the culmination of the fight, Rey’s approach to Kylo is disturbingly reminiscent of Kylo’s approach to Finn. They both appear to derive a kind of satisfaction from causing pain, dealing out unnecessary, brutal blows intended to scar, punish and humiliate their recipient. Rey didn’t need to brand Kylo’s face, but she clearly wanted to, even if only for the moment it took to make the strike – and that, I think, is the biggest hint we have about the direction that’s going to be taken in Episode VIII.
Right, that’s my latest bit of meta delivered for your reading pleasure! As always, this is just my interpretation – I welcome discussion, so would love for any of you to bounce your ideas off me. Let me know what you make of my take, and present your own!
The in-depth discussion behind this tweet. Really an amazing discovery! Except (naturally) I don’t agree with them saying that because ‘Across the Stars’ is potentially hinted at in Rey’s Theme, it’s implied that she may be a Skywalker. To the contrary, I think the fact that Anakin and Padme’s love theme is subtly referenced in Rey’s Theme implies something else entirely… 😉
Please listen to the entire Podcast! It is extremely interesting as they notice different character motifs in Rey’s theme! It’s worth a listen! Please note, I transcribed as best as I can, there might be slight errors and these guys do not talk about any romantic involvement, mostly speculation but it’s interesting to hear these guys notice these details:
“The last 3 notes of Kylo Ren’s theme are the same as the first 3 notes of Rey’s theme.
The first 3 notes of Rey’s theme are kinda like the first 3 notes of ACROSS THE STARS in REVERSE. I don’t know if that means anything. A lot of people are building a
case that Rey is Luke Skywalker’s daughter or somewhow related to a
Skywalker, its a popular Fan Theory–
Half of Kylo Ren’s motif, is found in the beginning of Rey’s theme.
There
are similar lines and passages to the Prequel love story of Anakin and
Padmé and the Skywalker Lineage, there’s some stuff in there, if you
choose to look for it you know? I heard a lot of Across the Stars the
first time I heard Rey’s theme you know, there’s some ideas that remind
me of Across the Stars, and then to hear, Kylo Ren, just kind of
like, IN REVERSE, you know, instead of [ Then plays the notes] – *
Laughs * I am just putting it out there. I don’t know what it means, we
could be proven completely wrong, I mean she could just be a new
vergence in the Force that comes out of nowehere, We have NO idea. BUT
that stuff is there.”
THIS IS JUST-
If her theme and Kylo’s both are referencing a love theme, wouldn’t that suggest something other than for them to be relatives?
HANG ON. I think I’m onto something. Firstly, this bit in the Visual Dictionary clarifies that the resemblance (which, as a Mediaevalist, I’d wondered about) of Kylo’s lightsaber to a Mediaeval crossguard sword was in fact deliberate:
“Kylo Ren’s unusual lightsaber is an ancient design, dating back thousands of years to the Great Scourge of Malachor. The crossguard blades, or quillons, are tributaries of the primary central blade, all spawning from a cracked kyber crystal that is the cause of their ragged, unstable appearance. An array of focusing crystal activators split the plasma stream into perpendicular blade energy channels creating the quillons. The emitter shrouds on the crossguard protect the bearer’s hand from the smaller blades.”
As you can see, this group of people (who, I think, have been confirmed as being Knights of Ren) have a rather strange assortment of old-fashioned-seeming weapons, which I wondered about before:
From this and some other screencaps you can see at least some kind of a battle-axe, some kind of a spear, and some mace-like blunt weapons. At first sight, their armour is also vaguely reminiscent of the Middle Ages.
Then it occurred to me exactly what Kylo’s costume has been reminding me of all along. It was a bit of a ’d’oh’ moment because it should have occurred to me sooner: I have actually studied them! The Hospitaller Knights, also known as the Knights of St John. An order of crusader fighting monks that was founded after the fall of the Templars. As the name implies, the Hospitallers originally also founded and took care of hospitals, though that business kind of fell by the wayside when they got more and more into the Holy War business.
Look them up on Google because there are many examples of the kind of costumes worn in different centuries and by different ranks: according to pictorial evidence, the black tabbards worn over armour came in different lengths, sometimes calf length surcoats, sometimes almost floor length, sometimes like a shorter tunic; sometimes layered; belted at the waist; and outside of the battlefield, they’d have worn a long, narrowish black monk’s habit with a black hooded cloak. Sound familiar?
Here’s an example of a longer surcoat from a shop that sells re-enactment gear:
The Hospitaller uniform was black with a white cross, though some of the lower-ranking soldiers had red uniforms, too. Templars and Teutonic Knights (other crusading orders) wore white uniforms with a red and black cross respectively, but otherwise similar in shape. The long, flowing tabbards worn over armour are definitely associated with the various orders of crusader knights, and the crossguard shape of the lightsaber brings the association home.
Here, Kylo seems to be wearing a combination of a longer surcoat and a shorter tabbard, both of them very Mediaeval in design:
Also, Kylo’s helmet is rather reminiscent of various 15th-century sallets in shape, though the front visor is more 13th century.
Basically, the Knights of Ren is starting to sound like a Mediaeval cosplay project gone horribly wrong.
Except that there’s more. Some Googling led me to connect Malachor to the Mandalorian Wars, which in turn connected to – surprise, surprise – crusaders in the Star Wars universe:
(Note that one of the sacred laws is the wearing of armour, which might mean that Kylo isn’t wearing his helmet only as a homage to Vader, but as a religious duty…)
Perhaps the Telegraph review’s description of Kylo as a ’radicalised Dark Side jihadi’ is surprisingly accurate. This heavy crusader symbolism here is starting to seem uncomfortably as though teenaged Ben got brainwashed into a religious cult that idealizes a Mediaeval-style concept of Holy War.
Between the medieval influence and the Seven Samurai visual homage, I am finding myself really liking the Knights of Ren despite myself.
You guys don’t even know what kind of shit went down on Malachor.
It was the final battle of the Star Wars equivalent of Vietnam. The Mandalorian wars.
Basically the Mandalorians decided to wage war on the galaxy, because they’re basically Space Vikings with some other cultural influences. Except they don’t wanna pillage or rule the galaxy, they just wanna fight, they don’t even care if they lose, the fight itself is what they want.
Anyway, they went around destroying countless planets with little trouble, mostly outside of Republic space. And then they did eventually start attacking Republic planets and trade lanes and shit, so the Republic naturally declares war on them, doesn’t go so well since it’s basically Red Shirts vs Space Vikings. They got slaughtered by the MILLIONS in a sort of Warhammer 40K fashion. Hell, the Mandalorians wouldn’t be out of place in 40K.
The Republic asks the Jedi for help, but the Jedi are too busy being a bunch of pretentious pseudo-philosophical assholes and refuse to do anything, despite the fact that hundreds of millions of people are being butchered for literally no reason.
So this one badass Jedi named Revan decides to tell the council to go fuck themselves and rallies thousands of other Jedi to go join the war.
This works out pretty well, Revan also gets a Cool Mask from a fallen Mandalorian warrior who refused to slaughter fleeing villagers. Said Cool Mask looks very similar to Kylo Ren’s.
Anyway, the war ended with this huge fucking slaughter on and around Malachor V. This shit was crazy as both sides had a ton of ships and soldiers and it was just one giant clusterfuck that makes World War One look like some preschoolers arguing on the playground. (it kind of was, except said preschoolers were also powerful rulers)
Which resulted in some kind of prototype weapon known as the Mass Shadow Generator being activated, destroying EVERYTHING. And scarring the planet until it’s little more than a barren hellscape ravaged by constant radiation storms and about to collapse under it’s own gravity.
Revan found an old Sith temple there and went to the dark side. But it’s ok he got better a few years later.
Sources being Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic one and two, which might be canon but might not.
Thank you so much for this summary, @plasma-angel – very interesting!
In reference to my post [here] I’ve compared Rey and Bastila’s themes. This little tune appears multiple times throughout both their themes so I thought I’d share.
Now I have. And I told you guys. The strings. They touch.
Marvellous. I’ve been intrigued by this ever since I first saw somebody mention it somewhere, I think it was on Reddit?
Also, if you listen to the way Bastila’s theme repeats and compare it to the way Rey’s theme climaxes and then repeats and repeats again (beginning about 1:55 in the video below)… there’s something very similar about it. Obviously not the same melody, but I get a similar feel from it. I wish I had the vocabulary to explain what I mean – I’d be curious to know if @reylo-trashlord has noticed it as well.
Mind you, I think the same part also has similarities with… Palpatine’s theme *cough*
Yes, if you check out the original post I wrote, I commented on the atmospheric similarities between Rey and Bastila’s themes. 🙂
Now that you’ve brought up The Abduction too, I believe this soundtrack is even more spot on with hitting mood/atmosphere of Bastila’s theme. There’s really that darkness to it.
I haven’t heard Palpatine’s theme on its own before but I’ll check that out!
“These images are a huge metaphoric exploration about the light and
the dark side of the Force, which I had long discussions with Rick
about. The wide shot of the light glimmer just hitting the two of them–
that’s the Force essentially making its decision.” – Jenkins The Art of the Force Awakens”
As someone who has studied art history, dabbled in animation layouts, always held an interest in film making and analysis, I figured I would use some of Reylopho’s interpretations and add my observations and demonstrate them onto the concept art itself. Sometimes it is easy for someone, with no prior knowledge of cinematography nor art lessons to miss these things.
As Han fails to bring his son back, who is left? Rey.
Even in this shot, as Han falls towards the light, the red lighting and darkness are envelopping Kylo Ren. The White/Blue are constrasting against the Red/Black. Light vs Dark.
Another thing I noted is, while they are deep in Starkiller Base. This entire shot is entirely artificial, man made and reflect’s the Order’s cold reliance on technology. So what is the only thing NOT man made NOR artificial? The light. It is the only thing that is natural and reflects the Force and at the same time humanity. Since Rey is atop at the source of the light, one can infer that she is going to save Kylo/Ben’s humanity. At this point, we do not know what the relationship is between Kylo and Rey, but it is clear where this will be heading.
You can see a wonderfully insightful and comedic analysis of Star Wars Episode 6 and how the movie uses the concept of nature/force/light vs Technology/Evil/Darkness including the use of music Here
A lot of thought are put into concept art. It is like a painting. Just like in paintings, movie shots are carefully planned, sketched out, layouted, concepts of color and use of lighting is extremely important. If you are interested in learning more about Art, please watch the above video. TheNerdwriter also recently made a great analysis of Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban analysis and exploring the meaning behind cinematography[HERE]
Reylo Source 