Star Wars: Adam Driver Claims Ben Solo Redemption Arc Wasn't Part of Original Plan

The actor confirmed his character was never meant to be redeemed.

By Patrick Cavanaugh

With the Star Wars sequel trilogy being helmed by two different filmmakers, which includes the unexpected departure of another filmmaker, fans have criticized the experience for the ways in which it seemed as though there was no overall agenda for the trilogy, with star Adam Driver recently recalling that J.J. Abrams was one of the figures who altered Kylo Ren's trajectory. By the time of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Kylo's journey mirrored that of Darth Vader's, but Driver detailed that he was intended to have a journey that was the opposite of Vader's, which meant never embracing his origin of Ben Solo.

"I had an overall arc in mind that [Star Wars: The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams] wanted to do, which then changed, but his idea was that -- almost the opposite journey of Vader, where Vader starts the most confident, the most committed to the Dark Side, and by the last movie, he's the most vulnerable and weak," Driver recalled on The Rich Eisen Show, per @adamdriverarchv on Twitter. "He wanted to start at the opposite, this character was the most confused and vulnerable and, by the end of the three movies, would be the most committed to the Dark Side. I tried to keep that arc in mind regardless if that wound up not being the journey anyway, because it changed, obviously, while we were shooting. But I was still focused on that."

Some critics of the sequel trilogy claim that it was Star Wars: The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson to significantly deviate from narrative threads Abrams teased with The Force Awakens, though Driver explained how Kylo's journey was relatively consistent in that sequel and it was Abrams who then pivoted from the original plan. 

"With Rian, he took it into a different direction, but still tracked, with the character," the actor expressed. "Then the last one, it changed into being about [Kylo and Rey] and the dyad and things like that. And evolving into Ben Solo, that was never part of it. Well, Ben Solo, he was Ben Solo from the beginning, but it was never a version where we see Ben Solo, when I signed up for it."

Despite how much time has passed since the completion of the sequel trilogy, this marks one of the only occasions in which a member of the cast or crew confirmed definitive details about the ways in which plans were changed from the original. The trajectory of John Boyega's Finn, for example, was expected to have gone in different directions by even Boyega himself, though an alternate journey hasn't been confirmed definitively.

Stay tuned for updates on the future of the Star Wars franchise.

Do you wish Kylo maintained this original path? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

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