Apologies to “Bendemption” and “Reylo” enthusiasts, but the first two movies of the sequel trilogy take a pretty straightforward approach to establishing the villainy of Kylo Ren and setting him up as the ultimate big bad of the trilogy — and Adam Driver himself agrees. In fact, having the character formerly known as Ben Solo succumb to the Dark Side appears to have been the biggest creative choice from the start. After confirming this in the interview, he goes on to say that he made specific acting choices based on that characterization:
“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.”
That’s putting it mildly! But as we all know, to paraphrase a popular saying, writers make plans and the film gods laugh. After “The Last Jedi” ends with Kylo Ren’s attempted murder of his uncle Luke Skywalker and Rey literally closing a door on him through their Force connection — this franchise has never been subtle, folks — “Jurassic World” director Colin Trevorrow had intended to pick up on this hanging thread and, according to the script leaks, make Kylo Ren the main villain of “Duel of the Fates.” That obviously didn’t happen and, after Trevorrow was fired, Abrams was brought back on board. Presumably this would’ve allowed him to follow through on his own original intentions for the villain, but that wasn’t the case, either.
So when did this change happen? After a bit of a pregnant pause, Driver recalls:
“Well, with [‘The Last Jedi’ director Rian Johnson], he took it into a different direction, but it still tracked with the character. Then the last one, it changed into being about [Kylo Ren and Rey] and the Dyad.”