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[Putnam]

My only real complaint as far as characters is Emo Ren. He starts off as a great badass (Force-catching a laser bolt? holy shit) and then it just goes downhill from there.

Tantrum where you wreck half the control consoles in the ship? Not badass. Vader was so terrifying because he was almost *always* calm. When somebody fucked up, the audience knew somebody was about to get Force-choked and somebody else was about to get a terrifying field promotion, but it was always done in the most restrained, calm "you have disappointed me for the last time" fashion.

Taking the helmet off and rocking the curls? Not badass. EVIL DOES NOT HAVE CURLS.

The other thing is that when he does not have his cape on....he just looks awkward. Vader (as played by David Prowse) was physically imposing -- broad-chested and powerful. Driver is just too damn skinny to be imposing.

THAT'S THE POINT OF HIS CHARACTER

Augh, the entire point is that Kylo Ren is a wannabe Vader who utterly fails at it. I'm not sure why this complaint is so common when it's the intended audience reaction.

[RedKing]

@Putnam:
You have Word of God on that, or just assuming your interpretation is the correct one?

Not sure why Abrams would go to the trouble of creating a villain that provokes eye-rolls instead of fear.

[Putnam]

Not sure why Abrams would go to the trouble of creating a villain that provokes eye-rolls instead of fear.

Because he wants an interesting villain instead of Vader 2.0?

@Putnam:
You have Word of God on that, or just assuming your interpretation is the correct one?

I'm assuming J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt aren't shitty writers, and assuming they aren't (since those guys also have Lost, Toy Story 3, Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back under their belts), my interpretation is sort of the obvious one of Kylo Ren. It's not just mine, it's the majority interpretation for people who aren't specifically looking for things to complain about.

[Orange Wizard]

Not sure why Abrams would go to the trouble of creating a villain that provokes eye-rolls instead of fear.

Because he wants an interesting villain instead of Vader 2.0?

I assumed big-ass hologram dude was the real villain, and Ren was just budget disk one villain.

[Putnam]

I think it's a bit more interesting than that. Kylo Ren's probably going to get more threatening once he's actually trained. Snoke is interesting, threatening, ancient, all the stuff I like in a Star Wars villain, but Kylo Ren's everything I like in a coming-of-age sort of villain, so I'm a bit more excited by him.

[Sirus]

I find myself agreeing with Putnam's interpretation of Kylo. The dude clearly has a serious case of villain-worship, reinforced with the fact that he is a direct descendant of Vader. He wants to be the next Sith Lord, but he's completely incapable of filling Anakin's shoes. He wears all black. He wears a helmet. He carries a red lightsaber. He works for the villains. At first glance they're very similar, but things quickly fall apart when when you look a bit closer.

Look at how the First Order (the higher-ups especially) treated Kylo and compare it to how most of the Empire's officers treated Darth Vader. Vader commanded respect and fear from everyone, except for the Emperor, Tarkin, and that one officer who got Force-choked in A New Hope (briefly). Even Tarkin was willing to follow along with Vader's plans when they suited him.

The First Order, on the other hand, seems somewhat contemptuous of Kylo. The Hitler expy in particular openly looks down his nose at the son of Solo, and Kylo just takes it. The stormtroopers avoid him not out of awe but more of a "look out, this dude's nuts" sort of way. This may be due to the tantrums, but I wouldn't be surprised if it contributes to the tantrums as well.

...

And here's something I just thought of: I know folks like to pretend that the prequels never happened, but there's actually a pretty important similarity here. Remember that Anakin had quite a temper of his own. Slaughtering a an entire tribe of Tusken Raiders isn't the same as carving up computer consoles, but I'm suddenly struck by how both Anakin and his grandson seem to have severe anger problems. Anakin was at least trying to sometimes control his temper and be a Jedi, which is likely why we didn't see him destroying bits of the scenery more often, but Kylo (who appears to be roughly the same age) is opening himself entirely to the Dark Side. When rage overtakes him, he'll take it out on anything handy.
Darth Vader was certainly much more constrained in his anger, but he was also much older by the time of the Original Trilogy. The loss of much of his body and his wife probably also helped turn his negative emotions into a cold bitterness rather than a white-hot anger.

[Putnam]

Note how Anakin took out his anger on living things and Kylo Ren takes it out on computer consoles. Kylo Ren did not kill a single person out of rage in The Force Awakens. Kylo Ren is trying so hard to be dark, but he's bad at it. Anakin was the exact opposite.

[RedKing]

@Putnam:
You have Word of God on that, or just assuming your interpretation is the correct one?

I'm assuming J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt aren't shitty writers, and assuming they aren't (since those guys also have Lost, Toy Story 3, Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back under their belts), my interpretation is sort of the obvious one of Kylo Ren. It's not just mine, it's the majority interpretation for people who aren't specifically looking for things to complain about.

So to answer my question, yes you're just assuming you're right and the slew of people pointing out that they don't like the character just like...don't get it, man!

@Sirus:
I took the lack of respect as Abrams just doing another invert/subvert of the original tropes. In the originals, they always try it with military force and blockades and such and it fails, and it's left to Dark Mystic Knight Vader to get the job done. This time, they leave it to Dark Mystic Knight Jr., he fails, and they go back to military force to get the job done.

And if you're telling me that Kylo is Anakin 2.0, I may not watch the remaining movies. Anakin (or at least Hayden Christiansen's portrayal of him) was the singularly worst thing about Ep. II and III.

Angst...pouting...tantrums....a fallen Jedi craves not these things. Nor does the audience.

[Sirus]

I'm saying that there might be a plausible basis for Kylo's behavior. On the bright side, Kylo got his ass kicked pretty hard at the end of FA and he'll be going to Snoke in order to "complete his training". Maybe the angstiness will be toned down in the rest of the trilogy. I sure hope so.

My biggest gripe with the movie was how quickly Finn went from "stormtrooper that refused to shoot at people" to "gleefully killing large numbers of people". I was expecting him to be hesitant about violence, only resorting to it in a time of crisis, but good lord was I wrong.

[SalmonGod]

It's been quite clear throughout the franchise that the force itself has a mind of its own and fucks with everyone's powers when things get out of balance.  Episodes 1-3 were about the Jedi being in overwhelming control, so the force allows Palpatine to hide in plain sight against all these elite master's senses and hooks him up with a powerful protege.  Episodes 4-6 were the exact same thing in reverse.

I think (hope?) Episodes 7-9 are going to be about a resurgence of force users in general.  It took out the super elite masters that had pushed everything out of wack, but it only left one moderately trained force user alive in the end.  So Luke starts training up a new generation of force users, but the force itself can't just let this happen without giving the dark side some love, or else there will just be another overwhelming Jedi force with no balance.  So it nudges Ren towards the dark side.  Then Luke gets all sad and gives up, and this leaves only dark users active.  So it has to manually intervene yet again to shove Rey into Luke's hands, so that both sides have the seeds of a new beginning.

The interesting thing about this is Snoke seems to possess some meta-knowledge of the above, and I'm looking forward to seeing how he'll use it.

[Sirus]

Speaking of Rey: my current theory is that she's Luke's daughter, hidden on a backwater planet away from hostile eyes much like he himself was. She did flash-back to her being left behind when she touched Anakin's lightsaber, after all.

[mainiac]

Vader commanded respect and fear from everyone, except for the Emperor, Tarkin, and that one officer who got Force-choked in A New Hope (briefly).

Vader commanded respect and fear from everyone including Tarkin and the emperor.  When Vader chokes the guy, Tarkin takes it very passively.  He sits there with his hands in his lap.  He hesitates before speaking out.  Tarkin of all people is too important for Vader to just kill out of anger but all the same he waits long enough that he is not asserting dominance over Vader or controlling him.  He says "enough" not "stop" or "out of line".

As for the emperor, that's more complex of course.  It's not a straightforward fear but rather the defacto nature of the Sith, both Vader and Palpatine are willing to kill each other if the circumstances are right and both know it.

I think (hope?) Episodes 7-9 are going to be about a resurgence of force users in general.

I hope not.  The force is cool when it's subtle or dramatic.  "These aren't the droids you're looking for" is iconic.  It wasn't too bad in Phantom menace when the Jedi flexed their muscles a little and showed new powers, these were warriors in their prime and they still were pretty restrained.  But the problem is that you keep doing a bit more then last time, pretty soon all dramatic effect is gone.  When the emperor shot lightning it was dramatic because it was a manifestation of raw power.  If everyone and their grandmother is a super hero it loses all importance.

[SalmonGod]

I think (hope?) Episodes 7-9 are going to be about a resurgence of force users in general.

I hope not.  The force is cool when it's subtle or dramatic.  "These aren't the droids you're looking for" is iconic.  It wasn't too bad in Phantom menace when the Jedi flexed their muscles a little and showed new powers, these were warriors in their prime and they still were pretty restrained.  But the problem is that you keep doing a bit more then last time, pretty soon all dramatic effect is gone.  When the emperor shot lightning it was dramatic because it was a manifestation of raw power.  If everyone and their grandmother is a super hero it loses all importance.

Somewhat agree.  I enjoy mystical powers at varying levels.  I don't like when everyone has them.  But I still like to see a story about elite agents doing flashy stuff sometimes, and force-sensitives awkwardly discovering themselves in a more humble tone other times.  The universe is big enough for both.  Except it's not if the force is a lost art only known to a handful of mystics forced into hiding.

My favorite product of the entire Star Wars franchise is Tartakovsky's Clone Wars mini-series.

[Sirus]

Vader commanded respect and fear from everyone, except for the Emperor, Tarkin, and that one officer who got Force-choked in A New Hope (briefly).

Vader commanded respect and fear from everyone including Tarkin and the emperor.  When Vader chokes the guy, Tarkin takes it very passively.  He sits there with his hands in his lap.  He hesitates before speaking out.  Tarkin of all people is too important for Vader to just kill out of anger but all the same he waits long enough that he is not asserting dominance over Vader or controlling him.  He says "enough" not "stop" or "out of line".

As for the emperor, that's more complex of course.  It's not a straightforward fear but rather the defacto nature of the Sith, both Vader and Palpatine are willing to kill each other if the circumstances are right and both know it.

Tarkin also gives Vader direct orders ("Lord Vader, release him!", after which Vader immediately complies) and seems to be in overall command of the Death Star.

And let's not forget that Palpatine was perfectly willing to get rid of Vader if he could successfully corrupt Luke. I'm sure that the Emperor feared the possibility of a betrayal by Vader, but I don't know how much respect there was.

[Xantalos]

Speaking of Rey: my current theory is that she's Luke's daughter, hidden on a backwater planet away from hostile eyes much like he himself was. She did flash-back to her being left behind when she touched Anakin's lightsaber, after all.

She certainly has that Skywalker hateability to her. I had that hunch purely by how much I disliked her for no discernible reason.