Kylo Ren, the greatest Star Wars bad guy?

Every film has its villain and Star Wars The Force Awakens is not short of them. Supreme Leader Snoke, General Hux, Captain Phasma and of course Kylo Ren. The First Order is not short of figure heads. 

Throughout the build up to TFA Kylo Ren has taken centre stage. Snoke stayed in the shadows and we only saw fleeting glimpses of Hux and Phasma. Understandably, Kylo Ren's appearance and the mystery of who he is have made him the poster boy of the First Order. 

And this bias doest alter at all in the film itself. Yes, we do get to see Snoke and he has a big role. Hux also makes several appearances and the hostility between  Hux and Ren is palpable. Phasma's lack of screen time was disappointing and her involvement didn't really do her justice. So it was left to Kylo Ren to steal the show and leads to the question. Is Kylo Ren the greatest Star Wars bad guy?

Kylo Ren may not be the all powerful being that Sidious was or the Chosen One like Vader. But few can match him for sheer cold, ruthless madness. 

In 1977 Vader was the ultimate bad guy but in the modern day he's not going to give anyone nightmares. He's the big bully in the school playground that pushes the other kids round because he's so much bigger than them. Kylo Ren is the villain for a new generation, sinister, evil and believes whole heartedly he is doing the right thing. 

Adam Driver's Kylo Ren is brutal. A villain up there with Heath Ledger's Joker. By all accounts Driver stayed in character all the time he was on set. That must have been one intense, movie set. With his mask on he is a smoldering, yet when that mask comes off Driver gives just as little away.

Watching Kylo Ren go loco and smash up the inside of the his Star Destroyer because his troops didn't bring the map back gives a glimpse of the madness and the sheer anger that lurks beneath. This is one unstable bad guy.


But it's a big claim to call Ren the greatest villain in Star Wars so lets consider some of the competition. 


Emperor Palpatine / Darth Sidious

There is no doubt Sidious is all powerful and has scant regard for people's lives. However he may have been a Sith lord but he rarely got his hands dirty. 


Darth Vader 

Vader is the chosen one and therefor is one of the most powerful force sensitive being the galaxy has ever seen. And while he is evil you know what you're getting with him. There's little unpredictability in Vader.  Barring a few force chokes we see very few of his really terrifying acts. 


Count Dooku

Count Dooku has to count as one of the biggest non-events. Both in terms of Lucas's storyline and Palpatine's vision Dooku was merely filler until Anakin Skywalker completed his turn to the darkside.


General Grievous

The general was certainly power hungry but even considering his appearances in The Clone Wars he's a one dimensional character. The cyborg comes across as nothing more than an over sized battle droid. 


Darth Maul

So much potential but it was never realised. Only really a terror to a couple of Jedi. He came, he killed master Qui Gon Jinn then got chopped in half by Kenobi. It may have been a mistake to kill him off but it was an even bigger mistake to bring him back with robo-legs. 

A new type of evil

Star Wars has always been for all ages and perhaps with the exception of the end of Revenge of the Sith (the whole Order 66 thing) has always played a little safe. We know Vader murdered thousands but we never saw it. We knew the emperor was evil but he was also a straight forward 'I'm going to blow up worlds' kind of bad guy.

Kylo Ren is different, we see him give the order to murder innocent villagers on Jakku, carrying out phsychological torture and showing he is not in possession of all his marbles. But while JJ Abrams has to be commended for creating the villain we all wanted and Star Wars needed there are a few minor gripes. 


Spoiler coming up - stop reading now if you've not seen The Force Awakens!! You have been warned 


It's a mind game

We see Ren use mind control to torture people yet Rey manages to enter Ren's mind while he is trying to read hers. Surely something as practised and powerful in the force would be able to block out someone with no force training.


Rey1 - Ren 0

We see Kylo Ren literally stop a blaster bolt in mid air but then gets bested by Rey (who has never held a lightsaber) in a duel. I know this was all done to emphasise how powerful Rey is with the force, even if she doesn't realise it yet. However as the first in the new series of films I would have preferred for the heroes to escape Ren by the skin of their teeth. It gives them something to aim for. We now already know Rey can beat Ren. What happens when Rey gets more powerful. 

Is it a contradiction to suggest Kylo Ren is the greatest Star Wars bad guy then say he's too weak? No necessarily, the weaknesses come from the storyline and the need for Rey to be the next great hope. As a combination of the character, the acting and the role he plays in the storyline there aren't many bad guys that can stand shoulder to shoulder with Kylo Ren.

Spoiler - coming up. Hold on tight and stop reading if you don't want to know.

Darth Maul was one of the few good things to come out of the prequels and it is one of the biggest travesties that he gets killed off so early. Maul was a brooding, killing machine and his death at the hands of Obi Wan was such a waste of a potentially great character.

One of my big concerns was Kylo Ren would suffer the same fate. JJ would create a villain the fans loved, only to see him killed off cheaply in the final scenes. At least Kylo will return to strike fear in to the people of the galaxy's hearts again.


So is Kylo Ren the best Star Wars bad guy? In terms comparison there are others with similar or more power. Yet few are as much of a mix of bubbling, unstable hatred. He's also got so much more to come. We now know he has few morals and isn't afraid of tough decisions. Kylo Ren was one of the stand out characters and it will be awesome to see where Episode VIII takes him. 

As the Joker so famously said, "whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you....stranger."

Simon Pegg is Unkar the junk dealer

Another Star Wars: The Force Awakens character is named as we reveal Simon Pegg is Unkar Plutt the junk dealer from Jakku.

From the early days we’ve known Simon Pegg would play a cameo role in The Force Awakens. Speculation was rife as to who the life long Star Wars fan would play and this only increased when pictures found their way out of Pegg in some form of costume that pretty much confirmed he would be playing some sort of alien being. In one interview he even went as far as saying the alien he played is “rather troll-like.. an angry-looking oaf [witha] huge downturned nose.”

 Then several weeks ago the Disney Channel released a short TV feature with an image of JJ Abrams and Daisy Ridley talking to an alien creature with a down turned nose and looking quite troll like. Suddenly everyone put two and two together, it looks likely this is who Pegg plays in TFA.

 Compare the suit Pegg is wearing in the first picture and the second photo and it certainly looks like it could well be his character (just without the shoulder armour). But still we didn’t know who this character was. Everyone assumed he would be a background character with no real role in the storyline.

Well now we know Pegg will play Unkar the junk dealer. Over the weekend Amazon Canada accidentally let a new Star Wars figure called Unkar Plutt slip on to their site. While it was quickly removed, a picture still found its way to Rule of Two.

This is quite clearly the toy of the character Daisy and JJ are talking to, who we believe Pegg is playing. We know he is a junk dealer (which seems to be a big commodity on a planet with nothing but sand and crashed Star Destroyers.) From the fact we know he has 'thugs' it can also be assumed he's not the nicest of chaps on the lawless desert planet of Jakku. So it looks like Pegg might have landed himself a little more than a bit part.

Unkar will definitely not be one of the key players in The Force Awakens, however expect him to appear in several scenes as the stage is set on Jakku.

Of course a much harder task will be identifying which Stormtrooper Daniel Craig is. When asked about his role Pegg let slip 007 is lending his services to the First Order in TFA. The filming of Episode VII and Spectre did over lap at Pinewood and it’s not out of the question. Of course it could just be a red herring by Simon Pegg to keep us guessing, Craig has certainly denied it.

Why not leave us a comment below, is Simon Pegg really Unkar?