That's interesting, Kalshane. And lines up with the old classic "fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering" that we learned from Yoda.

It also would explain his Vader worship and why he would turn his back on Luke. He'd see his uncle as intentionally holding him back with his teachings about balance and resisting the lure of the Dark Side. While we don't know much about Snoke, I could easily see him telling a young Ben Solo that his uncle was training him poorly because he was afraid of him. That his weakness in the Force wasn't Ben's fault, but rather Luke sabotaging him.

That's pretty much how I feel about him, Kalshane. I think all the jokes about him being an emo weenie kind of miss the point that he is probably MEANT to come across as more pathetic than intimidating.

We finally saw Star Wars this afternoon and I don't have anything to add to what ya'll have said except that, if you haven't already, and you enjoyed John Boyega in it, you must see Attack the Block . That is a freaking great movie.

Saw TFA last night. It definitely felt like JJ was trying to reassure fans that he understood what they liked about the old ones and set up the next two. The sound effects and score are so deeply hardwired into my emotional centers that just the scream of a Tie-fighter sent my adrenaline spiking.

I felt like Finn was too casual, too contemporary to us. Dude grew up in a fascist military camp, shouldn't he be more stiff awkward and less fanboy dork awkward? I just found him a bit jarring, and not because he's black. Daisy was everything. Loved her. Loved BB-8. Loved Han and Leia together again. Pretty much did not love emo Kylo Ren (but I love the Twitter account), though the fan theories help that a bit. I loved Maz Kenata (WTF with that name?) though I wish they had used Lupita as herself and not just voice acting .

I suspected strongly that one of the three would die, and knew it was Han when he said "I'll meet you back here."

I saw it with my immediate family, and our reactions ranged from "1 star, would rather be home watching Phrynne in pjs with a cat on my lap" to "4 stars, pretty great." The 1 star was my sister, who I think was too young to get caught up in the magic, though she did love the Ewoks.

I kind of want to see it one more time in the theater, just to let everything soak in a bit more. I wish it had been a bit less formulaic and I hope JJ will break out of that a bit for the next one .

Also, "rather be watching Phryne" is a rather high bar for anything to pass.

JJ is not directing Episode VIII. It's being written and directed by Rian Johnson, who made Looper and The Brothers Bloom.

Hmmm... interesting. Does that mean we get JGL?!? Oh please oh please oh please...

And Episode IX is being written and directed by Colin Trevorrow, who made Safety Not Guaranteed and Jurassic World.

I'm phone-posting from the unpleasant family holidays, so I can't properly meara, but I just want to say YOU KNOW NOTHING KYLO REN