Disney Probably Couldn’t Make a Ben Solo Movie Even if It Wanted To

In recent months, Star Wars news has been more like the deserts of Tatooine rather than the bustling cityscape of Coruscant. After years of non-stop casting, trailers, reveals, and more, the changing of the guard at Lucasfilm has resulted in a mostly calm landscape with one or two little blips here and there. With the exception of Ben Solo. In October of last year, Star Wars star Adam Driver revealed that he and friend/Oscar-winner Steven Soderbergh had worked for multiple years on a project they were calling The Hunt for Ben Solo. It would’ve explored Driver’s character in more detail, in a story set after the events of The Rise of Skywalker. However, Disney decided not to move forward with it. This, of course, sent Star Wars fans into a frenzy. This was a real thing, and it wasn’t happening? How was this not happening? Well, Driver and Soderbergh both explained that, basically, Disney executives said Ben Solo was dead, so bringing him back didn’t make sense. Even though they’d just released a movie that brought back Emperor Palpatine and faked the deaths of multiple other characters, in a franchise that brings back characters more often than not, that was the biggest hang-up. @ Lucasfilm Which, on the one hand, sort of made sense. Executives tend to make decisions based on statistics and facts. And it is a fact that Ben Solo is dead. It is also a fact, though, that Ben Solo is a character fans really connected with and wanted more of. Let us not forget, while the Star Wars sequel trilogy mostly centered on a potential nobody named Rey becoming a Jedi to combat the First Order, her main adversary was the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa, named after Obi-Wan Kenobi, who’d turned to the Dark Side (like his grandfather Darth Vader) when his uncle, Luke Skywalker, made a crucial mistake. Ben Solo was the personification of everything fans wanted from the future of Star Wars, and while his arc as Kylo Ren was certainly interesting, the possibility of exploring it further made fans salivate. Unfortunately, the more we learned about the project, the sadder it got, and just this month, Driver put a period on the story, basically saying it was dead. But that recent resurrection of the news made us realize something. While the cut-and-dry “Ben Solo is dead” explanation works on a surface level, in reality, the issue feels so much deeper than that. Basically, the way I see it, Lucasfilm simply can’t, and could never, make a movie about Ben Solo. Making a movie about Ben Solo, especially one set after the events of the Sequel Trilogy, would be an indirect admission that the Sequel Trilogy was a failure and set up a domino effect any smart executive would do anything to avoid. © Lucasfilm Follow the thinking here. You’ve just completed this trilogy. It was a huge financial success, but the final film had problems starting very early on, and the result was not the beloved triumph you’d hoped for. And so, you’re understandably cautious about what’s next. Star Wars is too important to jump into something too quickly. This next film means everything. And that’s why, in reality, it took seven years to make a movie, and it was based on a TV show with established characters. That didn’t work either, but we digress. Then this Ben Solo movie comes along. Adam Driver, Steven Soderbergh—it sounds promising. However, following up The Rise of Skywalker by immediately retconning the ending of that film reshapes it and the trilogy in several ways. We, of course, don’t know what exactly was going to happen in The Hunt for Ben Solo, but assuming it involved Ben Solo coming back to life and finding a redemption beyond the rushed one he got in The Rise of Skywalker, it would make The Rise of Skywalker feel kind of useless. And if The Rise of Skywalker is useless, The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi get undercut as well. If Ben is back, Kylo Ren’s story is no longer one of only satisfying redemption. No longer is Rey Skywalker the Last Jedi. No longer is she the last Skywalker. Ben and Rey have to deal with each other. It sets up quite a domino effect, and that’s just the beginning. © Lucasfilm Think about rewatching Return of the Jedi. Yes, it’s still super fun, but the ending hits differently decades later. When it came out, you finished the movie feeling happy that the Rebels had won. It was the end of the story. Now we know that, in the Star Wars universe, that happiness and celebration were short-lived. The Empire continued to be a problem; the Jedi never came back, there was more war, and ultimately the whole thing happened again with the First Order vs. the Resistance. It’s kind of a bummer. That doesn’t make us think any less of Return of the Jedi now, but almost 30 years helps with that. If The Force Awakens was the very next movie, fans certainly would’ve felt more than a little cheated. Plus, if Ben Solo is back, you’re all but forced (pun intended) to use him in subsequent films. Yes, a potential Episode X could jump 100 years into the future, and Ben and Rey could be long gone, but that’s never going to happen, right? Using recognizable characters in your franchise reboot is Hollywood 101. Disney also spent a lot of time and money to make it clear The Rise of Skywalker was the end of the Skywalker Saga. Bringing back Ben Solo would’ve not only negated that but also made the path forward much more defined than it was with just Rey. @ Lucasfilm And all that is simply if the film existed. Imagine if it came out and was awesome! Fans would revolt that we got a full trilogy that didn’t use these awesome characters to their full potential. It would be proof that, in the hands of more assured storytellers, those films should and could have been better. For Disney, it was a lose, lose, lose scenario. Basically, while it would have been awesome to see The Hunt for Ben Solo, we don’t think it’s something that could’ve happened. It would have held up a mirror to the Star Wars franchise in ways that forced a reassessment of previous decisions instead of a clean break from them. We still don’t know exactly how the story of the Jedi continues, but we’re pretty sure Ben Solo won’t be a part of it, just like his uncle, mom, dad, grandfather, and namesake. Want more io9 news? Check out the best movies and TV shows to stream this month and all the upcoming sci-fi, fantasy, and horror books that should be on your radar.