Star Wars: The Last Jedi - 13 Audacious Moments That Have Divided Fans

Once again, a line in the trailer told us what was coming: "Let the past die. Kill it if you have to." This is the main trajectory of Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi: breaking away from the path laid out for him by Darth Vader, and moving to establish a new, individual legacy.

Let's face it, from his introduction in The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren was widely derided as a poor man's Vader, notable more for throwing tantrums with his lightsaber than inspiring real awe as his predecessor did. Some bemoaned Adam Driver's casting, on the grounds that he wasn't nearly macho or intimidating enough.

This, however, was entirely deliberate; it was even addressed in The Force Awakens, when Rey reads his mind and declares, "you're afraid that you will never be as strong as Darth Vader." Despite his strength with the Force, Kylo Ren is painfully aware of his inadequacies, and wears his own variation on Vader's helmet in the hopes of hiding them.

So when Snoke tells Kylo to "take that ridiculous thing off," and he proceeds to smash his helmet to rubble in the elevator, this initially seems like yet another one of his childish fits of anger; yet it's so much more than that.

In destroying his helmet, Kylo serves much the same impulse as Luke does when throwing away the lightsaber: disavowing the legend, casting aside the path he is expected to take, and resolving to follow a new road of his own design.

Note that he never puts the helmet back on; at this point, it seems safe to assume he will not again in Episode IX.