Thanos or Kylo Ren: Who’s The Better Villain?

Disney has made me SOOO happy over the past few years with their mega-franchises, Star Wars and Marvel. Marvel has slowly but gradually become more and more entertaining over the years and Star Wars, well, Star Wars is the best. One thing Star Wars always had better than Marvel however were the villains. Marvel’s villain conundrum was the franchise’s main setback and made the films a little boring to watch because at the end of the day I knew, somehow, with every film that the heroes were going to win. Now, Marvel crafted a perfect formula at shaking things up and keeping the films fun and interesting but that’s exactly what it was; a formula that was never shaken or eradicated.

Star Wars on the other hand truly allows creative freedom to the movies’ individual creators and that was almost to a fault, for The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi were so different from each other that a lot of people rebuked the new direction the current Star Wars trilogy had headed and that slightly hurt the franchise.

With Avengers: Infinity War that formula was flipped on its head as the MCU finally created a villain that not only was compelling and memorable but so powerful that the heroes, no matter what they did, couldn’t defeat him! It was honestly one of the most incredible things I have ever seen. Thanos was basically a ridiculously difficult endgame boss brought to the big screen. Um…awesome!

And then The Last Jedi helped elevate Kylo Ren to a level where he wasn’t looked at as just a villain but as an individual who had just as much of a compelling storyline as Rey which isn’t usually seen in movies. At the end of The Force Awakens I despised Kylo Ren with all my being but by the end of The Last Jedi he was my favorite character of the current trilogy and that is a huge transition achieved by fantastic storytelling on Rian Johnson’s part. So…which villain is greater? Well, I’m going to base this analysis off of five criteria; design, villainy, storyline, victories, and music. I hope you enjoy. 🙂

Should Mara Jade Be Brought To the Current ‘Star Wars’ Canon?

When Disney bought Star Wars in 2012 they started a new canon that consisted of all of the Star Wars movies and cartoons but made the dozens of Star Wars books that were written over the years invalid with the current stories being told in the Star Wars universe. But as the years have gone by certain ideas were brought from the Legends canon into the various movies like the idea of Han and Leia having a son who went to the dark side or Luke being able to project an image of himself across thousands of light years. So if these ideas have been brought to the current Star Wars universe then shouldn’t Disney start weaving in some of the Legends’ most prominent and beloved characters? For example, Mara Jade.

If you’re not familiar with this character here’s a brief rundown on who she is. In the Legends canon she was the Emperor’s Hand, an assassin taught in the ways of the Force who killed corrupt Imperials and high-level rebel fighters alike. After the Emperor was defeated she was given a mission to kill Luke Skywalker but didn’t, instead going rogue and becoming a smuggler. Long story short, she ended up marrying Luke Skywalker, they both had a son named Ben (that sounds familiar,) and became one of the leaders of the new and improved Jedi Council.