Nine months after it hit theaters, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker looks set to go down in history as a major anticlimax. There were still a couple of cool moments, the best being the all-too-brief flashback to Luke instructing Leia to become a Jedi soon after Return of the Jedi, but damn near everything else felt inconsequential and half-baked.
One aspect that was particularly disappointing were the much-hyped Knights of Ren. Teased by Disney and Lucasfilm since The Force Awakens, we finally got to see them throw down against Kylo Ren near the finale of The Rise of Skywalker. Sadly, however, it proved to be an unmemorable battle that lasted about thirty seconds. It feels uncharitable to suggest they were merely there to bulk out the Star Wars action figure line but… well, they obviously were.
Fortunately, these characters have been fleshed out a little more in material outside the movies. The Rise of Kylo Ren comic has shown them being seduced to the Dark Side by Supreme Leader Snoke and Kylo’s first days with the Knights before taking them over. Now, an upcoming book titled Star Wars: The Lightsaber Collection sheds a little more light on their original leader, Ren, as you can see below.
The book bills itself as an exploration of “the legendary lightsabers found within the Star Wars galaxy” and takes us through the designs and lore behind hilts from the movies, TV shows, comics, novels and video games. Ren’s saber, known as The Ren, is featured in it and the description gives us an idea of his philosophy, as it reads:
“The Ren doesn’t stop to worry about the right or wrong of it, the Ren just is. It lives, and it consumes, and it doesn’t apologize. It is its nature and nothing else.”
Cool stuff. I wish this character had made it into the movies and wasn’t confined to a comic book, but oh well.
The interesting-looking Star Wars: The Lightsaber Collection hits stores on October 20th, 2020.