Adam Driver came up with his own backstory for Star Wars: The Force Awakens quickly settled how the character's connected to the Skywalker family. However, the sequel trilogy barely explored what his life was before he turned to the Dark side and committed to following the footsteps of his grandfather Darth Vader.
While the mystery of Kylo Ren's parentage was quickly resolved, it wasn't until Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi that fans learned how he exactly turned his back from his family and ed Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis). Based on the film, the villain's turn was motivated by Luke Skywalker's (Mark Hamill) momentary lapse in judgment, attempting to kill his own nephew because he's afraid of what he might become. Other than that, fans don't see much of the character before he assumed his evil persona as Kylo Ren.
Driver took it upon himself to fill this storytelling gap from the sequel trilogy. According to "The Magicians" author Lev Grossman who interviewed Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker's cast for Vanity Fair's extensive feature last year, the actor came up with Kylo Ren's own backstory. Here's what he told Inverse:
“I think probably the thing that was missing for me, I wanted to see more about Kylo’s childhood. I thought they would go back to show us more about why he turned to the dark side. [Adam Driver] had a lot of interesting thoughts about Ben Solo’s childhood. This is actually something Adam Driver said. He said that both Han Solo and Leia were way too self-absorbed and into this idea of themselves as heroes to really be attentive parents in the way a young and tender Kylo Ren really needed. There wasn’t really that much of it in the movie so I just think we have to assume his childhood sucked.”
Grossman isn't the only one who feels that the sequel trilogy failed to reveal anything substantial about Kylo Ren's childhood. There weew no flashbacks or even stories from Han, Leia, or anyone else who knew him before he succumbed to the dark side. Frankly, it would've been made him a more well-rounded character if any of the recent Skywalker saga movies tackled this in any form; allowing a clearer juxtaposition between how he was as a child and the angry man he grew up to be. It's especially disappointing considering how great Driver was when depicting Ben Solo in the short time following his redemption toward the end of The Rise of Skywalker. Now, if Star Wars fans want to learn more about the character's pre-Kylo Ren days, they'd have to turn to the comic books with "Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren" chronicling his path to the dark side.
At this point, who even knows what's Ben Solo's childhood really like in canon? Obviously, Driver's version isn't officially accepted in Star Wars, but the fact that he had to come up with the aforementioned scenario is indicative of how much the sequel trilogy missed when it came to building up his (or frankly any other new) character. Kylo Ren and Leia didn't even share the screen together, making it more difficult to gauge what exactly their dynamic was as mother and son. Granted that The Rise of Skywalker could've done this if not for Fisher's untimely death, but this shouldn't have been a problem if they decided to establish Kylo Ren's childhood early on.
Source: Inverse
