Star Trek vs. Star Wars (and a collection of memes)

I found Kylo Ren interesting from a story telling perspective. First I disliked him. His appearance, the way he throws tantrums and the strange thing that somebody who is almost untrained can hold their own against him in a fight, if only for a limited time.

But then I thought about it a bit. Notes:
- Adam Driver looks far less babyfaced in real life than in TFA. -> intentional for dramatic purposes
- hides behind a mask -> he knows that people probably won't take him as serious as they do this way
- throws tantrums
- has HUGE problems with his identity. He is a typical Star Wars character _backwards_. He feels the pull of the light side and tries to resist, instead of the other way round.
- he wants to be like Vader, but fails. And that failure weighs so heavy on him, he is desperate to gain back control. So desperate he even kills his father to finally get it over with.

That guy is a wannabe, who is strong in the force (although probably not as strong as Rey), but unsufficiently trained. And since there is noone around who can judge him he pretends to be much more than he is. For many of his troops he is like Vader because they know nothing about what a real Jedi/Sith can do, but half of the time he is merely doing the three tricks he actually is capable of and faking the rest.

He isn't that good with his lightsaber. Most of the time he is probably doing his training by himself and/or hitting defenseless objects/people with it. Maybe he even thinks he can use it properly although he clearly doesn't. Rey is probably not even as good with the Lightsaber as Luke in TESB and still almost able to beat him (injured and not in control of his emotions, granted).

IMO we see traces of a nice character development there, although a little rushed. I wonder how he will look and act in epVIII.

The only thing I don't really understand: How was he able to beat Luke? How were any of those clowns (Knights of Ren or whatever) able to beat Luke? According to everything we know Luke in ROTJ and thereafter is as powerful with the Force as Vader ever was, and probably as good with the lightsaber. Didn't Luke feel something was wrong, like Yoda and Windu did when the Clone Wars started? Didn't he feel the dark side?

As for the rest of the movie btw: Too much recycling and too much fan service, but the movie was... OK I guess.

 

Yeah I am pretty sure there wasn't a fight against Luke. What I meant was: how were they able to plot their betrayal and Luke didn't know they would and prevent them from doing so.