One of the better choices Rian Johnson made in Star Wars: The Last Jedi is dropping the ‘Knights of Ren’ plotline completely. The Knights of Ren were vaguely teased in The Force Awakens with little to no backstory so completely ignoring them in The Last Jedi wasn’t a big deal, at least not to me. Perhaps they were an integral part of Ben Solo’s early days in the dark side. Maybe they left him after he broke some sort of code. Maybe he killed them all to go solo. Interesting questions, sure, but not paramount to the current trajectory of the narrative established in The Force Awakens and continued in The Last Jedi.
However, JJ Abrams brought them back in The Rise of Skywalker and left us with more questions than answers. Are they Kylo Ren’s personal recruits? Are they his friends? What is his relationship with them? Worst of all: When and why did they betray him to join old man Palpatine? If JJ Abrams wanted to bring back the Knights of Ren, then we at least needed to understand the dynamics between the characters, if not their complete backstory.
Well, it looks like we will be getting some answers… in the extended canon. Which is frankly a little annoying. And this is coming from someone who does enjoy diving into the extended canon. We can’t casually just excuse plot holes and unanswered questions by simply saying, “well, let’s just wait for the extended canon to find out.”
Anyway, the new comic series titled Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren by Charles Soule and Will Sliney will detail Ben Solo’s journey into the dark side and also tell us who the hell are the Knights of Ren. Per THR:
The second issue of the series by Charles Soule and Will Sliney adds considerable backstory to Adam Driver’s character from the film sequel trilogy, revealing that Ben Solo had met the Knights of Ren years before he turned against Luke Skywalker and the burgeoning Jedi Order, while exploring a Jedi outpost on the planet Elphrona alongside Skywalker and Lon Sen Tekka, a character introduced in 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
The fight between Skywalker and the seven Knights of Ren — one of whom identifies himself as Ren — ends in a stalemate, with Ren inviting Ben Solo to join them, before leaving; this happened years before Solo destroyed Skywalker’s Jedi temple, and it’s after that later point when Solo returns to Elphrona at the bidding of Snoke to search out the Knights anew. The issue ends with Ren inviting Solo to meet them, revealing that he knows Snoke in the process.
The series which runs for four issues will also discuss how Ben Solo eventually becomes the leader of the Knights of Ren and also how Snoke fits into the whole picture.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is currently playing in Malaysian cinemas.
