Where Were The Knights Of Ren In The Last Jedi?
To say that Star Wars The Last Jedi was divisive is an understatement in nearly every sense of the word. Many fans felt that the film didn’t live up to the hype it was presented with (or the 92% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Moreso, they felt that certain characters were given the shaft, and that the plot was full of holes and unanswered questions. Many were about the heroes, but some were about the villains.
Aside from the obvious, “Who was Snoake?”, the other big question involved Kylo Ren. In The Force Awakens, we got a glimpse of him surrounded by the “Knights Of Ren”. In The Last Jedi, we get some backstory on them, as they’re followers of Kylo after he tried to kill Luke and burned the new Jedi temple down. Yet, they don’t appear in the film. Why? Well, according to director Rian Johnson, via Empire Podcast, it all had to do with timing and the size of the cast.
“We have a very full movie already there literally was just not room for another element,” Johnson explained. “I guess I could’ve used them in place of the Praetorian guards but then it would feel like wasting them because all those guards had to die. And if Kylo had some kind of connection to them it would’ve added a complication that wouldn’t have helped the scene… Truth is, I just didn’t see a place for them in the movie.”
He is right about one thing, The Last Jedi was very full, and it came in at around 2 hours and 30 minutes, the longest Star Wars movie ever. We’d be very surprised though in the Knights of Ren don’t appear in Episode IX next year.