Watch The Last Jedi’s final showdown between Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren in 16-bit
By Buckie Wells
Visually, 16-bit is the only way to enhance The Last Jedi’s showdown between Kylo Ren and Luke Skywalker, but I still miss Adam Driver’s whiny shouting.
YouTube, like the rest of the Internet, can be a scary place. It’s a platform for anybody with a camera to say whatever they want, a streaming competitor, and of course, a place to find cool videos that play on big pop culture tickets. Case in point, Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Which is still enjoying its theatrical climb past a billion while the rest of us quibble over details that ultimately won’t affect what comes out in 2019.
And though it’s still in theaters, John Stratman wonderfully recreated the third act confrontation between Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren in 16-bit animation, with AT-M6s and red salt that looks more like blood splatter than anything else. But the lightsabers look better than A New Hope’s.
Check it out below:
Now, as cool as this is, it doesn’t feel the same as watching the actual film.
As with any movie, The Last Jedi gave us good and otherwise less favorable moments. But no matter how you feel about the film’s villain, Kylo Ren, you just can’t ignore what Adam Driver himself brings to the table. He commands the entirety of the screen, and I don’t just mean because he’s huge. He’s just an altogether mesmerizing performer. Not just in Star Wars, but in pretty much everything he’s been in.
One of my favorite demonstrations of this was how he behaved on Crait, specifically. When Kylo Ren came face-to-face (sorta) with Luke Skywalker again and all his insecurities jumped to the forefront … phew. I don’t condone his actions, of course. But it was just so fun to watch. In that moment, he became an embodiment of anger, ignored every single tactical suggestion thrown his way and just lost his mind. In my opinion, he also delivered the three most hilarious lines of the entire film, including “Blast the piece of junk out of the sky!”, “MORE!!!” and when Luke says he’s sorry, Kylo screams, “I’m sure you are!”
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Like, guys, he’s meant to be a grown man, okay? You would be downright startled if Poe Dameron just up and screamed the way Kylo does. And yes, I know that points to the big difference in their overall characters, but Adam Driver makes juvenile tantrums seem legitimately interesting, if not fun.
Naturally, it’s hard to upset anyone in 16-bit, so hopefully, this will quell at least a little bit of the Star Wars divisiveness going on right now.