Star Wars’ Best Villain Already Forgotten

Part of what made Dryden Vos such a memorable villain was, of course, the performance from Paul Bettany. In the MCU, Bettany doesn’t get to do much except look intimidating and sound like your phone’s voice assistant after you slip it a Valium. But in Solo, Bettany crackles with menace, making it apparent how much savagery he hides beneath a cloak of civility.

Speaking of civility, Dryden Vos was a fun villain because he helped sell the glitz and the glamour that came from being part of the underworld in Star Wars. Previously, we mostly saw that criminal underworld through the lens of gangsters like Jabba the Hutt, and it didn’t look very enticing.

Like, who the heck would want to become an enemy of both the Empire and the Rebels just to sit around a dank palace listening to awful music while your boss alternates between eating frogs and harassing women? With a deadly gentleman like Vos, however, we can see more of the ritzy awards available for the riskiest criminals.

In Solo: A Star Wars Story, the elegance of Dryden Vos helps contextualize why Han’s former flame Qi’ra fell in with this man and his criminal organization. She dreamed of a better life and ultimately threw in with somebody who had the money and influence to give it to her, a decision that seems downright smart compared to fellow dreamer Han’s decision to join the Empire. After seeing Han risking his life in the mud to work for space Nazis, can anyone really criticize Qi’ra for joining a crime lord who can make her dreams into a reality?

Weirdly enough, the hamfisted message of The Last Jedi about how the galaxy is full of war profiteers makes Dryden Vos both more compelling and more sympathetic. As a relatively apolitical villain, it only makes sense that he would use the increasing unrest in the galaxy to make a profit, which automatically makes him more interesting than the usual mustache-twirling Star Wars villain. As Bettany acts alongside Emilia Clarke, it’s easy to see that he has big Game of Thrones energy, seeing the chaos in the galaxy as a ladder he can climb to even greater heights.

While he doesn’t have any fancy Force powers or anything, Dryden Vos emerges as a better villain even than Kylo Ren, the breakout character of the Sequel Trilogy. Adam Driver’s innate acting talents gave Ren a charismatic appeal, but he was very poorly written, going from being a knockoff Darth Vader to being the Luke Skywalker that you ordered from Wish. In other words, he was one-dimensional through his entire character arc, whereas Dryden Vos exhibits depth and three-dimensional characterization across all of his limited screen time.

When Star Wars fans discuss what they’d like from future movies and shows, a very common request is for stories that don’t revolve around Jedi, Sith, or famous families like the Skywalkers. The surprisingly great Solo: A Star Wars Story (seriously, go give it another chance!) provided a blueprint for what those stories might look like, right down to showing us a villain who can make the galaxy shake without using a lightsaber or wielding the Force. Dryden Vos is a killer Star Wars villain already forgotten by the fandom, and we can only hope Disney gives us someone nearly as cool for the next franchise Big Bad.