General Hux was a formidable foe in The Force Awakens, as the First Order leader was depicted as a fierce, sadistic monster. In Star Wars: The Last Jedi, however, Hux was portrayed as more of a punching bag and the butt of the joke. Poe Dameron ran rings around him in their hilarious conversation near the beginning of the film and both Snoke and Kylo Ren knocked him around as punishment.
There was one moment that reminded audiences how tough Hux could be, though. When he stumbles upon the slaughter of Snoke’s throne room on board the Supremacy, finding Kylo standing over the Supreme Leader’s bisected body, Hux reaches for a weapon. However, he stops himself as he realizes that he would have no hope against Ren in combat if Adam Driver’s antagonist was powerful enough to take down Snoke.
The impetus for this moment came from actor Domhall Gleeson himself. In response to the way the rest of the movie treated him as a bit of a lackey, Gleeson talked writer/director Rian Johnson into letting him add in this small addition to the scene to get across that Hux is a very nasty guy.
“That was the one moment I asked Rian for. General Hux is like a kicked dog for the whole movie, he just keeps on getting thrown into stuff and bullied, and I was like, ‘I wouldn’t like people to forget that he’s also a really nasty piece of work and could have an effect on the way things move forward.'”
While Snoke was the one pulling the strings, and Kylo Ren is the current poster boy for the Dark Side, Hux arguably has the biggest body count of the three of them. Starkiller Base was deployed on his orders, after all, meaning you could lay the blame for the billions that died from its blast at his feet.
While Star Wars: The Last Jedi may not have been a perfect sequel, Gleeson’s portrayal of Hux was certainly a highlight of the film and as such, we look forward to seeing more of the villain when Episode IX touches down on December 20th, 2019.
