While George Lucas wanted to keep some surprises for audiences with his new villains when the Star Wars prequels were coming out, J.J. Abrams doesn’t care. He apparently wants us to know almost everything about Kylo Ren, the villain in The Force Awakens.
Since Kylo Ren, played by Adam Driver, uses a red lightsaber, that lead some to think that he is a Sith Lord. However, in an interview with Empire Magazine, director Abrams said that this is not the case.
“Kylo Ren is not a Sith,” Abrams said. “He works under Supreme Leader Snoke, who is a powerful figure on the Dark Side of the Force.”
Snoke is the digital character Andy Serkis is playing, so Abrams might be hinting that Snoke is also Force-sensitive.
Abrams also said that the idea of The First Order, the group Kylo Ren is working for, was born from conversations about the Nazis after they were defeated.
“That all came out of conversations about what would have happened if the Nazis all went to Argentina but then started working together again?” Abrams told Empire. “What could be born of that? Could The First Order exist as a group that actually admired The Empire? Could the work of The Empire be seen as unfulfilled? And could Vader be a martyr? Could there be a need to see through what didn’t get done?”
Earlier this month, Abrams revealed other little tidbits about Kylo Ren in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. He said that the three-pronged lightsaber was built by Kylo Ren himself and that the name we know him as isn’t his real name. “Ren” is actually a title and he belongs to a group called the “Knights of Ren.”
Hopefully, there’s still some surprises about Kylo Ren that we haven’t learned yet that will not be revealed until we see The Force Awakens on Dec. 18.
cover from Empire Magazine