“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” director J.J. Abrams has released a few more interesting details about the saga’s newest masked bad boy, Kylo Ren, played by “Girls” star Adam Driver.
“Kylo Ren is not a Sith,” Abrams told Empire magazine, which also released new images of the lightsaber-wielding villain, co-writer Lawrence Kasdan previously said brings “something that’s brand new to the saga.”
(Whoops! Please pardon the few times TheWrap assumed the character was a Sith due to that black cloak, scary mask and red lightsaber.)
Abrams previously teased Ren’s mask is “meant to be a nod to the Vader mask,” and that he “came to the name Kylo Ren when he joined a group called the Knights of Ren.” Now Abrams has pulled back the curtain a little more.
“He works under Supreme Leader Snoke, who is a powerful figure on the Dark Side of the Force,” the filmmaker said, and then teased the First Order — a new intergalactic threat that has risen since the Galactic Empire fell at the end of “Return of the Jedi.”
“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 said. “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?”
Disney is releasing the seventh episode in the blockbuster franchise on Dec. 18.
