Turns Out Kylo Ren Likes to Keep the Ashes of His Victims Around for Funsies
JJ Abrams explained a mysterious 'Force Awakens' shot in a new interview.
Turns out Kylo Ren is even darker than we knew. In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, JJ Abrams gives the backstory of a much-talked-about shot where Kylo Ren sets his helmet down on a bed of ashes. Abrams says the shot was originally intended for a much earlier scene, but they ended up using it for the scene where Ren interrogates Rey.
Abrams loved the shot of the helmet on the ashes, but fans tortured themselves coming up with explanations — like maybe the ashes were General Hux's cat's litterbox. But in the new interview Abrams says the ashes were intended to be the burned remains of Ren's fallen enemies.
Well, that's dark.
"The backstory is, that that table has the ashes of the enemies he’s killed," Abrams said. "That moment was actually shot for, and meant to be used in, the scene where he was talking to the Vader mask."
Abrams also explained how the shot came to be used in Rey's interrogation scene: "He originally had his mask off the first time we shot that scene. Then we reshot it with his mask on, but we had that shot which I loved and thought was so cool of the mask being slammed down into that ash. So that shot was stolen from the scene that we had changed and put into the scene with Rey.”
That means that after Kylo Ren kills someone, he doesn't just walk away like, say, Darth Vader. No, he collects the body, immolates it, and keeps the ashes. So now we have two questions. First: Whose ashes are already in the pile? Second: Whose ashes will be added to it by the time this trilogy is over?
