Warning. This point contains MAJOR spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. If you haven’t seen it yet and you don’t want to be spoiled, turn back now. You have been warned..
While Star Wars: The Force Awakens answers the big mystery surrounding the saga’s new villain Kylo Ren, revealing his real – or rather, former – identity, we don’t get much in the way of details as to his backstory.
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We do know he’s actually Ben Solo, son of Han Solo and Leia Organa and a former pupil of Luke Skywalker, who betrayed his uncle and destroyed the new Jedi Order for Supreme Leader Snoke. But what led him to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and turn to the Dark Side? Well, J.J. Abrams has offered up some of his thoughts during an interview with IGN:
“Kylo Ren idolizes Darth Vader, not Anakin Skywalker. He idolizes what Vader represents and what Vader was trying to do, and the idea that Vader didn’t succeed – if you look at it from Ren’s point of view, he was seduced by the enemy and failed because of that seduction. And so the idea is that Ren wants to complete the thing that Vader started… [He has] incredible power, incredible force and incredible potential that was, like with many young people, sort of misguided and unclear. The story for him is one of conflict, not just external conflict, but internal conflict, and it’s what makes him, I think, a rather interesting villain.”
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Star Wars: The Force Awakens is out now and sees J.J. Abrams directing returning stars Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Harrison Ford (Han Solo), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Kenny Baker (R2-D2), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) and Tim Rose (Admiral Ackbar), in addition to Adam Driver (Girls), Oscar Isaac (A Most Violent Year), Andy Serkis (Avengers: Age of Ultron), Domhnall Gleeson (Ex Machina), John Boyega (Attack the Block), Daisy Ridley (Silent Witness), Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones), Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave), Ken Leung (Lost), Miltos Yerolemou (Game of Thrones), Max von Sydow (The Exorcist), Jessica Henwick (Spirit Warriors), Christina Chong (24: Live Another Day), Simon Pegg (Star Trek) and newcomers Crystal Clarke and Pip Andersen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=ymcu7eigVyg
Originally published December 19, 2015. Updated April 15, 2018.
