Star Wars 7 Director Explains Kylo Ren's Table of Ashes

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inferiorego

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Edited By inferiorego  Staff

Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out on Blu-ray this week. In addition to the feature film being released, there were also deleted scenes, commentary, and behind-the-scenes pieces giving fans an in-depth look at everything about the new film. One of the small moments fans may have missed is Kylo Ren slamming his helmet down onto a pile of ashes.

No Caption Provided

While talking with EW, director J.J. Abrams explained what was going on with the scene. When Kylo Ren interrogates Rey in the Starkiller Base, he takes off his mask for the first time and sets it down onto a table of ash that Abrams says was intended for an earlier scene.

"The backstory is, that that table has the ashes of the enemies he's killed," Abrams says. "That moment was actually shot for, and meant to be used in, the scene where he was talking to the Vader mask."

Adam Driver's Sith-in-training, Kylo Ren, wants to walk to path of the Dark Side, but he seems to treat his journey and the Sith before him, mainly Vader, as an obsession, something he feels nostalgia for. It's almost like his enemies become sacrifices for the Dark Side. Ren shows more emotion than any other Force-sensitive character fans have seen in the past. Abrams went on to talk about the act of slamming the helmet down onto the table.

"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," Abrams says. "So that shot was stolen from the scene that we had changed and put into the scene with Rey."

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is currently available both digital and in Blu-ray formats.

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z3ro180

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Dame that's dark

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Galerion

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Wow I thought I was living in a cave or something for a moment since I totally missed it being released but then I took a look again and saw that we have to wait till April 28th here in Germany so everything's still OK lol.

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elam1999

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Great, so he's trying to out-Hitler somebody who is inspired by Hitler...

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Materiel

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I thought they were his own dried tears from when he cuts himself with his lightsaber.

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SilverPool

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Goellterator

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Ducey13

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One day someone will have to put together a companion guide of all stuff Abrams has had to explain in interviews that he couldn't successfully convey in the film.

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Doc-Holiday

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That's pretty cool. Not something I expected, I expected the ashes to be whatever remained of Sidius or Vader so that he had some form of essence of the previous Sith Lords or even not ashes at all but sand taken from Corriban.

I really like Kylo as a character, the struggle of maintaining his hold on his darkside shows a slightly more gray view that we rarely see in most Sith/Jedi characters, too often it is simple a stark contrast of good and evil with the Jedi being pure good and Sith pure evil but Kylo shows that even a want for something; power, control, etc. is fraught with various obstacles. I am not saying I want to be like him, I just appreciate a character who isn't just the stereotypical bond villain of evil for the sake of evil.

I truly hope that Finn is trained as a Jedi in the next movie; going only on what was shown in the film, there was a moment when Kylo stopped because he sensed something and then looked at Finn, Kylo also knew Finn was the one who helped Po before he was even told, it's possible that what Finn experienced during that massacre was an awakening of the force within himself and I'd like to see him trained to use the force. As it stands, for a guy who never used a lightsaber but had at least basic combat training, he became very comfortable with said lightsaber relatively quickly and I think that may show some talent for the Jedi arts.

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Stahlflamme

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@ducey13 said:

One day someone will have to put together a companion guide of all stuff Abrams has had to explain in interviews that he couldn't successfully convey in the film.

This. I don't care what creators say in interviews, tweet or post on tumblr, if they fail to show it in the actual medium, they fail. I wonder whether the term show don't tell will soon mean show in the product don't tell in a different medium.

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Pelykan

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How could you miss this shot?
It bugged the hell out of me in the theater when I saw him put his helmet in a bowl of ash for absolutely no reason.

If it's all the ashes of his enemies than that opens up some questions. Did he actually go through all the trouble of giving his enemies proper cremations? Doesn't seem very vilainy.

And JJ's explanation of leaving it in 'because it looks cool' is terrible, he is not the hero we deserve.

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Bat_SAINT

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I thought it was Vaders ashes.

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Galerion

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@pelykan said:

How could you miss this shot?

It bugged the hell out of me in the theater when I saw him put his helmet in a bowl of ash for absolutely no reason.

If it's all the ashes of his enemies than that opens up some questions. Did he actually go through all the trouble of giving his enemies proper cremations? Doesn't seem very vilainy.

And JJ's explanation of leaving it in 'because it looks cool' is terrible, he is not the hero we deserve.

Isn't that the point with the character?

He is pretty unique because instead of the typical light side character gets corrupted by the dark side schtick, it's the other way around for him. He feels being on the dark side is his destination but the light side in him keeps pulling at him and making him conflicted.

Im interested to see what Snooke has planed for him

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tparks

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He got dead folks in his helmet? Ewww

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Dark_Stranger

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So does this mean he'll be getting lung cancer at some point, and thus end up with some odd breathing noises like Vader, or what?

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Jestersmiles

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@ducey13 said:

One day someone will have to put together a companion guide of all stuff Abrams has had to explain in interviews that he couldn't successfully convey in the film.

No Caption Provided

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ThomasElliot

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#16  Edited By ThomasElliot

@stahlflamme said:
@ducey13 said:

One day someone will have to put together a companion guide of all stuff Abrams has had to explain in interviews that he couldn't successfully convey in the film.

This. I don't care what creators say in interviews, tweet or post on tumblr, if they fail to show it in the actual medium, they fail. I wonder whether the term show don't tell will soon mean show in the product don't tell in a different medium.

I agree for the most part... if you need to refer to something outside the film for understanding/explanation, then it means the film was lacking.

The thing about Abrams is he does it intentionally. Star Trek 2 was like that. There's a Khan comic mini-series that fully explains Khans origins, and it makes the movie so much better, however it doesn't forgive, and it doesn't mean ST2 gets a pass.

But compared to SW7... while I know Abrams pulled the same stunt with SW7, it did not feel as lacking as the ST films did. Some of these things like 'what are the ashes'? Really? Who gave a crap? Not understanding where dirt came from ruined a whole film? If it was major story point that affects the plot (like Khan having had plastic surgery to change his appearance), then I agree.

Other things in SW7 without explanation is because its presented as a mystery that's supposed to be solved in later films, at least that's how I felt about it. I didn't feel like something was missing that didn't make sense.

Again, in no way am I defending Abrams, just saying its not quite that bad in regards to SW7.

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sirfizzwhizz

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@materiel said:

I thought they were his own dried tears from when he cuts himself with his lightsaber.

^

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@ducey13 said:

One day someone will have to put together a companion guide of all stuff Abrams has had to explain in interviews that he couldn't successfully convey in the film.

No Caption Provided

This too. Abrams suck at explaining things, and adds in shit to make scenes shot shitty look better ;/

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jsawyerjj

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