The Disturbing Origin Of Kylo Ren’s Ash Table In Star Wars: The Force Awakens

We recently found out one of the major reasons that Ben Solo turned away from his family and embraced the dark side by joining Snoke as Kylo Ren in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and now a new interview with director J.J. Abrams reveals that he actually went much darker than anyone could have realized.

In one of the most intense scenes in the movie, Ren removes his helmet while interrogating a captive Rey, and we see a shot of him slamming it down into a table full of ashes. Turns out that’s not just part of Kylo’s eccentric decor, as there’s a much more sinister reason that they’re there..

The backstory is, that that table has the ashes of the enemies he’s killed,” Abrams tells EW. “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. He used to place his mask gingerly onto a piece of the set, which was incredibly unimpressive. So this moment made it a much cooler beat.

Okay, great – but can we get back to the cremated remains of the people Ren murdered adorning his table for a minute?  At least we can take comfort in the fact that he never got the chance to add Han Solo’s ashes to the pile. At least, we hope not.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is out on Blu-ray and DVD now.