The Last Jedi Director Explains Why It Was Important To Have Kylo Topless

For a certain section of the audience, there’s one particularly eye-catching scene in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. It’s not some lightsaber battle or cool new craft, though. Rather, it’s Adam Driver strutting around topless as Kylo Ren during one of the Force chats with Rey. But, since the film’s release, there’s been some mild debate amongst fans whether Rey is asking Ren to put on a “towel” or a “cowl.”

Well, you can sleep easy tonight because we now have a definitive answer. The closed-captioned version of the movie says that Rey is asking Ren to “put on a cowl or something.” I originally thought that this might be because there simply aren’t towels in the Star Wars universe, but (predictably) Wookiepedia reveals that towels have featured on two occasions (in X-Wing: Isard’s Revenge and The Paradise Snare). Apparently, they’re commonly made from nerf-wool, which makes for “luxuriously soft and water-absorbing towels.”

For the sake of accuracy, I should point out that these appearances are in the now non-canon Star Wars EU and that towels have not appeared since the Disney reboot. But, let’s face it, they must exist or else people would be all gross and damp when they got dressed after a shower.

Rian Johnson has chipped in on that topless scene, too, explaining its importance in establishing a connection between Ren and Rey:

“It’s all about those Force connection scenes. The keyword being intimacy. And the idea that this was a way to just, why not step that up? The idea that, what’s even more uncomfortable having a conversation face to face with a person you don’t want to, is if they’re half-naked during it, while you’re having to do it. And so it was just another way of kind of disrobing Kylo literally and figuratively a little bit more, and pushing that sense of these conversations becoming increasingly more intimate.”

Anyway, clearly the correct answer of what Ren should put on in Star Wars: The Last Jedi isn’t a towel OR a cowl. It’s actually nothing at all. I mean, have you seen the guy? Woof!