Force Awakens director JJ Abrams explains original plan for THAT Han Solo/Kylo Ren scene
How was Kylo and Han's fateful meeting in Star Wars meant to play out?
It's the Force Awakens scene that had Star Wars fans gripping on to the arms of their cinema seats and biting their nails to the quick: the dramatic meeting between father Han Solo and son Kylo Ren on a dangerously narrow and barrier-free walkway...
SPOILERS follow – just in case you are still concerned about this sort of thing (it's been ages, but, you know).
Did Kylo lure his dad into a final, fateful confrontation just to kill him, or was he genuinely almost taken in by his dad's pleas to turn away from the Dark Side?
Director JJ Abrams has revealed what he thought was going on – and what he was hoping for from the actors – in that crucial scene.
"People have asked me if I think that Kylo Ren was just playing with him the whole time, if he meant to kill him from the beginning," he says in his commentary for the 3D re-release of The Force Awakens (full clip below).
"And the truth is, I think, that Kylo Ren in this moment is actually being convinced to walk away from this. Snoke is, as Han says, using him, and I think that somewhere Ben knows this, but I think that he can't accept it. Deep down he has gone too far."
The scene leads to Han, played by Harrison Ford, making his exit from the film franchise for good when Kylo (Adam Driver) plunges a lightsaber through his heart - and through the hearts of Star Wars fans everywhere.
"Obviously any time two characters in Star Wars go out on an incredibly thin bridge 10 miles above the ground with no railings, it's not going to end well for one of them," Abrams added.
Too true.
