J.J. Abrams Explains That Fateful ‘Force Awakens’ Meeting

Via USAtoday.com:

Who isn’t still stinging a little bit from Harrison Ford’s Han Solo getting a lightsaber in the gut from his son Ben, aka Adam Driver’s masked villain Kylo Ren, in Star Wars: The Force Awakens?

The 3D collector’s edition of The Force Awakens rolls out internationally Oct. 31 and arrives in the USA Nov. 15, and in this exclusive commentary from director J.J. Abrams, he explains the underlying emotion of that fateful meeting:

People always ask Abrams if the youngster was playing with his father’s emotions and planned to murder him the whole time, but reveals that “Kylo Ren in this moment is actually being convinced to walk away from this.”

Abrams also thinks, as Han says, Ben knows that Supreme Leader Snoke is using him but can’t accept it. “Deep down, he’s gone too far.”

The director also makes an observation that ties this scene to a similar one between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back: “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 with one of them.”

Unfortunately, we’re going to have to wait a while to find out if Ben’s feeling guilty about the whole situation — Star Wars: Episode VIII doesn’t hit theaters until Dec. 15, 2017.