• Newsfeed
  • movies

J. J. Abrams Finally Explains That Han Solo Kylo Ren Scene in The Force Awakens

2 minute read

There’s one scene in Star Wars: The Force Awakens that made audiences from Orlando to Osaka gasp and scream. If you’ve seen the movie, you know the scene. If you haven’t seen the movie, remedy that situation and then come back read this article. You’ve been warned.

When Harrison Ford’s Han Solo tries to save his son Ben a.k.a. Kylo Ren, (Adam Driver,) it doesn’t end well. In the painful scene, Ren ends up committing patricide via light saber and Han Solo became one of the 91 characters who died in Star Wars.

It was a heartbreaking and audience members left the theater searching for answers and turning to director J.J. Abrams with their lingering questions. Was Ren simply toying with his father’s emotions and actually planned to kill him from the moment he laid eyes on him? In a USA Today clip from the forthcoming 3D collector’s edition of The Force Awakens, Abrams finally answers that question.

“Kylo Ren in this moment is actually being convinced to walk away from this. He thinks that Ben is aware of the fact that Supreme Leader Snoke is using him, but can’t figure out how to live with that knowledge. Deep down, he’s gone too far,” Abrams explained.

Abrams apparently tried to warn the audience with some visual clues to prepare them for the outcome of the meeting between father and son.

“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,” he said.

Remember that when Star Wars: Episode VIII hits theaters in December 2017.

Watch below.

More Must-Reads From TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com