With inner change sometimes comes outer change.
In The Last Jedi, the second installment of the most recent Star Wars trilogy, the villainous
Kylo Ren lightsaber-slashes his way to a new position of power within the First Order:
Supreme Leader, snatching the title from his former mentor Snoke after assassinating him
in his throne room.
As a symbolic gesture rejecting Snoke's influence over him well before that, Ren smashes his
helmet, which is particularly notable given Snoke's insult:
"You're just a child… in a mask."
The Skywalker saga-ending film The Rise of Skywalker sees Kylo exercising his new authority,
and taking on a modified version of his old look.
He has the helmet rebuilt from its pieces, inspired to do so after meeting Emperor Palpatine.
The reworked headgear features jagged silver bits and red vein-like stripes running across
it, evidence that the smashed parts got welded back together in a not-totally-precise way.
Rise of Skywalker director J.J. Abrams said the imperfections are an intentional example
of kintsukuroi, or "golden repair," which involves repairing broken pottery using visible,
gold seams.
The Japanese technique is particularly appropriate since Kylo Ren and Darth Vader's costumes
are based on samurai garb. Abrams told Empire:
"Like that classic Japanese process of taking ceramics and repairing them [...] As fractured
as Ren is, the mask becomes a visual representation of that.
There's something about this that tells his history.
His mask doesn't ultimately hide him and his behavior is revealed."
Kylo Ren actor Adam Driver likewise revealed the reason in a recent interview with Entertainment
Weekly that the helmet is meant to reflect Kylo Ren's inner conflicts.
He said:
"He's a very unformed person, which is exciting to play and to have that be represented physically
in a costume piece, or a lighting choice or, in this case, a helmet.
It's a coming together, he's cherry-picked things he's looked at through his history
and that he's decided he wants to claim for who he is.
So it's a physical representation of how that character has grown."
Kylo Ren has certainly evolved over the course of the current Star Wars trilogy.
He started an ambitious, temperamental young man who idolized his grandfather, Darth Vader.
He killed his own father, Han Solo, because he was desperate for power.
But he eventually becomes driven more by a sense of personal value.
Driver's approach to the character has evolved, too.
Chatting with CinemaBlend just ahead of The Rise of Skywalker's release, Driver opened
up about how playing Kylo Ren changed for him from The Force Awakens to The Rise of
Skywalker.
He said of working with Abrams, who also directed The Force Awakens, on the new movie:
"There was just a shorthand right away that we didn't have on Force Awakens.
There was no time wasted of, you know, 'Does he like me?
Am I giving him the right thing?'
Right away, we started this one with me like, there was no idea that we can leave off the
table.
Everything that you're thinking and that I'm thinking, we have to say and try it, because
we only have this opportunity to do it.
[...] There was already an immediacy and familiarity with each other that there was no time wasted."
Driver also shared that he experienced a sense of ownership over Kylo Ren, but never felt
like he had a full control of him, and never shut himself off to ideas about where the
character would go next.
This was helpful going into The Rise of Skywalker and during the making of the film, which had
huge responsibilities in following up the artistic vision of Last Jedi director Rian
Johnson and concluding the decades-spanning Skywalker saga.
With Kylo's arc coming to a close in The Rise of Skywalker, Driver undoubtedly had to get
into a certain frame of mind when portraying the character.
What helped him get there?
There was the cast and crew, whom Driver said gave him, quote, "ideas in the moment."
And, of course, Kylo's costume certainly informed his performance, reforged helmet and all.
"Your helmet is so big!"
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