JJ Abrams Reveals the Inspiration for The First Order

By: Dominic Jones

Empire Magazine has released a short snippet from their upcoming piece on Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens online.  The excerpt features director JJ Abrams revealing the real world inspiration behind The First Order, the main bad guys in the new film.  According to Abrams,

"That all came out of conversations about what would have happened if the Nazis all went to Argentina but then started working together again?  What could be born of that? Could The First Order exist as a group that actually admired The Empire? Could the work of The Empire be seen as unfulfilled? And could Vader be a martyr? Could there be a need to see through what didn’t get done?"

It sounds as though The First Order may have very few connections back to the Empire seen in the Original Trilogy, and sounds more like something new that was formed in the years since Return of the Jedi.  In other words, The First order is not just a re-branding of the Empire, but it's own thing entirely.  And the Nazi inspiration makes sense too.  Fans have already drawn comparisons between the scenes of the First Order troops massing to the imagery from Nazi rallies.

As for the perceived leader of The First Order, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), Abrams revealed a few more small details, mostly clarifying things we'd already heard before.  Abrams said, "Kylo Ren is not a Sith.  He works under Supreme Leader Snoke, who is a powerful figure on the Dark Side of the Force."

Abrams had previously revealed that Kylo got his name after being part of the mysterious Knights of Ren.   When that news got out, most assumed that this meant he was not a Sith buy it's still nice to get a confirmation.  I believe this is also our first official confirmation that Andy Serkis' Supreme Leader Snoke is Dark Side user.  This had been rumored and assumed by fans, but never actually confirmed until now.

The entire interview with JJ Abrams can be found in the August 27th issue of Empire Magazine, which features two The Force Awakens covers!

Source: Empire

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