Who is the new Star Wars villain?

WE KNOW he wears a lot of black, wields a three-pronged lightsaber, and really likes to collect Darth Vader memorabilia. But who is Kylo Ren?

Who is the new Star Wars villain?

EMPIRE magazine today unveiled its latest cover featuring a brand-new image of Kylo Ren, the villain in the hotly anticipated new Star Wars film The Force Awakens.

With just four months to go until the release of the first film in the new trilogy, the Lucasfilm marketing machine is in full swing.

Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly and now Empire magazine have slowly been serving up juicy info about the highly secretive JJ Abrams project, set 30 years after Return of the Jedi.

But despite two trailers, a behind-the-scenes video, two in-depth magazine features and a bunch of other stuff, not much has been revealed about the masked antagonist who bears more than a passing resemblance to Darth Vader.

So apart from the fact that he wields a distinctive three-pronged lightsaber, what exactly do we know?

1. There’s never been a character quite like him in Star Wars, according to screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan.

Speaking to EW, Kasdan said his “emotion” is what sets him apart.

“I’ve written four Star Wars movies now, and there’s never been a character quite like the one that Adam plays,” Kasdan said.

“He’s full of emotion. No matter how we express ourselves in the world, whether we hide it and act very calm or whether we’re very out there and demonstrative, everybody’s roiling with emotion.

“And you want your characters to be that way, too. Then they have to deal with their emotions as best they can, with what they are. I think you’re going to see something that’s brand new to the saga.”

2. He’s played by Adam Driver, who was famed for his complex portrayal of Adam Sackler in HBO’s Girls.

Fans of the hit HBO comedy-drama starring Lena Dunham praised Driver’s performance as the “emotionally incontinent” part-time carpenter and actor.

He was one of the characters revealed in the first teaser for The Force Awakens, and many picked Driver’s lanky gait before he was officially identified as the villain.

Asked about his role in the film, he had previously joked that he played “Jabba the Hutt’s brother, Tim the Hutt”.

3. Kylo Ren isn’t his real name. The ‘Ren’ more of a title, after a mysterious group called the Knights of Ren.

Just like the ‘Darth’ in Darth Vader, so is the ‘Ren’ in Kylo Ren, Abrams revealed. “He is a character who came to the name Kylo Ren when he joined a group called the Knights of Ren,” Abrams said.

“He is not your prototypical moustache-twirling bad guy. He is a little bit more complex than that, and it was a great joy to work with Adam Driver on this role, because he threw himself into it in a deep and remarkable way.”

Exactly who the Knights of Ren are, Abrams is still being kept under wraps, although they might be shown in this leaked concept art.

4. He’s part of an Empire-style group known as the First Order. And he’s really, really into collecting Darth Vader memorabilia.

Although nothing has been officially confirmed, many internet users and anonymous leakers have pieced together parts of the story.

One thing that most agree on is that Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, last seen falling into the abyss when his hand was cut off by his father, is the MacGuffin which drives the early part of the story.

Having apparently acquired Darth Vader’s melted face mask, Kylo Ren is apparently keen to get his hands on his old lightsaber too, which is seen being handed to Leia in the second teaser.

5. He’s still not as much as a mystery as Supreme Leader Snoke, the motion-capture baddie played by Andy Serkis.

If little is known about Kylo Ren, less still is known about Supreme Leader Snoke, played by motion-capture master Andy Serkis.

He’s the one behind the gravelly voice in the first teaser delivering the ominous line: “There has been an awakening. Have you felt it? The Dark Side, and the Light.”

It’s speculated he will play the role of background manipulator in the film, much as the Emperor did in A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back.

6. He’s not Revan. Some nerds are obsessed with the idea that he is actually a character from a popular Star Wars video game.

Revan was the name of the main character in the hugely popular Star Wars computer game Knights of the Old Republic.

Some fans of the game are convinced that Kylo Ren is actually Revan, because his mask looks sort of similar. You could read his 50,000-word entry on Wookieepedia, but you shouldn’t, because it’s not him.

Disney didn’t take a chainsaw to its bloated Expanded Universe of novels, comic books and video games only to go back to it for the main villain in its tentpole new film.