Star Wars 8 Actor Clarifies Comparison to Empire Strikes Back

Star Wars actor Adam Driver, who plays Kylo Ren in the new trilogy, compared Episode VIII to The Empire Strikes Back in an interview last month. He explained that Episode VIII is tonally different than The Force Awakens, just as The Empire Strikes Back was compared to A New Hope.

He's now spoken to Vanity Fair (via Polygon) about his comment. Some people might have gotten the idea that Episode VIII would be "in the vein" of A New Hope, but that may not be the case.

"What I said was the tone of it was different; I didn't say that it was gonna be in the vein of [it]—I was using it as an example, so poor example," he said. "Next time I should say--I'm trying to think of another sequel to a movie that's good. When I read the script, it was not what I expected, in the best of ways."

In the September interview with Collider, Driver was clear he was talking about the tone and not the story. Here is what he said at the time: "It's similar to how The Empire Strikes Back has a different tone. For that people always go, 'Oooh, it's dark.' But I don't know that it necessarily is. It's just different in tone in a way that I think is great and necessary but also very clear."

In that interview, Driver also said that Episode VIII director Rian Johnson trusts that the audience will be "ready for nuance and ambiguity," though it's not exactly clear what Driver is referring to.

Many members of the Episode VIII cast have talked about how the movie will be "darker" than 2015's The Force Awakens, but Driver appears to be among the first to temper expectations on that front.

Episode VIII finished shooting in July. At the Star Wars Celebration Europe convention in July, Johnson talked about how this will be the movie where "we start zooming in on the characters and getting to the heart of them, challenging them, and pushing them deeper."

The film arrives in theaters on December 15, 2017. It stars Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Mark Hamill, Laura Dern, Domhnall Gleeson, Carrie Fisher, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, and Andy Serkis.

Next up is the Star Wars spinoff, Rogue One, which comes out in December.