Remember how, in the first Star Wars trilogy, there was always tension between the order-obsessed Empire and the cultish members of the Dark Side? Just think of that scene when Darth Vader announced that he found his admiral’s “lack of faith disturbing” and then force choked him out. In The Force Awakens, it looks like we’ll see more of that dynamic. EW reports that Domhnall Gleeson’s General Hux, one of the leaders of the First Order — a.k.a. the remains of the Galactic Empire — isn’t on the best of terms with Kylo Ren, the film’s red lightsaber-toting representative from the Dark Side. “He’s kind of opposite Kylo Ren,” Gleeson told EW. “They have their own relationship, which is individual and unusual. One of them is strong in different ways than the other. They’re both vying for power.”
The First Order’s a pretty hard corporate ladder to climb — it seems you have to prove yourself by killing your way to the top — and Gleeson’s character looks to have all the hardness that comes from living that kind of life. According to the actor, Hux is “pretty ruthless,” a “strong disciplinarian” with a “fear of individuality,” which obviously makes him a great partner in crime for a rogue, Darth Vader–obsessed zealot. Perhaps the two should work this out with trust falls. Or on an interstellar team-building course, where, for once, the floor is lava.
Abrams also gave a few tiny hints about General Hux’s new digs: The Starkiller Base, aka that Death Star–like thing in the top right of the poster. “It is very much — and it’s acknowledged as such in the movie — apparently another Death Star,” Abrams told EW. “But what it’s capable of, how it works, and what the threat is, is far greater than what the Death Star could have done. Starkiller Base is another step forward, technologically speaking, in terms of power.”
Let’s put our thinking caps on here: Might the Starkiller Base be able to … blow up stars? Big, if true.
