Geek Fact #4: Is Kylo Ren Named After This Star Wars Space Pirate?


Long before Star Wars: The Force Awakens hit theaters, we discovered the names of some of our key characters. Rey, Finn, Poe, Kylo Ren, etc. But to some Star Wars fans who devoured all the expanded universe material, or simply grew up watching cartoons in the 80s, the name ‘Kylo Ren’ sounded a bit familiar. After doing a bit of digging, they realized that Kylo Ren was only a letter off from another Star Wars character named Kybo Ren, a space pirate featured heavily in three episodes of the cartoon series Star Wars: Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO. Is there any correlation between the two?


In short, no. Please no. Thankfully, the Droids tv series is flimsily rooted even within the Legends canon (formerly extended universe), and the character is highly unmemorable, despite being cartoonishly, bafflingly, dumb looking. How this guy ever smuggled anything, I’ll never know. I tried knowing. I watched part of the episode The Revenge of Kybo Ren, and promptly found it unworthy of my time. This character has not been reintroduced into canon, or even Legends for that matter.


To be fair, the characters full name, according to the second edition of 1994’s A Guide to the Star Wars Universe, is Gir Kybo Ren-Cha. So no, this is certainly not one of the Knights of Ren. The character does, most of the time, go by the name Kybo Ren, and was never called by his full name in the three episodes he’s featured in. It’s possible that Lawrence Kasdan or J.J. Abrams had at some point saw the name while making the character, or even the cartoon itself, but more than likely this is a case of pure coincidence.


I have since reached out to members of the Lucasfilm Story Group for further answers.

What did you think of this Geek Fact? If you liked it, stay tuned for more just like it. And be sure to check out some of our other Geek Facts! If you know of any other geeky facts you’d like me to cover, let me know in the comments below.


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