Kylo Ren’s mask almost looked a lot different in ‘The Rise of Skywalker’

Kylo Ren made a major change in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” — he brought back his terrifying original mask that he destroyed in “The Last Jedi.” But his mask almost looked quite different.

What’s happening?

• The official “Star Wars” Instagram account shared five photos of the original designs for Kylo Ren’s mask for “The Rise of Skywalker.”
• In the early days of production, Neal Scanlan’s creature designers, including Jake Lunt Davies, Luke Fisher and Ivan Manzella crafted new concepts for the mask.
• At the time, all they knew was that director J.J. Abrams wanted to bring back the mask.
• “They designed an entirely new batch of helmets, only later learning that Abrams intended Kylo to fix the one he smashed in #TheLastJedi.”
• You can scroll through the images below from the Instagram post.

Bigger picture:

• Previous concept art showed Rey — under the influence of the dark side — holding Kylo Ren’s mask, an indication that she would have become similar to Kylo in the film, as I wrote about for Deseret.com.