There’s a specific reason Kylo Ren was shirtless in “Last Jedi,” and no, it’s not for fan service

Out of all the things in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, no one scene in the movie has divided fans more than when Kylo Ren appeared, completely shirtless. Those abs! Those broad shoulders! Those high-waisted pants for no reason! The sheer glimmer of his body, suggesting he was in the middle of working out! You either gasped when this scene came in the movie, or those around you gasped — there is no in-between. And something else to know: There’s a reason Kylo Ren was shirtless…and it makes total sense.

However, this reason is not just to show off that Kylo Ren is jacked, something Matt the Radar Technical told us about last year. The scene in Last Jedi is meant to establish that Kylo Ren and Rey can actually see, not just telepathically talk via Force Skype.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, co-sound supervisors Matthew Wood and Ren Klyce explained that Kylo’s lack of shirt and Rey’s comment about it was designed to immediately alert audiences to the fact that, yes, they were privy to the other’s location.

“The way in which [director Rian Johnson] decided to create the Force connection by just simply doing vertical cuts without using any [CGI]...it’s pure simplicity in terms of filmmaking with visual cuts," Klyce explained. "We cut to her side; we cut to Kylo Ren; we cut to her; and back and forth. [This lead to us realizing it] was important to establish what she was actually seeing. Was she hearing his voice or seeing his face or just his eyes? And so that [shirtless scene] is to inform the audience, ‘Oh, she can see his body.’

YEAH she can see his body. We ALL can see his body. And with this simple scene, the audience completely grasps that Rey and Kylo see each other in the Force — and no, he’s not going to put on a shirt. Praise be to the First Order gym.