Star Wars is one of the greatest sci-fi franchises that exist in the history of cinema. Millions of Star Wars fans were waiting for the eighth episode after the successful run of Star Wars: Force awakens at the global box-office. After the horrible prequels, the fans really wanted to see extremely well- directed Star Wars movies onscreen.
On one hand, The Force Awakens had the feel and the tone fans wanted, it embraced the magic of original Star Wars movies which made us fell in love with the universe at the first place.
On the other hand, The Last Jedi was an amazing ride from start to finish. It featured whole array of iconic characters – Rey, Kylo Ren, Luke, Leia, Supreme Leader Snoke, R2D2 etc. Many people consider ‘The Last Jedi’ as one of the best Star Wars episode ever while a particular section of fans slammed it and called it sloppy and boring as hell.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the literal definition of polarization now. The Star Wars universe is vast and has a huge fan-base. Up until The Last Jedi, they stayed united in their love for each and every movie of Star Wars. But things changed dramatically after the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
To say The Last Jedi is a mixed bag of emotions would be an understatement. The Star Wars franchise has a half a decade old fan-base. They have stayed loyal to the franchise’s best and worst years. But The Last Jedi picked their unity apart.
Half of the fans liked it, the other half loathed it. Half of them claimed it to be a fresh take on the star wars genre with an engaging plot and experimental direction, the other half longed for the storytelling of the classic star wars era (something the franchise was famous for) and hated the unnecessary humor added to a plot-line that had never ever used comedy as a tool to cater to its audience in the first place.
Whatever may be the case, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is breaking box office records as we speak. Now the speculation is already rife that there may be a deleted scene in the original version that might have been cut during post-production for the theatrical release.
A specific scene involving Finn (John Boyega), Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) and DJ (Benicio Del Toro) was never there in the theatrical cut of The Last Jedi.
In an interview with Collider, Director Rian Johnson and Editor Bob Ducsay explain why a scene involving the three trying to infiltrate Snoke’s ship The Supremacy was cut from the movie.
“Again I will give the caveat that the movie is better as a whole without any of them, but yeah man, there was some great stuff.” Johnson explained.
He added:
“There’s a whole extended sequence where Finn and Rose and DJ sneak through the Mega Destroyer when they’re kind of, after they sneak in with DJ and they’re trying to find the tracker. There’s a whole extended sequence. It’s a full sequence of like stuff with them sneaking through this big office area of the Mega Destroyer and then having to fake out these Stormtroopers.”
But do not get your knickers in a twist just yet. The scenes we are talking were cut much earlier during production.
“There’s some really nice stuff in there, but we actually cut that stuff pretty early because it was very clear that that section of the movie was completely lopsided in favor of those three, and it just didn’t support it.”
He added:
“But it’s good stuff. It’s really good stuff. I assume when you’ll see it, you’ll enjoy it because I mean, we all did. It was cut early, and how you always know is like my staff, there’s a decent number of assistants and collaborators that work in the cutting room, and they were all complaining when we cut the sequence. And that’s how you know that it was something that people like.”
Another interesting part of the movie was the Finn-Poe Dameron interactions. They were humorous and fun to watch. Apparently, a lot of those scenes were also cut during post-production.
“There’s a couple Finn scenes that—there’s one great Finn/Poe scene that’s kind of a set up scene at the beginning when Poe was kind of bringing Finn up to speed after he comes out of his coma.” Johnson said.
He added:
“God, there’s a bunch of really fun stuff. Yeah, anyway, we talk more about them when the Blu-ray comes out, but I’m excited for folks to see them.”
What other scenes suffered post-production cuts you ask? Remember Rey’s training in Ahch-To under Luke’s tutelage. A scene involving that too was cut from the movie.
“And then on the island there’s a massive sequence that we shot with Daisy and Mark, which is kind of an additional sort of trial/test that she goes through, that involves her and Mark, and then a big emotional scene between the two of them.” Johnson explained. “I mean, it’s big stuff, it’s like actual real scenes.”
Even an extended scene with the fish like caretakers on the Jedi planet Ahch- To interacting with Rey was cut from the theatrical version. That was one of the biggest cuts of the movie, says Johnson.
With 20 minutes of scenes cut from the movie, The Last Jedi still managed to wow audiences. Maybe the director’s cut will include those scenes later. Maybe those deleted scenes will help satiate the hate for the movie? Just a little bit.
There are so many questions surrounding Star Wars that fans are dying to find answers for, for instance, one of the most intriguing mysteries is the identity of the ‘Supreme leader’ Snoke. He seemed to have been killed off by Kylo Ren in the movie. But we are not sure about his true background yet.
Maybe the Blu ray/ DVD version of the movie shed more light on some of the unresolved mysteries. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is already in theaters. Go see right now.
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