With Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker proving to be not everything fans hoped it would, there’s an increasing call for Disney to release a director’s cut of the movie, following stories of Lucasfilm heavily meddling with J.J. Abrams’ vision for Episode IX. Things reached a peak earlier this week when fans got #ReleaseTheJJCut trending on Twitter and now, one of the film’s stars is jumping aboard the bandwagon.
Dominic Monaghan joined the Star Wars universe in Rise as Beaumont Kin, a member of the Resistance. Though he admits that he wasn’t a major part of the production, the former Lost star knows firsthand just how much additional footage was shot that never made it into the theatrical version of the movie. As he told The Hollywood Reporter, this is why he’s fully behind the idea of an Abrams cut.
“Like a lot of Star Wars fans, I’m hoping there will be a director’s cut so we’ll get to see more and more of the stuff that was filmed. I wasn’t there all the time, but even in the short time that I was there, there was so much stuff filmed that didn’t make it to the theatrical version… Oh, man, there was so much stuff!”
When asked for more specific details on the unused material he’s aware of, Monaghan pleaded the fifth, but he did promise there’s some amazing stuff that fans haven’t seen yet. And the actor hopes at least some of it will make its way onto the DVD/Blu-ray release in a few months’ time.
“I think this is probably more of a question for [director] J.J. [Abrams] because Star Wars is such a geek fest, obsessive thing that you don’t want to start revealing Easter eggs too soon. But, I remember texting J.J. at the end of certain days and saying, ‘Oh my God, I can’t wait to see that.’ It was just extraordinary to even just be involved in that scene, and unfortunately, with the time constraints, they didn’t make it or they changed things around. So, I’m hoping that if and when the DVD comes out that maybe they’ll add extras or they’ll have deleted, additional scenes.”
It’s a fact that Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy enforced a few ideas of her on TROS, including the inclusion of Palpatine. It’s reported that this led to a lot of head-butting between the director and the producer, with the studio vetoing many of his wishes – such as a Finn and Poe romance. We also know that Disney nixed this thanks to Oscar Isaac not holding back.
Obviously, major changes like this were surely never filmed, but like Monaghan says, a whole lot was, so there must be the makings of a superior version of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker out there and right now, it looks like we might have another “Snyder Cut” campaign on our hands soon.
