A new leak suggests that George Lucas’ cut of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker featured a whole host of scenes that would have delighted fans of the franchise. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about the mythical “Lucas Cut” of the film, of course, which is locked up in a proverbial or physical vault, depending on whom you ask. But these new details, which come from the masked YouTuber Doomcock, shed some more light on what it involves. As always, though, we’d advise taking all this with a pinch of salt, given the source that it comes from.
With that out of the way, according to Doomdock, the Lucas Cut scored the highest rating in test screenings with a score of 88. But Kathleen Kennedy chose not to release that version and went with the theatrical cut instead, which polarized fans. While George Lucas didn’t shoot an entirely different movie, he did add scenes that most were hoping would’ve been included in the first place. For instance, one scene featured an Anakin Skywalker cameo and showed him appearing to Rey and speaking to her aboard the Millennium Falcon.
“Rey is alone on the Falcon struggling with feelings of shame as anger threatens to lead her to the Dark Side, and she asks out loud, ‘Why is this so hard?’ Suddenly, even though she is alone, she hears the reply, ‘Life is a struggle but in the struggle we become better.’ Rey looks up and sees Anakin Skywalker standing right beside her. He is a Force Ghost.”
Doomcock backs this up by stating that: “My source was personally shown a screenshot of Anakin and Rey together on the Falcon.” The conversation also would have given us some more exposition on how Palpatine survived the events of Return of the Jedi and made use of the Veil of The Force.
All this points to Doomcock’s earlier theory of these movies being pushed into the extended universe, effectively existing outside the canon. Something that Kennedy was ardently opposed to, which explains why she didn’t go with the Lucas Cut that was built upon the concept of the Veil and the multiverse.
The other scene he describes is something that he says “will likely break your hearts.” And we have to admit, it was probably a scene that most fans were hoping would materialize somewhere during the three-movie saga. It would have given us the reunion of Leia, Han, and Luke. However, these hopes were dashed pretty early on, with Han Solo being killed off in The Force Awakens. Doomcock says that this scene that “Kathleen Kennedy took away from us” was another one that his source personally saw a screenshot of.
“In the Lucas Cut, when Kylo speaks to Han, he is joined by Leia, who Force projects herself into the scene. The two of them are joined by none other than Luke Skywalker. This is what ultimately kills Leia: Force projecting herself and Han to try and save their son.”
The Lucas Cut of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker probably won’t ever see the light of day, even if it does exist. But that doesn’t mean that George Lucas won’t ever revisit the Star Wars franchise. In fact, it might already be a topic of discussion within Disney, after the disappointing reception of the Sequel Trilogy.
