Now that the dust has settled and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is available on home video, there’s been plenty of fans sitting down to watch the movie again, especially with the Coronavirus pandemic keeping many people in self-isolation. While it hasn’t undergone a complete reappraisal just yet, repeat viewings will no doubt bring about some different opinions on the conclusion to the Skywalker Saga.
Even The Last Jedi, which was vilified by huge sections of the fan community, became the subject of widespread online thanks, although a lot of that had to do with how unhappy some people were with the events of The Rise of Skywalker, and how it seemed designed as pure fan service to placate those who raged against the changes director Rian Johnson made to the established mythology in the eighth installment.
As is the case with most Star Wars projects these days, the blame was placed squarely at Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy’s door, with campaigns being launched in an effort to release J.J. Abrams’ Director’s Cut, even though there’s no genuine proof that such a thing even exists.
One thing is for sure, though, and that’s that there’s a whole lot of movie packed into The Rise of Skywalker, so it comes as no surprise that star Greg Grunberg, who played Resistance pilot Snap Wexley in the Sequel Trilogy, admitted in a recent interview that some huge moments ended up left on the cutting room floor.
“There’s almost no fat in this movie at all, and that cannot be said for the others… Everything in this movie matters, and they did such an incredible job of wrapping up and servicing all the characters. And things change in the edit. You were talking about Kelly Marie Tran mentioning that we shot and reshot some stuff, but a lot of that stuff didn’t end up in the movie. I’m excited to see the DVD extras, because there are some amazing moments that I have, that I can’t wait to see. It was really, really difficult for them in the edit to lose some of that stuff, and selfishly, I’m talking about my stuff. There are so many other things, and huge things, that I think people are going to appreciate when they look at it.”
While Grunberg seems to be more concerned about his own screentime than anything else, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker‘s plot moves at such a rapid pace that there must be huge amounts of footage that didn’t make the theatrical cut, with one of the most common criticisms being that it jumps so quickly between set-pieces that the story doesn’t have time to breathe. It wasn’t quite the conclusion to the nine-movie arc that many fans were hoping for, then, but we’ll see how it holds up in the future when viewed with a bit of distance behind it.
