Star Wars: The Force Awakens Deleted Scene Would Have Shown Maz Kanata’s Force Powers

Maz Kanata is one of the most enigmatic characters in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. She’s said to be over 1,000 years old, having run her Pirate haven for at least that long, which means she’s seen eras of the Old Republic, seen the Sith fall and rise, the height of the Jedi Order’s power, the Empire’s Dark Times, its fall and the return of the Jedi, and more. She knows all the secrets about the Star Wars universe that fans would kill to acquire.

While Maz hinted at some level of Force Sensitivity in the film, saying, “I’m no Jedi… but I know the Force. It moves through and surrounds every living thing.” She gives Rey her first real explanation of what exactly the Force is, and how it affects all life in the galaxy, a clearly pivotal moment in Rey’s young life.

Well, a deleted scene from the film would have much more explicitly shown Maz’s connection to the Force, to great effect.

“There was a particular part of a scene that never made it, where they go underneath the castle and they’re going into the underground passageways, and stormtroopers are coming down the stairs and Maz uses her powers to collapse the ceiling,” Chris Corbuld, SFX Supervisor on the film told Collider. “From my point of view, [that] worked absolutely brilliantly because you had all the main actors running up and then Maz does her bit and then the whole ceiling collapses in front of them, but that never made it. That was a shot I was quite proud of, actually, it worked really, really well.”

Perhaps it was cut because, in the end, people with the Force in the live action Star Wars films have been one of two things: Jedi or Sith. In the wider universe, however, there are several Force users who either don’t have the training, the allegiance, or both to one faction or another. Notably, characters like the Witches of Dathomir, who wield the Force through magics, or Ahsoka Tano, who trained as a Jedi, but left to strike out on her own, or the many Sith assassins who don’t have a proper place in the power structure, including the Inquisitors on Star Wars Rebels.

This is a reconfirmation of Maz’s Force powers, though, as the Star Wars: The Force Awakens – The Visual Dictionary book, written by Lucasfilm’s Story Group member Pablo Hidalgo, also notes Maz’s connection.

“In recent decades, Maz has kept secret one of her greatest strengths – an affinity for the Force. Though she has known Jedi (and has a few tall tales regarding encounters with Knights and Masters), she never walked that path herself, instead relying on her strong connection to the Force to keep her out of danger,” Hidalgo writes in the book. He also notes her “preternatural gift for sensing the shifting tides of fortune in the galaxy” in her entry, and that she “has only felt comfortable openly acknowledging her Force abilities since the death of the Emperor.”

It sounds like there is still much to learn about Maz, played by Lupita Nyong’o in the film. Hopefully we’ll see more of her soon, be it in Episode VIII or gaining her backstory through novels and comic books. After all, with at least 1,000 years to cover, she could pop up anywhere, even the aforementioned Rebels, or, seeing as how she knows him, the upcoming Han Solo stand-alone film.