‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Director Details Two Deleted Scenes

The process of putting a film together can often be a difficult one, as a filmmaker may realize that personal favorite sequences could ultimately hinder the final product. The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson knows this fact quite well, as he had to cut nearly 20 minutes from his film, with the result still being the longest film in the Star Wars saga. Johnson recently revealed some of the details of scenes that didn’t make the cut, which might make the film’s Blu-ray release.

“There’s another sequence where Rose, and Finn, and DJ are sneaking through the Mega Destroyer, which is just another really fun, funny sequence, I think,” Johnson shared during a Q&A. “That’s another four minutes, or something. But then there’s a lot of really substantial little scenes. There are scenes with Finn that ended up getting stripped away, kind of his motivation for going out to look for Rey. There’s a lot of stuff that I really love that I was really happy we were able to get back in there … There’s more than 20 [minutes] in there.”

One of the criticisms of the film was that DJ was underused, with the scenes Johnson described above possibly shedding more light on the character and cementing his importance in the storyline.

“You see this village where the Caretakers–the Nun Fish creatures–live, and it’s a sequence that I always really loved. It’s a really beautiful sequence,” Johnson said of another scene.

We’ve previously learned that this scene ends up being Luke’s third “lesson” to Rey, as she rushes to intervene at the thought of Caretakers being murdered, with Luke saying the Resistance needs heroes like her, not former heroes like him.

“It’s one of those things where … and this always happens in the edit,” the filmmaker expressed of cutting out scenes. “It’s like suddenly you can see through the Matrix and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, that big sequence that I love so much and I can’t imagine the movie without, if we lift it out and put these two things together, it plays in a slightly different way but it plays better.’ And you just kind of have that, “::sigh:: Sh-t,” and you hit delete. You don’t think about all the stuff we built on set to get the shots, you don’t think about all the work the actors and the crew did, you just hit one button and it’s gone and the movie’s better.”

While some of these scenes are expected to hit the film’s Blu-ray, we don’t know quite yet just how much additional footage the disc will contain.

The Last Jedi is in theaters now.

[H/T Collider]