Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Editor Addresses Rose Tico’s Brief Screen Time

Fans first met Rose Tico in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker set to potentially explore her character further, though fans were disappointed that she earned only minimal screen time, with editor Maryann Brandon claiming that there was so much story to try to fit into the film that to give every character the screen time fans wanted, the final film would be exhausting. This doesn’t necessarily mean that audiences will never have the opportunity to witness sequences that didn’t make the theatrical cut, as the deleted scenes will likely become available on the film’s home video release.

“Our story is so chock-full of everyone and we have so many great characters, and [Rose Tico] included, and I don’t know if we could have jammed anything else, any more into the film,” Brandon admitted to ComicBook.com. “I mean, it would’ve been nice, but, at some point, we say, ‘Do we really want a three-hour film, or do we want an adventure and get out before we’re over-saturated with it?’”

Not only did The Rise of Skywalker have to wrap up the storylines of the characters in the sequel trilogy, but also conclude the entire nine-film Skywalker Saga that started with Star Wars: A New Hope back in 1977. Adding to the frustrations of audiences who had hoped to see more of Rose was that this film introduced Dominic Monaghan’s Beaumont Kin as a member of the Resistance, contributing a number of pieces of dialogue that could have potentially been given to Kelly Marie Tran‘s character.

Brandon noted that, due to the nature of the film being a conclusion, there were other characters whose journeys took priority over Rose.

“I mean, what would you have given up to put in, you know?” Brandon pondered. “Poe, Finn, Rey on an adventure, that makes sense. And then the two droids. You just start thinking about how many characters you’d be carrying constantly. Everything would dissipate.”

She added, “You couldn’t give enough equal time to everyone. Something has to give.”

Partially complicating Rose’s scenes in the films are reports that many of her scenes featured unseen footage of Carrie Fisher from previous films being inserted into sequences in hopes of creating a seamless interaction between the characters, which didn’t always work as effectively as the filmmakers had hoped. Given the possibly disappointing effect, it’s unclear if these scenes will make it to the home video release.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is in theaters now.

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