Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Actor Teases “Huge Things” Were Cut From the Film

One of the actors in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker teased that “huge things” were cut from the final version of the film. Greg Grunberg talked to The Hollywood Reporter about the last film in the Skywalker Saga. One thing he took offense to in the response to The Rise of Skywalker was the thought it was catering to fans. But, he argues that director J.J. Abrams placed everything in the movie at the optimal place. There were some tough decisions on the editing table, and Grunberg believes that some of the stuff left behind would appeal to fans.

“There’s almost no fat in this movie at all, and that cannot be said for the others,” he said. “There are moments where you go, ‘Oh, you could lose that scene, and the movie would still hold up.’ Everything in this movie matters, and they did such an incredible job of wrapping up and servicing all the characters. Would I have liked to have seen more of Rose? Yes. Would I have liked to have seen more of the other characters? For sure, but you can only do so much.”

Grunberg continued, “And things change in the edit. You were talking about Kelly mentioning that we shot and reshot some stuff, but a lot of that stuff didn’t even 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 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.”

“Like you said, you cannot please everybody all the time, especially when it comes to something that is so important to so many people,” he added. “The same was true at the end of Lost. J.J. creates these very, very important pieces to a lot of people. It’s what we grew up with, and these characters are so beloved; we consider them family. We have our own fanfiction in our head, whether we put it on paper or in the computer or not. You’re never going to be able to do it in the way that everybody sees it in their head.”

Kelly Marie-Tran addressed these claims when people were upset about the lack of screen time she had in The Rise of Skywalker. She said that she was more involved in some of the action scenes than it looks like in the theatrical cut. Editor Maryann Brandon echoes those sentiments in a previous interview.

“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 told 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?’”

Were you happy with the theatrical cut of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker? Let us know in the comments!