Fans of Rose Tico and her actress Kelly Marie Tran were left disappointed by the character’s lack of screen time in The Rise of Skywalker, and co-writer Chris Terrio has responded to the controversy. According to Terrio in a new interview with AwardsDaily, there were originally big plans for Rose in the movie, and many scenes had actually been written for her alongside the late Carrie Fisher as General Leia – only for them to wind up on the cutting room floor.
As Fisher died in 2016, she appears in The Rise of Skywalker by way of repurposed footage originally filmed for the previous Star Wars movies. Unfortunately, the visual quality of the scenes with Leia and Rose were not up to snuff, leading to their removal from the movie’s final version. Terrio also makes it clear Tran is very much appreciated and reducing Rose’s role in Star Wars 9 was never the intention of the filmmakers. Speaking with AwardsDaily, here’s how Terrio explains what happened with Rose in The Rise of Skywalker:
“Well, first of all, J.J. and I adore Kelly Marie Tran. One of the reasons that Rose has a few less scenes than we would like her to have has to do with the difficulty of using Carrie’s footage in the way we wanted to. We wanted Rose to be the anchor at the rebel base who was with Leia. We thought we couldn’t leave Leia at the base without any of the principals who we love, so Leia and Rose were working together.
As the process evolved, a few scenes we’d written with Rose and Leia turned out to not meet the standard of photorealism that we’d hoped for. Those scenes unfortunately fell out of the film. The last thing we were doing was deliberately trying to sideline Rose. We adore the character, and we adore Kelly – so much so that we anchored her with our favorite person in this galaxy, General Leia.”
Regardless of how exactly it happened, many fans were livid about Rose seemingly getting lost in the shuffle for The Rise of Skywalker. She was reportedly timed at having just one minute and 16 seconds of screen time in the movie, bringing about the viral hashtag #RoseTicoDeservedBetter. Fans of the character have also been calling for Disney to make this right by giving Rose her own solo series for Disney+ in the vein of The Mandalorian. The movement has since garnered a lot of traction and Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu has even volunteered to take the reins of the potential series himself.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is playing in theaters everywhere. In addition to Kelly Marie Tran as Rose Tico and the late Carrie Fisher as Leia, the movie also stars Daisy Ridley, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Anthony Daniels, Naomi Ackie, Keri Russell, Domhnall Gleeson, Richard E. Grant, and Billy Dee Williams. J. J. Abrams directs, using a screenplay co-written with Terrio. You can read Terrio’s interview in full at AwardsDaily.
