Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker editor Maryann Brandon has said that the film’s crew were in a “no-win situation” when it came to crafting the last chapter of the Skywalker saga.
The final chapter in the Skywalker franchise premiered in December 2019 to a mixed response – with some criticising the amount of “fan service” that was handed out throughout the film.
Brandon says that both she and director JJ Abrams had always intended to “service” fans, which is why the film proved so polarising.
She told The Rough Cut Podcast: “Look, sure, it’s fan service and if you didn’t service the fans, it would be, ‘Oh, he didn’t go along with the history of Star Wars and what it all means’.”
As for some of the film’s more negative reactions, she said: “In a time when the whole world is so polarised, it should not be a film that is polarising.
“Basically, the message of the film is, ‘Hey, guess what? You can be bad and good can come into your life. And maybe if you’re open-minded to it, extraordinary things can change your mind. And you have to believe there’s always hope.’”
Brandon also claimed that both she and Abrams were working with much tighter production deadlines than The Force Awakens.
“It’s a struggle. It affected everything,” Brandon said. “About a third of the way through, Kathy [Kennedy, the film’s producer] was like, ‘JJ has got to spend more time in the cutting room’.
“And I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Not with the schedule that we were on. Not with what he was dealing with on a daily basis. He was just exhausted at the end of the day.”
This comes after Star Wars fans called on Disney to release a rumoured JJ Abrams-cut of the movie.
Many fans have taken to Twitter to claim that the film was originally intended to be three hours long and there were various scenes and characters cut from the movie.
One fan wrote: “Hang on I’m seeing/reading that The Rise of Skywalker was supposed to be 3hrs long and have the Force Ghosts Anakin, Obi-Wan, Luke, and company appear with Rey? I need to see this cut ASAP!”
Other fans claim there was a scene when Finn (John Boyega) was revealed to be force-sensitive which was removed from the final cut.
It was also recently revealed that Mark Hamill had a secret second role in the movie.
