Back in May of this year, at the Carsey-Wolf Center on the UC Santa Barbra campus, Oscar-nominated editor Maryann Brandon discussed what is was like working with J.J. Abrams and helping to make Star Wars: The Force Awakens…
UC Santa Barbra Pollock Theater Director, Matt Ryan recently hosted an event at the Carsey-Wolf Center, featuring Oscar-nominated film editor, Maryann Brandon. The event was held to discuss what it was like for Brandon to work with director J.J. Abrams in making Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
During the hour-long discussion, Brandon talked about how in earlier scripts, Rey’s Force Vision was very different than what made the final cut. The description of how the scene originally unfolded starts at the 29:00 mark. Check it out:
Dissecting what Brandon says here:
- Originally Rey touches the Skywalker lightsaber and is taken back to Cloud City, through the Force Vision.
- She walks down the hall.
- Then she sees Darth Vader fighting Luke Skywalker.
- She sees Vader cut off Luke’s hand.
- She turns around.
- She sees a version of Supreme Leader Snoke.
- Snoke is with a little boy.
The question now becomes, if Rey was going to originally see Snoke interacting with a little boy, who is that boy? The most simple answer is Ben Solo, who eventually took the name, Kylo Ren.
In Alan Dean Foster’s The Force Awakens novel, Rey does see a little boy. Here’s an excerpt:
"Someone, somewhere, somewhen, spoke her name. “Hello?” Wreathed in the irrationality of the moment, she called hopefully, but received no answer. A boy appeared at the end of the hallway. She started toward him, and the world turned inside out, causing her to trip and fall."
Perhaps Vader cutting off Luke’s hand, followed Snoke talking to a little boy, would have been revealing too much to audiences seeing the film in the theater for the first time. If this had been left in the film, the theories about Rey being a Skywalker — therefore connected by blood to Kylo Ren — would start to make a whole lot more sense.
Next: J.J. Abrams Wants A Knights Of Ren Standalone Star Wars Movie
It’s too bad that Abrams didn’t include deleted scenes like this one, in the Blu-ray collector’s edition of The Force Awakens, because little nuggets like this are what we die-hard Star Wars fans really look for.