Rian Johnson Looks Back at Removing One of Daisy Ridley’s Best ‘Last Jedi’ Scenes
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It’s been well over two years since the release of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” but Rian Johnson is still giving fans new insight into his creative process. The filmmaker recently took to Twitter to react to a deleted scene from “The Last Jedi” that started making the rounds on social media. The scene in question finds Rey defying Luke Skywalker’s order not to intervene in a raid against the Caretakers on the island of Ahch-To. Rey discovers Luke was simply testing her and the raid was not real, prompting her to lash out at him in what is one of Daisy Ridley’s strongest acting moments not just in “The Last Jedi” but in all of the latest trilogy.
When asked by a fan on Twitter why he deleted this powerful Rey moment, Johnson responded, “Mostly pace, and something about it always felt a little repetitive, coming at a point in the movie where we want to hit the gas and start escalating towards the finale. I love the scene, it was a tough but ultimately good cut.”
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Johnson previously spoke about deleting the scene from his “Last Jedi” theatrical cut during an interview with Collider, saying, “It’s one of those things where, and this always happens in the edit, you can see through the Matrix and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, that big sequence that I love so much and I can’t imagine the movie without, if we lift it out and put these two things together, it plays in a slightly different way but it plays better.'”
The scene was yet another example of Luke training Rey and Rey not getting the results she wants out of Luke, although many would argue this Caretaker raid is a more stirring example of this tension between the characters than other scenes between the two that were left in the film. Regardless, Johnson’s “The Last Jedi” remains one of the most acclaimed “Star Wars” movies ever released.
Mostly pace, and something about it always felt a little repetitive, coming at a point in the movie where we want to hit the gas and start escalating towards the finale. I love the scene, it was a tough (but ultimately good) cut.
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) April 15, 2020
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