One of JJ Abrams’s Star Wars co-writers has revealed why Kelly Marie Tran received less than two minutes of screen time in The Rise of Skywalker.
Chris Terrio, whose previous credits include Argo and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, responded to the backlash over the tiny duration of Tran’s character’s appearance in the new film.
Rose Tico, who was introduced in Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi, had one minute and 16 seconds of screen time in the new film, which lasts for two hours and 22 minutes.
“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 Fisher’s footage in the way we wanted to,” Terrio told Awards Daily.
“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.”
Terrio continued: “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 favourite person in this galaxy, General Leia.”
During a post-screening Q&A, Abrams responded to the divisive film’s negative reviews, unexpectedly describing them as “right”.
Days later, the director revealed the answer to one of the film’s biggest mysteries involving Finn (John Boyega) and Rey (Daisy Ridley).
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is in cinemas now. Find a list of every unexpected cameo in the film here.
