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Was Rey Supposed to Die in 'Rise of Skywalker'? Maybe! Says Dumb, New Star Wars Thing
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Was Rey Supposed to Die in 'Rise of Skywalker'? Maybe! Says Dumb, New Star Wars Thing

By Mike Redmond | Film | January 31, 2020

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Header Image Source: Lucasfilm/Disney

How do I put this in very stark, professional terms that leave absolutely zero doubt about my skills as a journalist? Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is a honking gonorrheic turd that’s easily done more damage to the franchise than Solo and the prequels combined. Within seconds of it stumbling into theaters and pissing hot Palpatine sex questions into our eyes, the internet has been ablaze with non-stop reports of how J.J. Abrams and writer Chris Terrio slapped this thing together with all of the thought and care that I put into a late night sandwich. “Did I just put a sock between two coasters? F*ck it. Cover it in mustard.”

But don’t take my stupid word for it, here’s exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage from Rise of Skywalker’s production.

We have fun.

Anyway, hot on the heels of “Oh, so that’s why those goddamn monsters shoved Adam Driver’s face behind a mask again“-Gate comes an interesting claim from actor Juan Bautista, who allegedly played one of the painfully anti-climactic Knights of Ren. Seriously, what do those guys even do? If someone is going to be an over-hyped character who ends up doing jackshit in these things, it’s Gwendoline Christie, you bastards.

Obviously, this clip is rocketing around Star Wars Twitter, which seems to be in a permanent state of shell-shock since December because, honestly, anything is possible with Rise of Skywalker’s production at this point. It also doesn’t help when you have filmmakers like Terrio blaming the lack of Rose Tico on the SFX team trying to work around Carrie Fisher’s death, promptly walking those words right the hell back, and then TROS editor and longtime Abrams collaborator Maryann Brandon coming right out and saying J.J. just didn’t feel like Rose was important. — He chose to tell a “different story” were the exact words. — Toss in an extremely dejected Oscar Isaac basically calling Disney cowards for not making Finn and Poe gay followed by John Boyega straight-up roasting fans, and it’s hard not to see a trail of carnage left in this thing’s wake.

That said, do I think there’s even the slightest possibility that a version of the film where Rey dies had a chance of hitting theaters? Haha, no. Hell no. I’m in complete agreement with Jenny Nicholson.

The most generous read of this situation is that there was a “red herring” cut shown to cast and crew to avoid spoilers, which is not uncommon for Star Wars. Several takes were shot for The Empire Strikes Back to hide the reveal of Luke Skywalker’s father, and Lucasfilm basically threw away millions in merchandising by not rushing to churn out Baby Yoda toys until after The Mandalorian hit Disney+. However, there seems to be a much larger hole in Bautista’s story:

Sure enough, Bautista isn’t listed anywhere on the IMDb page for The Rise of Skywalker cast or vice versa. Although, he does appear to have done VFX work on The Mandalorian, which I’m gonna guess won’t happen again. More importantly, this will have absolutely zero effect on The Revolution already in progress.