Now that the entire world has had a chance to check outJ.J. Abrams’Star Wars: The Force Awakenson the big screen, fans are certainly looking forward to the film’s eventual release on home video. Hopefully the Blu-ray will include a significant amount of deleted scenes and other footage that didn’t make it into the final cut, because from what Steve found out from the movie’s VFX crew, there’s alotmore to see fromStar Wars: The Force Awakens. (You can also hear all about thedeleted scenes and more from Abrams himself.)
Steve had a chance to sit down withNeal Scanlon(CFX & SMUFX Creative Supervisor),Chris Corbould(SFX Supervisor),Roger Guyett(VFX Supervisor ILM) andPatrick Tubach(VFX Supervisor ILM) to talk about the deleted scenes cut fromEpisode VII, their favorite shots, and which footage might end up on the eventual Blu-ray. Watch the full video interview below, and then find some choice quotes after that.
Collider: A lot of people have been talking, and J.J. talked over the weekend, about deleted scenes from the movie. I guess the Blu-ray, I think he told me, would have 10 or 20 minutes of added scenes. I’m curious for both of you, haveyouseen a lot of the deleted scenes? Do you remember a lot of stuff? Were you sad to see something go?
CHRIS CORBOULD: There was a particular part of a scene that never made it, where they go underneath the castle and they’re going into the underground passageways, and stormtroopers are coming down the stairs and Maz uses her powers to collapse the ceiling.
From my point of view, [that] worked absolutely brilliantly because you had all the main actors running up and then Maz does her bit and then the whole ceiling collapses in front of them, but that never made it. That was a shot I was quite proud of, actually, it worked really, really well.
Hold on, so the one scene where we get to see the mysterious Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong’o) in action is one of the scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor? That’s unfortunate to say the least. This character was one of the more interesting new additions, other than the leads, partly because of the pivotal role she plays in the film, but mostly due to her extensive mythology that was only hinted at on-screen. Hopefully the deleted scenes will shed a little more light on Maz, but for now, this scene description is awesome enough to hold us over.
Here are more of the VFX folks' responses:
ROGER GUYETT: Some of the battle stuff that we did, the digital aerial dogfighting, I love some of that stuff; it was so cool. Originally, there was a bit more of that, but again, it wasn’t necessarily story-driven, it was some cool shots.
There was some stuff with did with the speeder chase… I don’t know if you know about that.
Collider: I heard there was, I want to say, a snowspeeder chase.
GUYETT: Yeah, that was probably the one significant thing that I really remember getting cut out of the movie.
PATRICK TUBACH: There was a little bit more with the Rathtars going on, just a little bit more of that chase moment going through the hallways and everything. There were some cool stunts and some cool individual shots in there that just didn’t make it for one reason or another, and I think it all had to do with the pacing. I totally understand why it’s not there anymore, but you have to feel that out. You don’t know what you have until you do it.
Collider: How long was this snowspeeder chase in the movie? Was it like a few minutes, a big scene, or a little bit?
GUYETT: It was more like a little bit, I don’t know how much we’re truly allowed to talk about it. It wasn’t a huge scene.
TUBACH: Just a shorter action moment.
This is more of what you’d expect from deleted scenes: parts of action sequences that were cut for pacing or simply because they did not advance the story. Additional aerial dogfights, snowspeeder chases, and more rowdy Rathtars will be a delightful edition to theStar Wars: The Force AwakensBlu-ray someday soon, I’m sure. This is just a taste of the extra goodies that awaitStar Warsfans around the world!
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