The unreleased 3 hour cut of THE FORCE AWAKENS

For those who are not aware, THE FORCE AWAKENS had so much content removed from its theatrical release, most importantly the whole backstory of the politics between Leia’s Resistance & the New Republic and why they blacklist her which is only now mentioned in the novel BLOODLINE by Claudia Gray, along with the entire character of what I label as ‘balcony lady’ who was VERY important in the 3 hour cut:

https://imgur.com/gallery/9Zw7Evh

I’m sure it’s in one of the many TFA edits out there.

Mocata said:

I’m sure it’s in one of the many TFA edits out there.

Only a section of her scene has been officially released hence how some of the Carrie Fisher sequences used in TROS were achieved. Anyway I apologize if this post was a bit off topic as it goes more into the unreleased content.

Yeah but what I mean is in a hypothetical three hour version someone here will have tried to use all those scenes by now, check the sequel trilogy edits index by OOJason. I don’t think that much unused material has been released though.

With TFA, there’s a lot that we don’t know the exact specifics of, like we do with the OT or PT. The first cut was definitely 2:30-ish though, and not 3.

Zuvio was a character with an odd amount of marketing and merchandising, yet ended up in 7 frames of the final cut, and yet still we don’t know the specifics beyond that he was some kind of antagonist on Jakku for Rey.

We know that the film cut back and forth to Leia before her arrival at Maz’s, but outside of that one scene released, we don’t know how often or what her material was like. There’s glimpses of this footage reused in TROS, but nothing concrete. Same with Maz at the rebel base, she went there on the Falcon and stuck around, giving Leia the lightsaber but other than that, her role is unknown. Much of her in the castle was reshot as they were still figuring out what her character was as production progressed. Her design wasn’t finalised until post, which is why she is a CG character and not practical.

Rey’s force vision thing may or may not of had Luke and Vader’s duel on Bespin, we still don’t know for sure if it was filmed.

There was supposed to be more with Kylo Ren after the duel on Starkiller Base, but we also don’t know how much or what he did. More with Poe after his “death” on Jakku and before arriving at Maz’s castle too, but also unknown.

Basically, there is just a lot of uncertainity with TFA. There’s no un-revised drafts to go off, no extensive BTS book or documentary released, no substantial deleted scenes. It’s impossible to tell what was in early cuts, and what wasn’t The stuff we know the best about is reshot material, but even then not entirely. It might take another 20 or 30 years like SW77, but eventually we’ll know more.

Ah Captain Zuvio I remember that guy, what a memorable character 😄

Anyway here’s a brief bit of info about that whole ‘extra hour’ thing:
https://www.businessinsider.com/star-wars-force-awakens-unused-footage-2016-4?r=US&IR=T

timdiggerm said:

Bobson Dugnutt said:

It might take another 20 or 30 years like SW77, but eventually we’ll know more.

Maybe. I don’t expect the level open-ness from Disney ever the way we eventually got with LFL & Rinzler.

Rinzler did actually write and edit an entire Making of TFA book, that was cancelled.

https://www.slashfilm.com/546017/j-w-rinzler-the-making-of-star-wars-the-force-awakens/

He started work even before Abraams was brought on board, and interviewed nearly everyone involved. He compared it to his ROTS book, so it wasn’t going to be as open as the 30-years of hindsight for the OT books, but it was still to be a very comprehensive 368-page epic.

I hope that one day it’ll come out, but with Rinzler’s passing, it seems unlikely.

Mocata said:

Anyway here’s a brief bit of info about that whole ‘extra hour’ thing:
https://www.businessinsider.com/star-wars-force-awakens-unused-footage-2016-4?r=US&IR=T

Of course the guy who worked with all the puppets would want more of his work seen. Everyone who works in production design always does.

Editors Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey have stated that the first pass was 2:30

[Mary Jo Markey said:]

It wasn’t too bad. I think it was about two and a half hours, right Maryann?

[Maryann Brandon said:]

Two and a half. And JJ really wanted it to be two hours.

Lot’s of great info in their Art of the Cut article here;

https://www.provideocoalition.com/art-of-the-cut-with-the-editors-of-star-wars-the-force-awakens/

Bobson Dugnutt said:

With TFA, there’s a lot that we don’t know the exact specifics of, like we do with the OT or PT. The first cut was definitely 2:30-ish though, and not 3.

…

Basically, there is just a lot of uncertainity with TFA. There’s no un-revised drafts to go off, no extensive BTS book or documentary released, no substantial deleted scenes. It’s impossible to tell what was in early cuts, and what wasn’t The stuff we know the best about is reshot material, but even then not entirely. It might take another 20 or 30 years like SW77, but eventually we’ll know more.

Well, there were at least early “leaks” of plot elements before TFA was released in December, 2015. In May of 2015 (seven months before the premiere), some guy stitched together a full plot synopsis based on various alleged leaks and rumors and released it online. I remember reading this back in 2015, and being extremely skeptical. But after seeing the movie, it became clear these “leaks” were genuine.

I don’t know if this has been posted/discussed here before, but I’d be surprised if it wasn’t. Anyway, the “leaked” plot synopsis is very close to the actual movie (especially for the first two Acts), with some interesting differences. In the synopsis, the “MacGuffin” is not a map to Luke Skywalker, but rather Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber itself. Also, Hux seems to be Kylo Ren’s superior (like Tarkin in ANH), and Rey may be named Kira.

However, the “leaked” synopsis diverges significantly from the actual film in Act 3. Specifically, there is no Starkiller Base. Instead, the First Order has developed some super-weapon called “the Catapult”. Exactly what it does is ambiguous, but they use it to blow up Maz Kanata’s castle. The heroes escape and make it back to the Resistance base, which is on Yavin IV. (Sounds like JJ Abrams.) Interestingly, Leia is also developing a super-weapon for the resistance, called “The Sledgehammer”. Act 3 takes place on the First Order planet where they’re developing “the Catapult”. In this version, it seems like Leia shows up with a more substantial fleet, and she uses “The Sledgehammer” to quickly blow up First Order Star Destroyers in one shot. But the Sledgehammer eventually somehow gets destroyed, and the First Order almost wins the space battle. But Finn and Han manage to blow up the First Order’s superweapon from the ground, saving the day. Kylo kills Han, and fights Finn and Rey in a snowy forest like in the real movie, but Rey and Kylo end up separated by a fissure in the ground, leading to a stalemate. The movie ends with Rey meeting Luke.

Since this synopsis was demonstrably released to the Internet in May of 2015 (seven months before TFA was released in theatres) - and since it is like 70% accurate to the actual film, we can safely say it was definitely based on legitimate leaks. The places where it deviates from the actual film are interesting. We’ll probably never know if the deviations are the result of misunderstandings, or if they reflect actual early drafts of the script.

My hypothesis is that they do legitimately reflect earlier drafts of the script at least to some extent. If we assume that earlier drafts of TFA did not have Starkiller Base at all, it would explain why in the final movie, the Starkiller Base plot line sort of comes out of nowhere and has little connection to the ongoing plot about finding Luke’s map. My guess is someone at Disney demanded that the movie feature a bigger, better Death Star, and so the writers came up with Starkiller Base late in the development process, and scrambled to graft it into the existing story. So the original story-line about two super-weapons was replaced with a more conventional story about the First Order developing a new Death Star.

There’s also additional evidence supporting the claim that the deviations are legitimate reflections of earlier drafts. They match certain unused concept art for TFA. Specifically, in the leaked synopsis, the First Order base is described as a “castle” (there’s weirdly a lot of castles in this script) on a snowy planet - instead of what eventually became the more conventional facility on Starkiller Base. Sure enough, there is concept art depicting exactly this.

Do people want a 3 hour remake of Star Wars 1977? Or is the other cut sufficiently different enough to not mirror and follow the original nearly beat for beat.