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.
