"So Much Stuff" Was Cut: Dominic Monaghan Hopes For A 'Rise Of Skywalker' Directors Cut

The raging battle over “Star Wars,” and the debate around ‘Rise Of Skywalker’ continues. If Rotten Tomatoes is any indication, in broad strokes, most fans seem to like it, and critics didn’t at all (it’s Rotten). Still, like it or not, the critical response seems to have affected the film—‘Rise Of Skywalker’ is currently trailing “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” at the domestic box office by around $55 million and box office pundits are projecting a film that may end up with $1.15-$1.2 billion (‘The Last Jedi’ made $1.3 billion).

This week, on Twitter, #ReleaseTheJJCut trended due to a dubious report on Reddit (seemingly already discredited given it was written on a subthread dedicated to hating “Star Wars” and the new Disney era and reportedly written by a known and notorious troll). The allegations—pretty absurd when you read them—suggested that director J.J. Abrams didn’t see Disney’s cut of the film until last minute plus a whole bunch of Qanon-like galaxy-brained conspiracy theory-like notions. But the hashtag trended for hours, and if Twitter is any indication, millions of people were fooled.

That said, like any film, there are things that didn’t make the cut—‘The Rise Of Skywalker’ editor has suggested as much several times now—and in a new interview with THR, “Lost” actor Dominic Monaghan, who has a small role in the film as a resistance fighter, said he hopes a director’s cut is released at some point.

“Like a lot of Star Wars fans, I’m hoping there will be a director’s cut, so we’ll get to see more and more of the stuff that was filmed,” Monaghan told THR. “I wasn’t there all the time, but even in the short time that I was there, there was so much stuff filmed that didn’t make it to the theatrical version… Oh, man, there was so much stuff!”

“Another thing that we will hopefully see at some point in the future is that in the final battle, [Kaydel Ko] Connix [played by Billie Lourd] injures her leg,” Monaghan revealed. “Obviously, myself, Rose and Connix are exiting the battle, and Rose has a weapon. While Rose is busy doing stuff, I grab Connix’s arm and put it over my shoulder to make sure that all of us come back as unscathed as possible.”

Kelly Marie Tran has also suggested there’s a lot of unused final battle footage that’s not in the film. “I remember texting J.J. at the end of certain days and saying, ‘Oh my God, I can’t wait to see that,’ he explained. “It was just extraordinary to even just be involved in that scene, and unfortunately, with the time constraints, they didn’t make it or they changed things around. So, I’m hoping that if and when the DVD comes out that maybe they’ll add extras or they’ll have deleted, additional scenes.”

Additional, deleted scenes seem inevitable, but a director’s cut version of the film? Lucasfilm has never done that outside of the VFX upgrade Lucas himself did with the Special Edition versions, so one shouldn’t bet on ever getting that wish fulfilled, but dare to dream, I guess.