The Rise of Skywalker Would Have Featured Kylo Ren Torturing Chewbacca

A lot of people may not realize it, but apart from Rey's journey from being a mere nobody to a promising Jedi who would later become anointed as a "Skywalker", the ever-so-polarizing Star Wars sequel trilogy also revolved around Ben Solo aka Kylo Ren's redemption arc and The Rise of Skywalker was pretty much the culmination of his "homecoming" to the light side of the Force after years of being manipulated by the dark side.

Now, we've gone over and over at know how divisive Episode IX turned out to be, and apparently, things would've been a lot crazier if J.J. Abrams pushed through with his initial plans for the Skywalker saga's grand finale. According to Joonas Suotamo, the actor who took over from Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca after he retired following The Force Awakens, the director filmed a scene with him and Kylo Ren which would have seen the latter torturing the lovable Wookie.

Suotamo revealed this interesting bit in his book Roar! My Life as a Wookie (via CBR). However, he wasn't entirely sure why Abrams decided to can the scene but he's guessing the idea of Kylo torturing Chewie would've been too much for the audience to handle.

Suotamo's claims were later confirmed by Star Wars concept artist Ryan Church who unveiled on Twitter how the scene would have played out through his magnificent artwork. Church explains: "In the script, this moment was a bit vague, I chose a camera angle, composition and gesture that says all there is to say about the relationship here- it could have been one of the most intense, meaningful moments of the Trilogy."

As much as that scene would have been interesting to see, I'm personally glad and relieved at the same time that cooler heads prevailed and the proposed sequence didn't actually end up in the final cut. I mean, sure, we've long established how evil Kylo actually is but torturing his father's trusted ally would've been too much even if he already killed his father in The Force Awakens.

The entire Skywalker saga is available for streaming on Disney+.

Also Read: Disney Reportedly Plans to Erase Star Wars Sequels from Existence to Make Way for Reboot