Ths post contains light spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, so read on at your own peril.
The Last Jedi had the longest runtime of any Star Wars film so far, but even so, some stuff got left on the cutting room floor. Collider revealed that 20 minutes of deleted scenes would be included on the Blu-ray, although it likely wouldn’t be in original three-hour-cut form. While a few details from the additional material were revealed, /Film has the details of one of the major cut scenes, involving Rey and Luke Skywalker after their discussion about Darth Sidious.
Rey notices boats arriving at the island and there appears to be a big fire from where they’re landing. Luke tells her that it is a group of bandits who regularly come back to the island to plunder and kill the caretakers. Rey is very concerned and wants to help them, but Luke tells her that if you help them now, the raiders will come back stronger and it will make things worse in the future. He asks Rey if she is always going to be here to protect them, saying that a true Jedi Knight would do nothing and would only act to maintain balance, even when people get hurt.
Rey, furious at his reasoning, ignites her lightsaber and runs really fast… She runs over rocks on shallow water and bursts through a door with her saber into the village square ready for battle. Luke yells for her to wait, but she doesn’t stop.
She is surprised to learn that it’s not a raiding party, but an actual party, with caretakers celebrating and swinging glow sticks. The caretakers all stop and look at Rey, confused. One of the caretaker motions her her glow stick and Rey swings her lightsaber, imitating her movements, and sighs. The caretakers resume partying. Rey spots Chewbacca sitting at the party with a bunch of Porgs and R2-D2 (wearing a festive necklace). “Seriously?” Rey says to Chewie before storming out to find Luke.
The scene continues with Rey and Luke fighting over duty, why her spirit and compassion is what the Rebels need rather than the Jedi way, and why Rey believes in the “legend of Luke Skywalker,” despite Luke’s apparent hatred of it.
While it’s clear why that it was cut for time, it sounds like there was some actual good stuff in there. Showing more training for Rey probably wouldn’t keep nitpicking fans from calling her a Mary Sue, but it would have added more weight to the Luke and Rey dynamic. It also seems like that the shot of Rey running on the beach, lightsaber in hand, from the trailer was from this scene as well.
However, the biggest takeaway? There is a porg and fish nun rave that we still haven’t seen. This is truly the cruelest cut of all.
(Via /Film)