The Last Jedi Scenes You Didn't See

Although she certainly plays an important part to the plot of The Last Jedi, we don't really learn much about Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo during the course of the film. This noticeable lack of characterization is probably due to the reshoots that director Rian Johnson decided to do with actress Laura Dern. While these reshoots didn't have a major impact on her story arc, they did effectively remove a lot of the personality that Dern (and the script) had injected into the character. Holdo originally didn't pull any punches with her total dismissal of Poe — calling him "flyboy," "honey," and just generally treating him like an insubordinate hotshot pilot (which to be fair, he totally is.)

Apparently Johnson was worried that Holdo was being a little too condescending, and wanted fans to better identify with the Admiral during her shocking sacrifice later in the film. Leia already knocked him down a couple of pegs with the demotion and that slap, so Holdo's verbal put-downs were probably overkill. They re-recorded Dern's dialogue and cut out some of the original scenes.

The deleted scenes on the Last Jedi Blu-ray kick off with a new version of the opening scene, beginning with Finn waking up in the medical bay and stumbling around the ship in his leaking water suit. Instead of the traditional "pan down to planet" shot after the opening crawl, this deleted scene opts to start the movie with an audience fake-out. The camera pans through the window of the medical bay and focuses on the planet-like dome of Finn's recovery pod. Parts of this scene did made it into the final cut of the film, like when Finn groggily shuffles out in the corridor as pilots race by to the main hangar. The rest of the scene is all new, but it doesn't really add much impact and would have probably upset some Star Wars purists with the trick opening. In the end, it's probably for the best that this one ended up being cut.

In this scene, Luke retreats into his hut on Ahch-To after Rey arrives and tells him of Han Solo's death at the hands of Kylo Ren. Luke keeps up his standoffish attitude with Rey until the door is closed, then he sits down heavily at a table and bows his head in sadness. The scene cuts to Leia, who is sitting at a table aboard the Resistance cruiser Raddus and mourning Han in similar fashion. It's a nice use of mirroring by Johnson, as these twin siblings are a galaxy apart but are still mourning the loss of Han together.

It's also a great moment for Mark Hamill and a testament to his investment in the character of Luke. Rey is hovering outside the door of Luke's hut, so he can't just let himself go and have a good old ugly cry. Hamill expertly makes that conflict evident, and the heavy emotions play across his face as he collapses in front of the table. Johnson ended up cutting the scene for pacing reasons, but it really deserved to make it into the film. Even Hamill himself thought that this scene should have stayed in, because it really could have changed how the audience viewed Luke in The Last Jedi.

In this scene, Finn hangs out with BB-8 and frets over Rey as he looks forlornly down at the twin of the tracking bracelet she wears. BB-8 tries to cheer Finn up and get his attention with some silly antics, but the former stormtrooper is too lost in his worries to notice. Finally, BB-8 gets the idea to play a holographic recording of Rey for him. The recording comes from The Force Awakens, before Rey left for Ahch-To. She sits by Finn's bedside as he lays unconscious from the wounds he took on Starkiller Base. Rey kisses his forehead, telling him they'll see each other again. Finn tells BB-8, "It's kind of weird you recorded that," but thanks the little droid for inspiring him to use the homing beacon to find his friend. It's a touching scene, but also unnecessary and slow, so it's easy to understand why this one got cut from the theatrical release.

This long sequence is probably the one deleted scene that fans have been anticipating the most. Rey rushes out of the Jedi Temple and sees ships sailing into the Caretaker village. Luke tells her the ships are raiders, come to plunder the island. Rey wants to save the village, but Luke tells her a "true Jedi" would do nothing. "The books in the Jedi library say only act when you can maintain balance," he explains. Rey ignores him and rushes across the island with her lightsaber.

When she bursts through the village gate, she finds the caretakers are just having a bonfire and bagpipe party with their friends — including R2 and Chewie. She confronts Luke angrily, and it's obvious that his "lesson" on why she and the Resistance don't need a dead religion was a mistake. Some fans have criticized The Last Jedi for skimping on alien culture, and the caretaker party would have helped fill that void. But Luke's bad joke is misplaced, and Rey already has enough reasons to be mad at him, which makes this scene unnecessary in the end.

This deleted scene is an extended version of the sequence during which Finn, Rose, and DJ sneak aboard the First Order flagship Supremacy in order to disable its hyperspace active tracking system. The trio's undercover mission is plagued with problems, beginning with an inquisitive First Order commander, played by Ralph Ineson. After they successfully evade the commander, they end up riding in a crowded elevator with a group of stormtroopers — which include cameos by England's Prince William and Prince Harry.

Another stormtrooper (played by Tom Hardy) recognizes FN-2187, and things get tense as Finn nervously contemplates shooting the stormtroopers before their cover is blown. DJ stops Finn from drawing his blaster just before the stormtrooper cheerfully slaps Finn on the rear, saying, "I never took you for Captain material! Woo, look at you!" It's probably one of the most hilarious moments in the entire film, and the delivery and timing of the punchline cut expertly through the building tension.

This deleted scene is the original version of Finn's showdown with Captain Phasma. In this version, Finn is trapped by Phasma and several stormtroopers on an elevated platform, like something out of a WWE "Hell in a Cell" cage match. Finn tries to win over the soldiers by reminding Phasma of her cowardice and how she "squealed like a whoop hog" and shut down the Starkiller Base shields. Phasma knows the stormtroopers behind her are thinking hard about what they just heard. Before they can act, she shoots all four of them, but Finn destroys her blaster and uses a fallen soldier's plasma rifle to blast her off the platform. John Boyega's performance feels a little stiff here, and the "whoop hog" line was just weird. Although Phasma could have had a lot more screen time in The Last Jedi, her reshot death scene that was used for the film is much better than this version.

The final deleted scene found on The Last Jedi Blu-ray release is a short additional clip featuring footage of Rey and Chewie aboard the Millennium Falcon during the battle on Crait. After successfully leading away and destroying the TIE fighters supporting the invading First Order army, Chewbacca and Rey return with their ship to the Resistance bunker in hopes of rescuing the survivors inside. They swoop in heroically — until they see the intense beating that the bunker is taking from the First Order's blasters. "Let's go around back," Rey says. This leads to the later scene in The Last Jedi when Rey casually uses the Force to lift a bunch of boulders blocking the Resistance survivors from escaping. It's a funny little moment, but this deleted clip is so short — only a few seconds long — that it really didn't hurt anything by being left out of the final cut of the film.