Star Wars: The Last Jedi is not a short film, but, as it turns out, it could have been even longer. Rian Johnson recently spoke about a couple of the deleted scenes that will feature on the movie's upcoming Blu-Ray release. There are two significant scenes that Johnson has revealed. The first is a scene on Ahch-To that allows one of the planets non-porg lifeforms to get a bit more screentime. Johnson says he really loved a sequence with the Caretakers, but eventually felt that it needed to go, as to allow other scenes in the movie to work better together. According to Johnson...
There are two big sequences that are really the kind of hero pieces of it. One is a whole other big thing between Rey and Luke on the island that involves the Caretaker creatures. You see this village where the Caretakers--the Nun Fish creatures--live, and it's a sequence that I always really loved. It's a really beautiful sequence. It's one of those things where ... and this always happens in the edit, it's like suddenly you can see through the Matrix and you're like, "Oh my God, that big sequence that I love so much and I can't imagine the movie without, if we lift it out and put these two things together, it plays in a slightly different way but it plays better." And you just kind of have that, "::sigh:: Shit," and you hit delete.
The scene in question will apparently give us more detail into the relationship between Luke Skywalker and Rey, but in the context of the Caretaker creatures. We'll see where they live and, hopefully, learn a bit more about them. Often, scenes are removed from a movie because they're judged themselves to not work as well as was hoped. In this case, it seems that the scene itself was fine, but it wasn't vital to the plot, and removing it had the effect of making other scenes work better.
The second sequence Rian Johnson discussed with Collider is an additional scene on board the Star Destroyer with Finn, Rose, and DJ. Johnson doesn't go into too much detail about the scene itself, but he does reveal that it was a humorous scene, and a one of significant length. He also reveals that the forthcoming Blu-Ray will include several other minor scenes, for a total of over 20 minutes of additional content.
There's another sequence where Rose, and Finn, and DJ are sneaking through the Mega Destroyer, which is just another really fun, funny sequence, I think. That's another four minutes, or something. But then there's a lot of really substantial little scenes. There are scenes with Finn that ended up getting stripped away, kind of his motivation for going out to look for Rey. There's a lot of stuff that I really love that I was really happy we were able to get back in there ... There's more than 20 [minutes] in there.
Deleted scenes are always fun as a way to see how things could have been and see what material was created that was eventually cut out. With 20 minutes plus of deleted scenes, there will be lots for fans to pour over. Rian Johnson also promises that no scenes are being held back for future releases. All the good stuff will be here.
