In the fallout caused by the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, a couple recurring threads have developed among pockets of the fandom. One of them pertains to the fact that actor Kelly Marie Tran’s character, Rose Tico, seemed to have disappeared from the Star Wars galaxy in the course of one film.
And now, you can totally see why that’s the case, as a report has clocked the estimated time that Rose shows up on screen in director J.J. Abrams’ final film of the Skywalker Saga. Brace yourselves, as Tran apparently was only on screen for roughly 1 minute and 16 seconds of screen time, out of the total 2 hours and 35 minutes that make up Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
The immediate comparison that begs to be drawn in the light of this news is just how much screen time Kelly Marie Tran had in the film that marked her character’s debut, writer/director Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi. And, sure enough, the results in that particular case are proven to be more plentiful, as Rose Tico featured in an estimated 10 minutes and 53 seconds of the film’s 2 hours and 32 minute running time. With only three minutes separating the two films total run times, the comparison makes it all the more shocking to see just how Rose’s fortunes changed between both films.
Obviously, while some may take the report from Slate as a signal that her character was, indeed, intentionally sidelined, there are a host of factors that could have played into Rose’s reduced role in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The usual suspect in this sort of situation is that some of her scenes may have been cut for pacing, with the editing process of this Star Wars entry possibly leaving Kelly Marie Tran’s performance as one of reduced capacity.
Then again, there could have been changes made from the script originally written for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, as initial writers Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly may have used her character in a different context. However, once their draft was then redefined by J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio in their re-writes, as a result of Trevorrow being removed from the project, things could have changed drastically from that point forward.
Whatever changes may or may not have been made to Rose Tico’s fate, or Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’s overall message for that matter, they certainly don’t seem to have hurt the film’s prospects all that much. Recent numbers have seen the film comfortably steamrolling the competition, though the film did miss out on conquering the Christmas Day record for box office grosses, despite such dominance.
It will be interesting to see if any sort of follow-up comes out of the official Star Wars press machine, as the absence of Rose Tico will more than likely remain a talking point in audience’s enjoyment, or disappointment, with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’s concluding entry to the episodic epic that’s been running since 1977.
But, at this point, merely from the perspective of the data on hand, this looks like a case of a character definitely being sidelined, especially when seeing how many new characters and plot threads Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker introduced into the fray. Consider us interested in seeing where this goes, as well as sending out best wishes to Kelly Marie Tran with our hopes that she can appear as a prominent character in Benoit Blanc’s next adventure after Knives Out.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is in theaters now. Although, if you’ve already seen the film as many times as you could ever want, there’s always the 2020 release schedule to help you plan the future, and the 2019 release schedule to show you what you’re still missing from this year’s box office calendar.
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