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Despite hitting theaters back in December, the conversation surrounding Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hasn't slowed down much. Director J.J. Abrams had a ton of storytelling ground to cover throughout its runtime, so there was a lot to unpack for the generations of fans. And with the movie's comic books and novelization helping to expand the story, there's constantly new updates. We've just got more intel about a deleted scene involving a terrifying spider monster, which should no doubt inspire more calls for the mythical J.J. Cut.
Tweets about J.J. Cut started popping up following rumors about deleted scenes that proved Finn's Force powers. The call echoed the ongoing Snyder Cut movement, where DC fans are campaigning for Zack Snyder's original version of the movie. Star Wars creature designer Neal Scanlan recently opened up about one real deleted scene, which involved a giant spider on a baby head. As he put it,
It was concept designer Jake Lunt Davies who conceived the character. In many ways, The Eye of Webbish Bog was similar in J.J.’s mind, I think, to Babu Frik in that they had important information that would guide the characters on their journey. Jake did this drawing and J.J. latched onto it, loved it, and said, ‘Well, we have to make this happen.’ So we did. We built this full-size sort of giant baby head that sits in water, and built an animatronic spider-like character that sits on top, which was performed through slots in the giant baby’s head.
That is some seriously horrifying imagery, even for the Star Wars franchise. While The Rise of Skywalker's most scary moments come from Palpatine's decaying clone corpse, J.J. Abrams and company built a scary creature-- and even shot scenes involving the baby/spider combination.
This isn't the first we've heard about this creature, named The Eye of Webbish Bog. A shot of its head was revealed in a behind the scenes video, and the fandom promptly begged for answers. And while this terrifying alien was cut from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Neal Scanlan previously expressed his hope that it might be used in Disney+'s The Mandalorian.
Star Wars fans can re-watch the Skywalker Saga on Disney+. You can use this link for a free 7-day trial to the streaming service.
Later in Neal Scanlan's conversation with Slash Film, he confirmed that the footage of the The Eye of Webbish Bog was shot; it was simply cut for time. As he put it,
The whole sequence was shot. Absolutely. It does exist as footage but, unfortunately, there just wasn’t enough time in the movie.
FOMO alert. Given how rabid the Star Wars fanbase is, deleted scenes are a highly anticipated aspect of each movie's release on DVD and Blu-ray. We've heard about some cut moments from the final battle as well as the First Order's opening sequence, so there are clearly plenty of moments that were left on the cutting room floor. But given how much narrative mileage J.J. Abrams had to trek through during The Rise of Skywalker's runtime, this is to be expected.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is available via video on demand now, and will arrive on DVD and Blu-ray on March 31st. In the meantime, check out our 2020 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.
