Following the alleged leaks from The Rise of Skywalker recently making the rounds on the net, some fans were convinced that the movie was originally 3 hours long with a lot of scenes ending up getting cut out, including ones of Emperor Palpatine. However, it seems like fans actually have seen all of the character's filmed shots after all.
In a recent interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Creature And Special Make-up Effects Creative Superior Neal Scanlan addresses the alleged cut Palpatine scenes. "I don't think there's anything you haven't really seen," he said. "J.J. [Abrams] would always shoot variations on scenes — that's the natural moviemaking process."
However, Scanlan pointed out that, to his knowledge, there weren't any other alternative versions of the Sith Lord's story in The Rise of Skywalker. Sure, they filmed some other shots of him, but Scanlan says these are the ones where they just change camera angles, the lighting, or a little dialogue variation. "It's just naturally what we do," he added.
There you have it. There weren't any other crucial scenes that didn't make the final cut, rather just minor changes to the filming setup to get the shot right. Scanlan also mentioned that Ian McDiarmid enjoyed the filming process and returning as the Emperor. "He was totally game for everything," he said. He revealed that they did "some digital augmentation" for other shots, but overall, they mostly "hung onto" the actor's performance. "He's fantastic," he added.
Well, it looks like Star Wars fans won't get to see some deleted footage of the Sith Lord from Episode IX. Regardless, McDiarmid did an amazing performance and people loved that he was even much more powerful and scarier than ever before in the movie.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is now showing.
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Star Wars: Episode IX