Here’s Why Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker’s Digital HD Doesn’t Have Deleted Scenes

Disney might have decided to give Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker an early digital release, but Star Wars fans can't help but notice that Episode IX's home release doesn't come with deleted scenes or with a director's commentary.

This definitely comes as a surprise seeing how Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars: The Last Jedi both had deleted scenes in their home releases. Screen Rant tries to explain the missing features from The Rise of Skywalker's digital release, saying that Disney may have decided against adding deleted scenes in Episode IX's home release because of the large amounts of retooling that the movie had to go through. While deleted scenes in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi were mostly there to fill gaps in the story, deleted scenes in The Rise of Skywalker were created to retool the entire story of the film.

There were a number of controversial rewrites and reshoots done during the production of Episode IX. This included scenes that had Luke Skywalker's (Mark Hamill) appearance as a Force Ghost and Rey's (Daisy Ridley) introduction in the movie when she starts calling out to the Jedi of the past. The reshoots were so substantial that there's been a rumor running up and down the mill saying that a 3-hour cut of the movie exists.

Substantial reshoots can only mean substantial deleted scenes that would change the entire storyline of the film. Disney probably doesn't want to release those scenes to keep the movie from being swallowed up by controversy. The studio doesn't want the conversation to be dominated by the idea of what could have been.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is currently available on Digital HD.

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