The ‘Star Wars’ scene that J.J. Abrams admits was a mistake
The Star Wars film franchise is one of the most beloved science fiction movie series of all time. However, it’s fair to say that with each trilogy, the quality seems to get lower. The original George Lucas films are easily the best, followed by the reboots of the 2000s and way at the bottom are the most recent efforts, beginning with 2015’s The Force Awakens.
Episode VII was directed by J.J. Abrams and starred Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley and John Boyega. It takes place 30 years after 1983’s Episode VI – Return of the Jedi and tells of Han Solo’s search for Luke Skywalker as the Rebel Alliance fights against the First Order – essentially the new Galactic Empire.
However, Star Wars fans took great issue with one scene in particular from The Force Awakens. It arrives in the final few minutes and sees General Leia Organa hug Rey, a stranger with whom she barely has a connection, rather than embrace Chewbacca, a lifelong friend of herself and also Han Solo, who had recently died in the attack on the Starkiller Base.
Abrams himself once responded to the scene when asked about it by Slash Film. He admitted: “That was probably one of the mistakes I made in that. My thinking at the time was that Chewbacca, despite the pain he was feeling, was focused on trying to save Finn and getting him taken care of. So I tried to have Chewbacca go off with him and focus on Rey, and then have Rey find Leia and Leia find Rey.”
The director continued: “The idea being that both of them being strong with the Force and never having met, would know about each other — that Leia would have been told about her beyond what we saw onscreen and Rey of course would have learned about Leia. And that reunion would be a meeting and a reunion all in one, and a sort of commiseration of their mutual loss.”
So there’s a sense in Abrams of intention in that scene that many fans of the long-standing science fiction franchise took issue with providing a new kinship between Leia and Rey. However, the fact still remains that Chewbacca was largely shunned by the General and was left perhaps feeling a bit left out of her affection.
Abrams admitted that he might have inadvertently disrespected Chewbacca, even if that was not what he meant at all. He concluded: “Had Chewbacca not been where he was, you probably wouldn’t have thought of it. But because he was right there, passed by Leia, it felt almost like a slight, which was definitely not the intention.”
