Star Wars bosses poorly try and explain Kelly Marie Tran’s reduced role

Many Star Wars fans were left wondering what happened to Rose Tico after actress Kelly Marie Tran barely appeared in The Rise of Skywalker. Well, we finally know the reason. But it’s…not a great one.

One of the most surprising and frustrating aspects of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is that Kelly Marie Tran, who plays Everywoman mechanic Rose Tico and who was a significant part of previous film The Last Jedi, could barely be seen in the movie. Her character had nothing like an arc, and actually only appeared onscreen for just over a minute.

The narrative shift between these two films was jarring in several ways – see also Poe’s complete character shift and Luke Skywalker’s apologies from beyond the grave – but the complete sidelining of Tran is perhaps the most obvious shift.

And the weirdest thing is that no one can be sure why it happened. Did the powers that be kowtow to the worst aspects of Star Wars fandom, who famously raged against Rose’s presence in the films for the better part of the last year? Was there a narrative explanation we just didn’t see?

Well, now we know. Sort of. And the answer is….not great.

In a new interview with Awards Daily, screenwriter Chris Terrio attempts to address why he and J.J. Abrams ultimately had to keep Tran – and Rose’s – role to a minimum.

"“One of the reasons that Rose has a few less scenes than we would like her to have has to do with the difficulty of using Carrie Fisher’s footage in the way we wanted to,” Terrio explained.“We wanted Rose to be the anchor at the rebel base who was with Leia. We thought we couldn’t leave Leia at the base without any of the principals who we love, so Leia and Rose were working together.”"

So…Terrio and Abrams are basically trying to blame Carrie Fisher’s death for sidelining a popular character from The Last Jedi in this sequel? Do I understand that correctly?

Because it sure sounds like it.

"“As the process evolved, a few scenes we’d written with Rose and Leia turned out to not meet the standard of photorealism that we’d hoped for. Those scenes unfortunately fell out of the film,” Terrio said.“The last thing we were doing was deliberately trying to sideline Rose. We adore the character, and we adore Kelly — so much so that we anchored her with our favorite person in this galaxy, General Leia."

The problems with manipulating the remaining footage available of Fisher is why Abrams and Terrio decided to give the job of the Millennium Falcon mechanic to a space slug instead of Rose? Why they completely ignored Finn and Rose’s flirtation/romance from the previous movie?

Is it also why they Star Wars bosses brought on Dominic Monaghan for what appears to be no reason at all, and gave him a bunch of lines and screentime that could have gone to Tran instead, regardless of whether any Fisher footage was used? (Don’t get me wrong, I like Monaghan a lot – hobbits forever! – but there was zero reason for his character to exist in this movie.)

Furthermore, the idea that Terrio and Abrams are invoking the memory of the beloved actress who played General Leia – and who tragically passed away while this trilogy was filming – to cover for their own decision to sideline another actress is flat out disgusting. As is the idea that cutting her footage is actually a sign of how much they loved the character? Ugh. Gross.

Both of these women deserved better than this.

Did Rose’s scenes with the Resistance work for you? Would you rather have seen her involved in more of the film in other places? Let’s discuss.