8 Movie Trailer Scenes Removed For The Right Reasons

The trailers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens were among the most scrutinized of the century. There was so much to dissect and so much to discuss (Vader's helmet! Luke and R2! The Knights of Ren!) but one of the most curious images was easily the shot of an orange, alien hand passing over a lightsaber to a human female character.

We now know that this interaction was between Maz Kanata and General Leia, but strangely, this seemingly pivotal moment didn't make it into the final release. Hell, Maz and Leia didn't even speak, let alone meet!

So why was this cut, and where would it have even happened in the timeline of the film? For answers, we turn to director J.J. Abrams, and a quote he gave to Entertainment Weekly at the tail-end of 2015:

“That was a scene actually filmed, but we took out. At one point, Maz used to continue along with the characters back to the Resistance base, but we realized that she really had nothing to do there of value, except to be sitting around. Lupita did film scenes on set for that sequence, but it felt it unnecessary. So we ended up leaving those things out."

This shot was first seen in the film's April trailer, and at that point, Abrams was still intent on keeping it in his finished cut.

However, from then until December, the editing process resulted in some things being dropped to improve the pace and flow of the movie, and this - as cool as it might have been - was one thing that had to go.

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Disappointed that these scenes didn't make it into their films, or were they cut for the right reasons? Share your thoughts in the comments below!