Chilling 'Rise Of Skywalker' Concept Art Shows Horrible Fate For Chewbacca

Probably Best This Scene Ended Up On The Cutting Room Floor

By Culture SlatePublished 2 years ago • 3 min read

With the Rise of Skywalker, you either love it, or you hate it, no more, no less. Of course, there were a lot of behind the scenes production politics going on that resulted in the film being what it is. But that’s not why I write this article. We’re here because of a certain part of the behind-the-scenes process. A series of concept art that shows what might have happened to everyone’s favorite Wookie, Chewbacca. That’s right, we have concept art ready to show you, which should help shed some light on the subject of Episode IX.

As we can see from the first drawing below, Chewbacca is chained up to the ceiling of some First Order base. Is the crucifix pose supposed to be symbolic of something? Probably not, it’s likely just meant to be a striking pose for the scene. The second drawing shows another angle of the scene, while the third shows a bunch of droids appearing to torture the poor Wookie. Is there any end in sight? Well, obviously yes, but we’ll lay off the spoilers for now. If you’ve seen the movie, you’ve seen how he escaped, that’s all that really needs to be said about it.

Thanks to our source, we know that this concept art was for a scrapped torture scene. The artwork was shared by concept artist Jon McCoy, and are some of the earliest images he produced for the film. This scene was meant to be uncomfortable, and to make the audience feel sympathy for the Wookie. The stress inducing poses, his cry of agony, you can feel what he’s going through just from the pictures alone. The artwork is rough and unpolished, but it does a good enough job for what it is, and for that, we’d give it a 10/10.

This scene made it into the script and, according to Joonas Suotamo, the actor for Chewbacca in the sequel trilogy, they did in fact shoot it during filming. Obviously, it was cut from the final release. Presumably, having Kylo Ren torture a beloved character went against the entire angle that film was giving him. Was it for the best? We don’t want to start another flame war, so you’re just going to have to figure that one out for yourself. We would, however, be interested in seeing the finished scene someday, if we ever get the chance to.

Also, according to Suotamo, Kylo Ren was pretty brutal in this scene, which would really go against the angle they were giving him in this film. If you’ve seen The Rise of Skywalker, you know exactly what we’re talking about, and that’s all we’re going to say about it. Like we said, this is a rather touchy subject, and we don’t want to start another flame war over it. So, if you haven’t seen the movie, you might feel a little left out, but consider yourself safe from the fandom wars. One question remains from us though, are there any other deleted scenes floating out there? We’ll see, these things are never kept buried for long, so it’s bound to pop up one way or another. It’s the end of March, and that means it’s almost April Fools Day. Be sure to be on the lookout, you never know what’s a prank and what isn’t.

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