Release the JJ Cut

Editor's Note: This entry contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker; read at your own caution.

About

Release the JJ Cut, also known as Release the Abrams Cut and by the hashtag #ReleaseTheJJCut, is an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory regarding the production of the film Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. According to a viral Reddit post from January 2020, Abrams, the director of The Rise of Skywalker had assembled a different version of the film, which Disney and Lucasfilm, the studios that produced and released Skywalker and other Star Wars films, edited the film without the approval or input of the director. The thread inspired public backlash from fans, who demand to see this cut of the film. However, some have denounced the post as unverified and likely false.

Origin

On January 2nd, 2020, Redditor^[1] egoshoppe posted "Here's what I've been told from a source that worked on TROS" in the /r/saltierthancrait subreddit, a forum that, as described by the subreddit, "was founded not only as a place for people to air their issues and grievances with the Disney Trilogy, but also to help reduce the amount of arguments and negativity within other Star Wars communities." The post, which received more than 11,000 points (93% upvoted) and 3,000 comments, described a number of changes made to the film as well as details clashes between the studio, Disney and Lucasfilm, and J.J. Abrams, who according to the post, turned in a three-hour cut of the film. They write:

Since shortly after release weekend, I’ve been corresponding with someone who worked closely on the production of TROS and works for one of the major companies I cannot disclose here. I have verified the source to my satisfaction. To protect the source, I am rewording what we spoke about over the last two weeks and am submitting it to you in bullet point format I have written based on what they told me. The TLDR is that they were upset with the final product of TROS and wanted to share their perspective on how it went down and where it went wrong.

These rumors include:

- WB wants Abrams for some DC projects. My source said that this generation’s Star Wars is the MCU, and Marvel’s biggest threat is a well operational DC. They want to keep DC in the limbo that they’re in right now. Abrams jumpstarting that franchise with something like a successful, audience-pleasing Superman movie makes them nervous. Their goal is to make JJ look bad to potential investors/shareholders.

- JJ was devastated and blindsided by this. He’s been feeling down over the last 6 months because of some of the ridiculous demands Disney had that changed his movie’s story. While the scenes were shot, a lot of the changes were made in post-production and the audio was rerecorded and altered. My source said they’ve never seen anything like this happen before. He’s the director and he wasn’t in the know about what they were doing behind his back.

- The “ending that will blow your mind” was a part of this. Older actors were included like Hayden, Ewan and Samuel and anyone who wasn’t animated. The force ghosts weren’t meant to be voices because they shot that footage on camera. The actors were in costumes. Rey was supposed to be surrounded by the force ghosts to serve as sort of a barrier between her and the Sith surrounding them.

- Babu Frik was nearly cut because some execs at Disney thought he would be the new Jar Jar. They are really surprised that people love him this much. He was JJ's idea and was created in collaboration with some artists and puppeteers. The personality was all JJ.

- Jannah was confirmed to be Lando’s daughter.

- Finn wanting to tell Rey something was always meant to be force sensitivity. In the 3 hour cut, it’s explicitly stated. There was a moment when Jannah and he were running on top of that star destroyer and Finn needed to unlock or move something and he force-moved it and acted surprised when it happened. This was replaced with a CGI’d BB-8 fixing whatever he needed to fix on there.

- The Kylo/Rey scene where he dies was at least 4 minutes longer with more dialogue. Ben was always supposed to die. Source also added that if he wasn’t, then that might’ve been in an earlier draft which they haven’t read. The first draft they read included Lando (the first few didn’t). The Reylo kiss and Ben’s death was not part of the reshoots. It was a part of the re-editing. Even the cut that JJ thought was coming out earlier this month had a longer version of that scene than what was shown in the theatrical cut.

- JJ was against the Reylo kiss (or Reylo in general). This was Disney's attempt to please both sides of the fandom.

Spread

Following the spread of the post, people responded to the rumors on Twitter. For example, Twitter^[2] user @stellarcarol tweeted, "i refuse to believe that finn is NOT force sensitive, he used luke’s lightsaber, was able to keep up a fight without any training and he sensed rey dying because of their force bond, WHY WAS THIS NOT SHOWN? #ReleaseTheJJCut." The post received more than 1,100 likes and 195 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below, left).

Film reporter Peter Sciretta responded negatively to the rumors. He tweeted,^[3] "Do yourself a favor, don’t believe any crazy reddit conspiracy theories about TROS. Most of them read like laughable ridiculous fan fiction. It’s amazing to me that people think this stuff could be true." He continued by sharing an example of things the he did not find plausible with the rumors, highlighting that Disney purposely wanted to make JJ look bad with The Rise of Skywalker. He wrote, "Here is an example of how bad it is, yet people somehow believe it to be true? So, let’s get this straight…. Disney sabotaged one of their biggest franchise films so that JJ would look bad to WB who had already signed a deal with him? None of this makes any sense" (shown below, center and right).

Others made jokes and memes about the rumored cut. Twitter^[4] user @KyloIsSad tweeted a Nicole And Charlie's 'Marriage Story' Argument about the rumors. The post received more than 1,500 likes and 285 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below).

Many media outlets decried the rumors. Forbes^[5] described the post as "fan-fiction of everything this community wants to hear about what went wrong with Rise of Skywalker." Ringer^[6] wrote, "Conveniently, everything the good folks at r/saltierthancrait hated was concocted solely by Disney to sell toys or, bizarrely, to accommodate the Chinese government’s dislike for a certain shade of blue. And everything they liked--specifically the charming, pocket-size droid mechanic Babu Frik--was something Abrams not only created but had to fight tooth and nail to save."

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