Why they chose to delete this scene is beyond me. I get it. Sometimes you gotta make things flow better in a movie, but to leave out a scene where Luke Skywalker grieves Han Solo. Star Wars fans want to se that. Given they missed the opportunity in Force Awakens when Chewie just ran right past Leia after Han died, you’d think they wouldn’t skip on Skywalker talking about Han.
We realized just for pacing in that section we had to stick with Rey and Luke, and we wanted just to go straight from him slamming the door of the hut into the day-in-the-life montage, of him going around the island. Taking that bit out suddenly propelled us forward into that segment in a way that just felt much better for the film.
I was very sorry to lose it. I think it’s a beautiful performance from Mark Hamill,” Johnson said. “But I think that we get a similar beat with him, later when he’s in the Falcon with R2.