"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is a near-perfect movie. That is, except for one scene that diehard fans found totally baffling.
In a new interview with SlashFilm's Peter Sciretta, director J.J. Abrams owned up to the mistake.
Major spoilers ahead.
Late in the film, when the Resistance fighters return from a brutal battle on Starkiller Base, our heroes depart the ship — save one. Han Solo has died.
General Leia Organa greets the crew as Chewbacca rushes past, escorting a stretcher carrying an injured Finn. Leia locks eyes with Rey and they embrace.
Wait. Why on Earth (or any planet, for that matter) would Leia console Rey, a young woman she's never met, over her longtime, furry friend, Chewbacca? Han's death would surely shake him deeper.
"That was probably one of the mistakes I made in that," Abrams told SlashFilm.
He continued:
"My thinking at the time was that Chewbacca, despite the pain he was feeling, was focused on trying to save Finn and getting him taken care of. So I tried to have Chewbacca go off with him and focus on Rey, and then have Rey find Leia and Leia find Rey. The idea being that both of them being strong with the Force and never having met, would know about each other — that Leia would have been told about her beyond what we saw onscreen and Rey of course would have learned about Leia. And that reunion would be a meeting and a reunion all in one, and a sort of commiseration of their mutual loss."
The implication that the Force led Leia and Rey to seek each other out is pretty amazing, just poorly timed. The devastating loss Leia and Chewbacca must have felt would surely trump that moment — and overcome Chewbacca's sense of responsibility in caring for Finn, a Resistance fighter-wannabe who Chewie wasn't so fond of throughout the movie.
Some fans thought Chewbacca ran past Leia as a slight. Abrams took full responsibility for the misunderstanding, and chalked it up to bad blocking.
"Had Chewbacca not been where he was, you probably wouldn’t have thought of it," he told SlashFilm. "But because he was right there, passed by Leia, it felt almost like a slight, which was definitely not the intention."
"Star Wars: Episode VIII" arrives in theaters in December 2017, so, only two years to find out how our heroes are doing. We bet Leia and the "walking carpet" have made up just fine.
