The recent “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” kicked off with a montage in which Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren is on a mission to find a Sith wayfinder to lead him to Exegol. Kylo found it on Mustafar, the volcanically active planet where Darth Vader’s base is located.
In that opening sequence we see Kylo slaughtering an army amidst a burned out and ashy forest, but at one time the original plan was that scene went on longer – that army were cultists were protecting a spider-like being called the Eye of Webbish Bog whom Kylo confronts.
Concept artwork of the creature, a being which has a symbiotic relationship with a blind giant, has made the rounds in recent months. Recently Neal Scanlan, the film’s creature and special make-up effects creative supervisor, has spoken to Collider about the creation of the creature and confirms it was shot but didn’t make it into the film’s cut:
“That was a character that was designed very early on in the day. Jake Lunt [Davies], who’s one of my concept designers, we were all playing around with this idea and talking about it and he did this drawing and J.J. [Abrams] saw it and went, ‘That is amazing.’ It was one of those moments where it was like, ‘This has to be in the movie.’
So we actually did build it and we took it to a place called Black Park in the UK, which is close to Pinewood Studios, where we shot it in a lake on location, and that sequence exists. Unfortunately it didn’t make it to the movie story, plot-wise, etc. It was a fully practical character shot in a location, and it is amazing.”
What was Skywalker’s loss however could become the gain of “The Mandalorian” or another “Star Wars” show though if Scanlan has his way:
“I hope that we can maybe bring that back in some way shape or form on the TV series [The Mandalorian] or that we can revisit that character in some way because it was a haunting image and a very unusual image. But one which I think was incredibly Star Wars. So yeah, somewhere there’s footage of that.”
“The Mandalorian” wrapped production on its second season this week ahead of airing later this year, and there’s a good change a third one is on the way along with at least one other “Star Wars” live-action series.
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” comes out on Digital HD on March 17th and the Blu-ray and DVD copies will hit shelves on March 31st.
