Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker actor calls for Disney to release director JJ Abrams' cut

It's been a tumultuous month for Star Wars fans.

Not only has The Rise of Skywalker divided critics, but it's now being claimed that behind-the-scenes issues plagued the JJ Abrams film from the beginning of production.

Since these claims surfaced online, the hashtag "Release the JJ Cut" has been trending on social media.

While actor Dominic Monaghan didn't confirm the Reddit leak that suggests Abrams was "devastated and blindsided" by the film's final cut, he did inadvertently corroborate one part – that the director had wanted the film to be 40 minutes longer.

“Like a lot of Star Wars fans, I’m hoping there will be a director’s cut so we’ll get to see more and more of the stuff that was filmed,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.

“I wasn’t there all the time, but even in the short time that I was there, there was so much stuff filmed that didn’t make it to the theatrical version," he continued. "Oh, man, there was so much stuff!"

Monaghan, who played Charlie in hit ABC series Lost, revealed he shot a key scene involving the characters rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) and Lieutenant Connix, who is played by Carrie Fisher's daughter, Billie Lourd.

He added: "It was just extraordinary to even just be involved in that scene, and unfortunately, with the time constraints, they didn’t make it or they changed things around. So, I’m hoping that if and when the DVD comes out that maybe they’ll add extras or they’ll have deleted, additional scenes."

Abrams reportedly shot a scene that would have gone down immensely well with die-hard fans.

The moment in question would have seen Star Wars actors Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker), Samuel L Jackson (Mace Windu) and Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi) return as Force ghosts.

The scene is said to have been removed for unknown reasons, but its potential existence could explain why Christensen’s appearance on a Star Wars panel was cancelled at the last minute in September.

The Rise of Skywalker has a score of 54 per cent on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes – one of the lowest for any movie in the long-running Star Wars franchise.

Abrams recently revealed what he believes to be the answer to one of The Rise of Skywalker’​s biggest mysteries: what Finn was about to say to Rey before getting sucked into the quicksand in Pasaana.

Find a list of every unexpected cameos in the film here.

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