For those who are wondering why Lupita Nyong'o's character Maz Kanata in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" had very little screen presence, director J.J. Abrams has a pretty good explanation.
The director said that when they start piecing the film together, there are scenes they had to cut in order to make it work.
"Sometimes you discover that things you would have cut off a limb to shoot on the day are absolutely inconsequential, and in fact less impactful than if you were to remove it," he told Entertainment Weekly.
"As much as you try to kick the tires and write and shoot only what is necessary - no one wants to waste anyone's time - when you're in the editing room you realize, for instance, that introducing the character there actually diminishes their power. Or, giving that information actually distracts you from what you should be concentrating on. Or, having that moment happen concurrent with that moment actually gets in the way of both - things like that," Abrams continued.
This is exactly what happened with the scenes filmed with Maz Kanata. As much as they wanted to highlight her role in the film, it just cannot be done.
"That was a scene actually filmed, but we took out. At one point, Maz used to continue along with the characters back to the Resistance base, but we realized that she really had nothing to do there of value, except to have her sitting around... Lupita did film scenes on set for that sequence, but it felt like going right just to go left, and it was unnecessary. So we ended up leaving those things out," he shared.
But Maz Kanata was not the only character whose scenes they had to cut.
"There's a shot where Kylo Ren turns on his lightsaber, which was also not in the movie," Abrams said. "There were a bunch of things we ended up not using."
But as the director, it was his job to "kick the tires and write and shoot only what is necessary."
"No one wants to waste anyone's time - when you're in the editing room you realize, for instance, that introducing the character there actually diminishes their power," Abrams said. "Or, giving that information actually distracts you from what you should be concentrating on. Or, having that moment happen concurrent with that moment actually gets in the way of both - things like that."
