‘Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker’ Writer Explains Kelly Marie Tran’s Limited Screen Time

After getting an introduction to her character in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” actress Kelly Marie Tran returned as Rose Tico in “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” However, Tran only had very little screen time in the latest movie and one of the writers has now explained why that is.

In an interview with Awards Daily, co-screenwriter Chris Terrio spoke about the reason. “One of the reasons that Rose has a few less scenes than we would like her to have has to do with the difficulty of using Carrie [Fisher]’s footage in the way we wanted to,” Terrio told the site. “We wanted Rose to be the anchor at the rebel base who was with Leia. We thought we couldn’t leave Leia at the base without any of the principals who we love, so Leia and Rose were working together.”

It appears that Fisher’s passing may have contributed to Rose’s very little presence in the film since Fisher’s footage from the earlier films were being used to close out her story. “As the process evolved, a few scenes we’d written with Rose and Leia turned out to not meet the standard of photorealism that we’d hoped for. Those scenes, unfortunately, fell out of the film,” Terrio added.

Despite that, Terrio confirmed that they didn’t want to put Rose on the sidelines on purpose, ultimately deciding to have her share scenes with General Leia. “The last thing we were doing was deliberately trying to sideline Rose. We adore the character, and we adore Kelly — so much so that we anchored her with our favorite person in this galaxy, General Leia.”

Much of the scenes that Rose was in took place mostly at the base, so we never got to see her take off on any adventures with Rey and the rest of her comrades. Tran did have a scene with Rey that was shown in a publicity still for the movie, but that never made it to the final cut.

Fans haven’t been supportive of Rose’s little screen time, which resulted in starting the movement #RoseTicoDeservedBetter. It even prompted “Crazy Rich Asians” director John M. Chu to pitch an idea for Disney Plus for a series that revolved around the character.