Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker went through a lot of changes during its journey to the big screen, and even with a lengthy runtime, it was clear Lucasfilm struggled to include all of J.J. Abrams' ideas to wrap this trilogy up. Ultimately, the majority of fans would respect the filmmaker's attempt to deliver a fan-pleasing finale, but this is a franchise that's often struggled to make everyone happy.
An earlier version of the movie would have seen Kylo Ren reunited with Chewbacca, although it certainly wouldn't have been much fun for the Wookie. Ben Solo was going to torture and interrogate his "uncle," and new concept art shared by Jon McCoy shows some early designs for that scene.
"In the film, there [was] a scene where Chewbacca is being interrogated/tortured," the artist explains. "We were asked to generate some ideas for this scene and designs of the machine that would be holding him in these terrible stress positions! I aimed at portraying a very iconic and unique pose that Chewie would be held in, to make the shots memorable."
McCoy has also revealed that he suggested the Millennium Falcon be transformed from a ship to the Resistance's new base. "I had the vision of an 80’s toyset, where compartments would extend and slide out, turning the original thing into something else," he notes, pointing out that this role ultimately fell to the Blockade Runner (we'd have been curious to see this Falcon on screen).
It's always fun to see what might have been with movies like this, but neither one of these ideas is likely to have been enough to fix a finale many fans felt was way off the mark. Still, we can't fault McCoy's work, and he clearly had a cool take on some specific scenes in Episode IX.
Check out the concept art below and head over to Jon's website to see much more of his work!