A Star Wars screenwriter has explained why Rose Tico, played by Kelly Marie Tran, got barely more than a minute of screen time in The Rise Of Skywalker.
The Vietnamese-American actor had a significantly reduced role in the new film, which prompted the hashtag #RoseTicoDeservedBetter to trend on Twitter.
Fans felt that her limited screen time reflected acquiescence to the demands of the online bullies who had aimed abuse at Kelly Marie after the release of The Last Jedi in 2017.
Chris Terrio, who co-wrote the film with director J.J. Abrams, told Awards Daily: “Well, first of all, J.J. and I adore Kelly Marie Tran. 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’s footage in the way we wanted to.”
Carrie Fisher, who played the crucial role of Princess Leia Organa, died in 2016, but still appeared in the latest film thanks to deleted scenes, recycled footage and CGI.
Terrio said Rose’s character was kept at the rebel base because the writers wanted Leia to work with another principal character.
“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,” he said. “Those scenes unfortunately fell out of the film.
“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 favourite person in this galaxy, General Leia.”
Kelly Marie was introduced as a major character in the previous instalment of the franchise, The Last Jedi, and was the first woman of colour to land a major role in the series.
Her character was not well-received by some fans, and she decided to leave social media after receiving relentless abuse, including racist comments.
The 30-year-old actor penned a moving op-ed for The New York Times following her departure from social media, detailing the humiliation and hardships she’d suffered throughout her life as a woman of colour in America. She declared that she would not allow herself to be marginalised by online harassment.
Some fans were not satisfied with the writer’s explanation for Rose Tico’s absence in the new film and poked several holes in his reasoning: