The April 5 release of the "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" Blu-ray will include seven deleted scenes in addition to hours of behind the scenes footage. But according to Neal Scanlan, the puppet master who oversaw the design of many of the creatures and aliens in the film, there's much more unreleased footage you won't see on the home release.
In an interview with Nerdist, Scanlan revealed that director J.J. Abrams filmed much more footage than what viewers see on film or on the Blu-ray.
Via Nerdist:
Scanlan believes there could be a cut of the film an hour longer that would work, and that he would love to watch. He calls the theatrical cut “so fine to the wire” in the way it hit the allotted running time while keeping as much of the good stuff as possible.
Director J.J. Abrams has said there are no plans for an extended cut of "The Force Awakens," but Scanlan told Nerdist that the opening scenes in Jakku alone had multiple characters cut.
“There was an awful lot of stuff that we shot,” Scanlan says. “Background stuff. Things that are happening in Jakku in the background, in the desert, and all of those things. And sometimes the roll of dice is in order to tell the story the way that they need to tell it, and J.J. wanted to tell it. Some things there just isn’t the screen time for them. So he exists on film somewhere. Whether we’ll ever see him, who knows?”
Among the deleted material is Constable Zuvio, a peacekeeper living in Jakku. There was even a toy released of Zuvio and Lucasfilm went as far as to cast, costume, and film scenes in Morocco with the character.
According to StarWars.com, Zuvio is described as the leader of Niima Outpost's militia who are supposed to protect visitor starships from locals and thieves.
No official word on when or if we'll ever see the characters and costumes that didn't make the film. But with four more film set in the "Star Wars" universe over the next few years, maybe the ideas will be used by future directors.