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Does this deleted Star Wars: The Force Awakens scene reveal a secret about Maz Kananta?

January 15th, 2016 by Irwin Fletcher 1 Comment

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Despite the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens finally answering months (and in some cases years) of questions that fans had, it has opened up a whole new can of worms when it comes to possibilities. One character that still has us guessing is Maz Kanata. But could details of a newly unearthed deleted scene give us more of an insight about who she really is?

For anyone who hasn’t seen The Force Awakens yet, beware: there are spoilers ahead.

In a recent interview with the film’s special effects supervisor Chris Corbould, it seems that some light has been shed on her. The character, played by Lupita Nyong’o, has great knowledge of the history of the galaxy, what The Force is, who Luke is in relation to events… she even has his old lightsaber. Even more so than Yoda in Empire Strikes Back, her sage-like advice leaves us wondering a lot about who she really is, where she’s come from and just how she has all this plot-driving information.

Speaking to Collider (via Squareeyed), Corbould outlines a deleted scene which would have portrayed her in a brand new light entirely: “There was a particular part of a scene that never made it, where they go underneath the castle and they’re going into the underground passageways, and Stormtroopers are coming down the stairs and Maz uses her powers to collapse the ceiling. From my point of view, [that] worked absolutely brilliantly because you had all the main actors running up and then Maz does her bit and then the whole ceiling collapses in front of them, but that never made it. That was a shot I was quite proud of, actually, it worked really, really well.”

This is very interesting indeed, because in the final cut of the film there is no indication that Maz has any sort of powers, Force related or otherwise. In fact, one of her lines of dialogue clearly has her say “I am no Jedi, but I do know the Force.”

This line takes on brand new meaning knowing that she can indeed manipulate the Force. Could she have experience with the Dark Side? It would certainly explain her knowledge of the Sith to the First Order.

We would love to see Maz return somewhere down the line, and it would certainly be a swerve to learn this seemingly unthreatening character had such a dark past.

I'm an LA journalist who really lives for his profession. I have also published work as Jane Doe in various mags and newspapers across the globe. I normally write articles that can cause trouble but now I write for FTN because Nerds are never angry, so I feel safe.