Chewbacca’s got no chill! Well, at least not in a recently released deleted scene from Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
In the scene, which didn’t make the cut in the feature film but was an added extra on The Force Awakens 3D Collector’s Edition Blu-ray, Rey meets up with the repulsive junkyard boss from Jakku, Unkar Plutt (Simon Pegg), once again at Maz Kanata’s Takodana cantina.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRFrY8NFfAQ
A pissed-off Plutt gets grabby with Rey, telling the heroine he’s going to make her pay for stealing the Millennium Falcon from his precious junkyard. Rey asks him to let go and when he doesn’t, she pulls a blaster on him. Plutt takes the weapon and tells her she’s in big trouble.
Enter Chewbacca, whom you might recall Han Solo said was taking a liking to Rey shortly before this scene took place. He growls at Plutt, who doesn’t take kindly to the Wookiee’s intervention. Plutt pokes at Chewie’s wound which enrages the big fella. Chewie goes from zero to 100 very quickly and rips Plutt’s arm off from the socket. It’s pretty gnarly.
It’s easy to see why the scene was cut. It doesn’t really jive with the cantina scenes and is excessively violent. (Director J.J. Abrams and his editing team also clearly made that decision before the full CGI could be rendered on Plutt.) Ripping off someone’s arm because they’ve upset you also isn’t a great message to send to kids watching the film — even if it was warranted.
The scene might put a cap to Plutt’s adventures in the film, but concluding his search for Rey and the Millenium Falcon isn’t really important enough to justify including it in the final film. It’s simply too jarring.
