Growing up, my mom used to buy me a book a week from the grocery store. Often times, these were Stephen King or Dean Koontz novels (I actually read The Dark Tower series out of order because she got me The Waste Lands first, not knowing it was the third book). Other times, they were novelizations of whatever was currently in theaters, which led to a rather weird collection of paperbacks on my shelf as a kid.
These skinny filmic adaptations taught me a valuable lesson: sometimes all the scenes from the book aren't necessarily in the movie (and vice versa). I distinctly remember there being a sex scene in The Rookie that ignited certain, uh, passions, but when I finally saw Clint Eastwood's film on VHS, it was nowhere to be found. My eleven-year-old mind was blown (not to mention a bit disappointed).
This is all a TMI preamble to today's story that Jason Fry's novelization of The Last Jedi will include deleted scenes not included in the theatrical cut of the picture. Some of the moments highlighted are Han Solo's funeral, and more drama on the casino planet of Canto Bight. This comes via The Star Wars Show, which you can check out below:
As The Playlist points out, director Rian Johnson discussed sequences that were excised from The Last Jedi last year, including more trials between Rey and Luke Skywalker:
“(On) the island, there’s a massive sequence that we shot with Daisy and Mark, which is kind of an additional sort of trial/test that she goes through, that involves her and Mark, and then a big emotional scene between the two of them. I mean, it’s big stuff, it’s like actual real scenes."
Now it's up to fans to decide if this type of shit is canon or not. If I were to weigh in, I'd sure use that Rookie novelization as a reference, as that sex scene was always canon in my, er, heart.
Jason Fry's textual take on The Last Jedi hits bookstores March 6th.