Admiral Ackbar's Deleted Death Scene - Star Wars Actor Reveals All

Admiral Gial Ackbar is a Star Wars character who is beloved by fans. Actor and puppeteer Tim Rose brought Ackbar to life from inside the character's costume in Return of The Jedi, The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.

Many fans were outraged by the character's subdued demise in director Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi, believing that the rebel hero deserved more attention and deserved a heroic death.

In an exclusive interview with Red's Reviews & Interviews, Tim Rose was asked about his opinion on the matter.

The puppeteer stated, "80% of what we do, you don't see. We did shoot Ackbar's death scene."

Describing the scene, Rose described, "We did all the dialogue, they brought in the stuntmen who were being payed £6000 each per shot... each time we did a take."

Although CGI is often used nowadays in big blockbuster movies, for this scene, "They did the explosions as practical effects. So the shot was so dangerous that everyone was made to leave the set."

Tim Rose as Admiral Ackbar in The Last Jedi, starring alongside Carrie Fisher

Rose continued, "They hooked snatch lines onto the 3 calamari, and then when the explosion went off, when they blew the whole through the spaceship, the force of the explosion first blew them all forward, so they flew out to where Carrie had been standing by the main console. But then of course the vacuum took over from the explosion and they were sucked out. So the snatch lines that they were attached to basically pulled them from the stage floor to 60 or 70 feet in the air in about... a second?...60 feet so fast that you didn't want to eat lunch before hand or you'd be throwing it up inside your costume."

After the stuntmen were lowered back down, a crew member ran over to help them out of their costumes. The puppeteer recalls that "they couldn't, because the costumes were too hot to touch... So, that's why stuntmen get £6000 per take!"

It's surprising that this was cut from the final film, given the amount of work that was put into the scene. In Rose's opinion, it was deleted because "When they watched what they had done to Ackbar, [he'd] like to think that they were so horrified, they didn't want to show that to the kids... it was too graphic and too real."

TIm Rose portrayed Admiral Ackbar in 3 Star Wars movies

Admiral Ackbar was played physically by Rose, but was voiced by Erik Bauersfeld who dubbed over the character's lines in post production. Rose explains how the costume of Ackbar functioned:

"[Admiral Ackbar] had 2 different versions. There was a full body suit version for establishing shots where you needed to see the whole character, and he had a cable controlled mouth."

The puppeteer continues, "but most of the stuff we see with Ackbar on screen, I built a second version of him which was a hand-puppet. I was able to put my hand into the head and I operated the mouth 'muppet-style.'" This would be used for close-up shots.

(L to R) Mike Quinn, Billy Dee Williams, Mark Hamil, Anthony Daniels, Tim Rose, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford & Peter Mayhew on the set of Return of the Jedi

When asked what it was like to be inside the costume, Tim simply responds, "It was horrendous." He continues, "Your body goes up to about...102 degrees (faranheit)... So your entire body is covered in sweat. And that sweat has to go some place, so it tries to go out through the same hole you're trying to breathe in through and it covers the scrim, so you can't get air in through the suit anymore."

Rose could see through Ackbar's right nostril, so the crew would lead him where they wanted him to go, placing tape on the ground so that Tim knew where to look and stand.

The Force Awakens marked Rose's return to Star Wars after over 30 years

When he found out that the Star Wars sequel films were being made, Rose thought to himself "if they are going to have Ackbar in the movie, they're gonna have somebody in the suit who is [his] age when [he] was doing Ackbar... because of how physical it is."

Brian Herring (BB-8) was in charge of casting the puppeteers for 2015's The Force Awakens. When approached by Herring with the opportunity to return, Rose said, "Well, of course I'll be Ackbar again!" He jokes, "the first thing I did after saying 'Yes I'll do it' was go up to my workshop, pump up the tyres on my bicycle and start doing serious milage. Because if I was going to do Ackbar again, I didn't want to die while doing the part... it's incredibly physically demanding and its a lot easier to do when you're 24 than when you're 58!"

What's the future of the puppetry industry in film? Rose states, "Everyobody's always prophecising the end of puppets. Now, of course CGI has done a pretty good job of eliminating puppets out of movies... Puppets will always be around. I think they're the best when they're interacting with people... Puppets are really there, so I think their future is in live entertainment."

You can see more of Tim on his website, www.Admiralackbar.co.uk