WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Expanded Edition, available now.
Although the home release contains no deleted scenes, not every element of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker's story made it onto the screen. Some of those will appear in the upcoming comic book adaptation, while other sequences are expanded upon in the newly released novelization. Among them is Kylo Ren's mission to Mustafar, from the film's opening moments, where slaughtered cultist while in search of the Sith wayfinder.
However, it turns out the new supreme leader of the First Order didn't only discover the key to locating Palpatine. In Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Expanded Edition, by Rae Carson, he comes face to face with the wayfinder's guardian, a spectacular creature known as the Eye of Webbish Bog.
The Eye of Webbish Bog
We encounter the Eye early in the novel, when Kylo reaches a small, brackish lake lined with trees, and the fallen remnants of Fortress Vader, the Sith Lord's once-imposing castle. It's from beneath the muck and debris emerges the Eye of Webbish Bog:
An oily film slicked across the lake’s still surface. But as Kylo approached, the water bubbled up in the center, sending tiny waves to lap at his boots. A giant emerged, a hairless creature sheening with wetness, bits of lake detritus clinging to its pasty skin. Its eyes were squeezed shut, but it could still see after a fashion, because draped over its massive bald head and across one shoulder was a second creature with long spidery tentacles. The two were locked in symbiosis. Kylo sensed the giant’s pain, as though it were a slave to the spidery being that clung to it. Yet neither could it survive alone.
The spider creature spoke. “I am the Eye of Webbish Bog. I know what you seek.”
Kylo tries but fails to use the Force to manipulate the being. Vader placed the Eye of Webbish Bog to defend his property, and ensured it would be resistant to the Force. The creature seems almost eager to invoke a ritualistic ceremony as a result of Kylo's arrival to bestow upon him the wayfinder. However, when Kylo doesn't play along, the creature appears disappointed, as it admits he's worthy to receive the device. Once Kylo takes it, the Eye slips back into the murky waters.
Comparisons to Bendu
The Eye of Webbish Bog may invite comparisons to Bendu from Star Wars Rebels. Bendu is a similarly mythic entity who stands as the true balance between the light and dark, and offers sage-like advice to Kanan Jarrus.
Of course, by contrast, the Eye is very much a creature of the dark. Much like Darth Vader and his armor, the Eye exists in painful symbiosis with its giant host, needing it in order to survive, despite the pain it brings.
The Story Behind the Eye
Undeniably, such a bizarre creature -- a spider-like monster clinging to a blind giant -- required a lot of planning and consideration before making it far enough to even be included in the novelization. However, it turns out the scene went far further than just being conceived of and story-boarded; it was actually filmed.
According to Neal Scanlan, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker's creature and make-up effects artist, the Eye of Webbish Bog was fully constructed with practical effects and filmed on location. “That was a character that was designed very early ... [W]e actually did build it and we took it to a place called Black Park in the U.K., which is close to Pinewood Studios, where we shot it in a lake on location, and that sequence exists. ... It was a fully practical character shot in a location, and it is amazing."
However, ultimately, the scene was deemed unnecessary to the plot, with director J.J. Abrams finding another way to relate the information. Scanlan teased they might recycle the creature for use on The Mandalorian. With any luck, the Eye will offer Din Djarin cryptic, perhaps dangerous, advice on Mustafar.
Directed and co-written by J.J. Abrams, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker stars Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong'o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Joonas Suotamo, Billie Lourd, Keri Russell, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill, Billy Dee Williams and Carrie Fisher, with Naomi Ackie and Richard E. Grant. The film is available now on Digital HD, and March 31 on Blu-ray and 4K UHD.