We all know Star Wars. We all have opinions about Star Wars. More specifically, we all have opinions about Star Wars: The Last Jedi — the film to launch 1,000 petitions and usher in the new era of fan frustration and angst. Us here at LRM Online are pretty much split down the middle in terms of our like and dislike of the pivotal film, which brought us plenty of death, including the death of Ackbar, who’s been the subject of memes for practically ever.

The death was controversial among fans, and apparently puppeteer Tim Rose wasn’t too happy with it either. In fact, in an interview with Jamie Stangroom, he expressed his disappointment that his role was mostly cut out after waiting 30 years to play him again.

“So in The Last Jedi, I was quite looking forward to maybe them giving him something more juicy,” Rose said. “We were only given the script on the day when we were shooting that piece of script, so each day I would come to work going, ‘Is today the day when Ackbar gets something a bit more involving?’ And I looked at my script and I went, ‘Oh, Ackbar’s going out of the window. Well, that’s that then!’ I wasn’t quite dead yet.”

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Oh, little did he know that his character really was quite dead.

“We finished all of our bits and they asked me to come down to camera. And I thought, ‘Oh well, maybe they’re going to say thank you for being one of the heritage characters and giving 30 years and all that.’ But what they did was, they gave me a Millennium Falcon sign that had the day and the date on it, the scene number, and they said, ‘Can you look at camera and say ‘It’s a wrap?’ Because that would be really funny.’

Admiral Ackbar costume actor was publicly humiliated by Rian Johnson on his last day filming TLJ. Tim Rose cried after 30 years of his life was turned into a joke. pic.twitter.com/q5otldwMRG

— Dataracer (@Dataracer117) June 3, 2019

And Rose wasn’t happy.

“I was actually in tears in the suit because I thought – after everything, after hoping there’d be something, after knowing there wasn’t going to be anything else, Ackbar’s final moment before he went in to the box was a big joke about ‘It’s a wrap.’ They just thought ‘Wouldn’t it be funny?’ And that was the sum total of my life as Ackbar.”

On one hand, I can see where Rose is coming from. Clearly, this character meant a lot to him. But on the other, he was just one of countless other characters in the franchise — a character with less than a dozen lines from Return of the Jedi. Yes, it’s cool that he returned and all, but this is a character that has persisted thanks to online culture, and at the end of the day, he is all in service of a greater universe.

But, of course, those are just my thoughts on a subject. I’m sure plenty of you have different ones. Plenty of fans already have their pitchforks out for Rian Johnson after hearing this story, but what do you think? Let us know your thoughts down below!

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SOURCE: Jim Stangroom