JJ Abrams: Chewbacca snub was Star Wars: The Force Awakens' biggest mistake

What’s Princess Leia’s problem with Chewbacca?

First she snubbed him by not giving him a medal at the end of ‘Star Wars’ and then she snubbed him at the end of ‘The Force Awakens’ in his most fragile moment of the series so far.

JJ Abrams has thrown his hands up and admitted that the second, and arguably most devastating, snub is his biggest regret about making ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’.

Warning: Plot spoilers for ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ follow.

The moment in question occurs when Rey, Finn and Chewbacca return to the Resistance Base following the death of Han Solo at the hands of Kylo Ren.

Fans were confused as to why Carrie Fisher’s General Leia chose to comfort Rey, who had just met Han Solo, instead of her lifelong friend and former partner’s co-pilot, Chewbacca.

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Speaking to Slash Film about ’10 Cloverfield Lane’, Abrams said: “That was probably one of the mistakes I made. At the time I thought Chewbacca, despite the pain he was in, was focused on trying to save Finn and get him taken care of. So I tried to have Chewbacca go with him and focus on Rey, and then have Rey find Leia and Leia find Rey.

“The idea is that, because they are both powerful with the Force and have never met, they get to know each other; that Leia learns a little bit more about her than what we saw on screen, and of course Rey learns something about Leia. And that meeting would be a meeting and a reunion at the same time, and a kind of condolence for their mutual loss.”

He admits that the way the scene was filmed might have misled fans about what he was trying to say.

“If Chewbacca hadn’t been where he was, you probably wouldn’t have thought of it. But because he was right there, walking past Leia, it was almost like a slight, which was definitely not the intention.”

It is believed that the reason behind Leia’s “snub” in the 1977 film was because Fisher, at 5’2″ (1.55 m) tall, was simply too short to be able to reach and hang a medal over Peter Mayhew’s 7’1″ (2.10 m) frame.

Chewbacca finally got his medal when Carrie Fisher presented him with a lifetime achievement award at the 1997 MTV Movie Awards.