The latest installment of the Star Wars franchise is the first to feature a same-sex attracted character, and a brief kiss, but audiences in Singapore won’t be seeing the scene, it’s been recut to exclude any reference to homosexuality.

In one of the film’s final scenes a secondary character kisses their same-sex partner during a celebration scene. It’s the first time in the series nine films, four spin-off films, TV holiday special and TV series that a same sex attracted person has been seen.

Singapore’s classification office told The Guardian that film studio Disney had decided to cut the scene to preserve the films PG13 rating.

“The applicant has omitted a brief scene which under the film classification guidelines would require a higher rating,” a representative of Singapore’s media regulator, Infocomm Media Development Authority, said.

The scene has also been cut from screening in Dubai and the United Arab Emirates, but it has been left in in China.

The inclusion of a same-sex relationship has been praised by some fans of the Star Wars franchise, but others have been left disappointed, describing the fleeting scene as tokenism.

OIP Staff