Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Director Explains Why Trailer Scenes Were Cut From The Movie
When it comes to big blockbusters, it is in the best interest for filmmakers to shoot more than [...]
When it comes to big blockbusters, it is in the best interest for filmmakers to shoot more than they need. The editing room is a dangerous place for film, and directors are liable to cut down any project's runtime by leaps and bounds. Last year, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story found itself victim to the cutting room floor, and fans were curious about why certain scenes were ultimately snipped. Now, the movie's director is speaking out about the changes, and the trailers' extra footage all came down to marketing concerns.
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"There was a bit of a process to refining the third act in terms of the specific shots and moments, and so certain things just fell away," Gareth Edwards explained to Empire Online in a recent interview.
"But then what happens is marketing love those shots, and go, "oh, we've got to use that." And you say, "well, it's not in the movie". And they say, "it's okay, it's what marketing does, we just use the best of whatever you've done". And so there's lots of little things, but towards the end you go, "I know that's not in the film, but the spirit of it's in the film"."
ComicBook.com's Lucas Siegel has written about Rogue One and its missing footage in his analysis of the film. The Star Wars expert dissected some of the footage and queried whether the film's climax was originally meant to take place on Scarif and not in a communications tower.
"Looking at footage from the trailers and behind-the-scenes videos, it seems the climax of the film originally took place on the beaches of Scarif, not in the communications tower. The footage showed Jyn, K-2SO, and Cassian running along the beach with the Death Star plans data drive in hand - but it never left the tower in the final cut," he wrote.
"The footage also showed Orson Krennic walking amongst a body-littered beach, implying a final confrontation to take place down there on the ground. Does this mean the original version of the ending had some of the crew surviving and manually taking the plans off-planet? It could be; we'll likely never find out for sure."
So, what do you think? Were you upset that Rogue One chose to do away with the additional footage? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story hit US theaters December 16, 2016. Directed by Gareth Edwards, it's the first of the new standalone features from Lucasfilm and Disney, which take place outside the core "Skywalker Saga" of films noted by an Episode number. Rogue One tells the story of the small band of rebels that were tasked with stealing the plans to the first Death Star. The story spins directly off the opening crawl from the original Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. In that crawl, it read: "Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet."
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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is in theaters today.
