Star Wars: Rogue One Almost Had an Unlikely Alien in the Rebel Alliance

Since the quarantine began, many sites have offered up some bonus interviews with actors and creators, giving us new insights into some of our favorite shows and movies. From watch parties to interesting interviews, learning new behind-the-scenes information about our favs has been a nice treat during these difficult times. The latest at-home event came from IGN, who recently spoke to the writers of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. IGN‘s “WFH Theater Event” featured Gary Whitta and Chris Weitz, who revealed that an unlikely alien from the original movies almost played an important role in Rogue One.

“‘Coming up names for with Star Wars is really hard’” – @garywhitta ‘When George Lucas was coming up with these things, he just liked the sounds of them. Something is either Star Wars-y or it’s not. You kind of know it when you hear it. – @chrisweitz,” @Terri_Schwartz, IGN‘s Editor-in-Chief of Entertainment shared on Twitter. “@chrisweitz got in trouble with [Lucasfilm creative executive/Lucasfilm Story Group member] Pablo Hidalgo because he wanted a Tusken Raider to have gone off Tattooine and join with the Rebel forces but Pablo said they don’t leave the planet.” There you have it! The writers wanted a cool story for a Tusken Raider, but it just wasn’t in the cards. You can check out the tweets below:

In addition to the Tusken Raider tidbit, IGN also shared which movies inspired the Rogue One script as well as which character cameo was axed from the movie, which character was originally a double agent for the Empire, and that alternate titles were considered for the movie.

While all of the main characters met a tragic end in Rogue One, fans of the Star Wars movie will soon be treated to a prequel series on Disney+ starring Diego Luna as Cassian Andor. Luna previously explained to Entertainment Tonight that the Rogue One prequel will explore different areas of the Star Wars galaxy that fans might not be familiar with, despite people knowing where the story ends.

“It is a different approach because of the beauty and it’s how things happen,” Luna said. “It’s not just what happens. It’s not the typical way of approaching a story. It’s about how things happen, which in fact, is the same that happened in Rogue One. You know the ending, but you don’t know how it happened, and we have that challenge in front of us again, which is exciting.”

Stay tuned for more news about the Rogue One prequel series. In the meantime, the movie is currently available to stream on Disney+.