Star Wars: Why Princess Leia Was At Scarif In Rogue One Revealed

01/25/2017 09:20 am EST

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has made more than $1 billion at the global box office and been nominated for two Academy Awards. It is safe to say the first Star Wars standalone movie has proven a success for Lucasfilm and Disney and a hit with fans.

That said, there's still some questions that fans have been asking. One of the more surprising moments of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was an appearance by Princess Leia Organa. The scene showed Leia, who was digitally recreated to appear as she did in Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope, receiving the Death Star plans at the Battle of Scarif.

The question being raised is what exactly Leia was doing there in the first place. In a previous scene, Bail Organa, Leia's adoptive father, told Mon Mothma that he was sending Leia (in so many words) to Tatooine to try to recruit Obi-Wan Kenobi into the Rebel Alliance. If that was the case, how did she end up at Scarif?

It turns out that unexpected Battle on Scarif changed Leia's plans. As Pablo Hidalgo, a member of the Star Wars Story Group, explained last week on an episode of The Star Wars Show, Leia and Admiral Raddus were heading to Tatooine when they received word of the battle taking place on Scarif.

"The plan was always that Leia was going to go to Tatooine to pick up Obi-Wan and Raddus was going to escort her," Hidalgo said. "Then the news of Scarif came in, and that was deemed more important... [because] it's the one warship that they have at this point."

Hidalgo and Leeland Chee, another story group member, also confirmed that Leia was on Yavin during the Rebel Alliance meeting that included Bail, Mon Mothma, and Jyn Erso. Leia did not appear on screen during that meeting because the filmmakers wanted to keep the reveal a secret until the film's conclusion, but the cameo by C-3PO and R2-D2 was meant to be a clue.

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In Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, in a time of conflict, a group of unlikely heroes band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire's ultimate weapon of destruction. This key event in the Star Wars timeline brings together ordinary people who choose to do extraordinary things, and in doing so, become part of something greater than themselves.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is written by Gareth Edwards and written by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy, from a story by John Knoll and Gary Whitta. The film star Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Riz Ahmed, Jiang Wen and Forest Whitaker.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is now playing in theaters.

[H/T] io9

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