This week, Entertainment Weekly is featuring a new story each day on unfollowed storylines from Rogue One‘s development. Today, we learn that in an early draft, Vader himself dealt the lethal blow to a major character.
Vader’s Murder Scene From Rogue One Was Murdered During Editing
In the final cut of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Director Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) goes down in a blaze of poetic justice, annihilated by the very creation to which he dedicated his life. Gary Whitta wrote a different end for Krennic, however. In Whitta’s draft, Krennic, Jyn and Cassian survive the Death Star’s planetary destruction of Scarif. Jyn and Cassian go on with their lives, personally delivering the Death Star plans to the rebellion. Krennic is not as lucky, and meets his end at the hands of Vader himself.
Unfortunately, this story was clunky, and Krennic’s murder was replaced with Vader’s “brutal lightsaber melee against a corridor full of Rebel soldiers”. In a feature from the movie’s blu-ray, director Gareth Edwards explains that Darth Vader had to be used sparingly. “You have to be really careful how you use him, because if you bring him in too early in the film, you sort of just want Vader for the rest of the movie”. An edited draft of the film solved both problems at once. Now Vader only has one scene to demonstrate his full strength, and several plots were consolidated.Entertainment Weekly will continue rolling out bonus information about Rogue One all week. The features celebrate the film’s digital release this Friday, and blu-ray release on April 4th.
Based on the Star Wars universe, Rogue One details the events leading up to Star Wars: A New Hope. The film stars Felicity Jones (Jyn Erso), Diego Luna (Cassian Andor), Alan Tudyk (K-2S0), Riz Ahmed (Bodhi Rook), Mads Mikkelsen (Galen Erso), Donnie Yen (Chirrut Îmwe), and Wen Jiang (Baze Malbus).
