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Rogue One editors reveal the scenes added through reshoots

Did the highly-publicised reshoots actually end up having a drastic effect on the final film?

Clarisse Loughrey

Wednesday 04 January 2017 09:20 GMT

*CAUTION: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY AHEAD*

A significant chunk of the publicity mill surrounding Rogue One's release focused on rumours of drastic re-shoots.

They were fairly easily dismissed as standard practice in Hollywood film-making, and the film's critical success has shown there was never much need to worry about the fate of the first of the planned Star Wars anthology films.

However, looking back at the film's vast swathes of promotional material potentially tells a very different story, with key scenes and action sequences highlighted in Rogue One's various trailers now tellingly absent from the final cut.

Thankfully, two of the film's editors - John Gilroy and Colin Goudie - have been able to shine a light on the matter.

"I think everyone knew, from the offset, everything was always scheduled from day one for there to be pickups like on every film," Goudie told Yahoo Movies. "We did exactly the same thing on Monsters, we always knew we were going to go back and do pickups, and it was the same thing with Rogue One, it was just something that was on the schedule. We were always going to be there and it was a case of working out, as the story went on, which pieces need a bit more clarification, which places needed a bit more character."

"The story was re-conceptualised to some degree, there were scenes that were added at the beginning and fleshed out," Gilroy said. "We wanted to make more of the other characters, like Cassian’s character [Diego Luna], and Bodhi’s character [Riz Ahmed]. The scene with Cassian’s introduction with the spy, Bodhi traipsing through Jedha on his way to see Saw, these are things that were added.

[SPOILERS] 13 scenes from Rogue One's trailers cut from the film

Show all 13

1/13[SPOILERS] 13 scenes from Rogue One's trailers cut from the film

[SPOILERS] 13 scenes from Rogue One's trailers cut from the film

'I rebel'

Straight off the bat, that instantly infamous line from Felicity Jones' Jyn Erso - "This is a rebellion, isn't it? I rebel" - is missing from the final cut. Probably a good thing, considering nobody needs Jyn's entire character motivation spelled out in quite such obvious terms.

[SPOILERS] 13 scenes from Rogue One's trailers cut from the film

Moody Orson Krennic

This brilliantly moody shot from the film's teaser never makes it into the final cut, but there's a good chance it was never intended to, having all the hallmarks of footage deliberately shot for the trailer.

Walt Disney Studios

[SPOILERS] 13 scenes from Rogue One's trailers cut from the film

Moody Jyn Erso

The same goes for this look at Jyn Erso in her Imperial disguise, which definitely has the look of a promotional shot to it.

[SPOILERS] 13 scenes from Rogue One's trailers cut from the film

'What will you become?'

The look at Jyn's Imperial outfit coincides with the final line of a cut monologue from Saw Gerrera: "What will you become?" The confusing part here is that Saw is seen with the close-cropped hair he sports only in the prologue scenes, when Jyn is only a child. When she visits him in Jedha, his hair is much fuller and he's sporting a beard. So, was this speech somehow originally delivered to Galen Erso in a cut prologue segment? In the context of Galen's work with the Empire and his later attempts to evade them, Saw's words would make a lot more sense.

[SPOILERS] 13 scenes from Rogue One's trailers cut from the film

And Moody Darth Vader

Potentially another promo shot, considering this was used as the very first reveal of Darth Vader in the trailers.

[SPOILERS] 13 scenes from Rogue One's trailers cut from the film

Krennic and Vader

However, this shot also shows a cut scene between Krennic and Vader, in which the former talks about the "power we are dealing with here".

[SPOILERS] 13 scenes from Rogue One's trailers cut from the film

'The captain says you are a friend. I will not kill you'

K-2SO has many similar lines directed to Jyn throughout the film, but they're a lot less sinister than this one.

[SPOILERS] 13 scenes from Rogue One's trailers cut from the film

Captured rebel pilots

This shot from Jedha is missing. It doesn't exactly add anything to the story, but it's an added touch of grit which sets the tone nicely in the trailers.

[SPOILERS] 13 scenes from Rogue One's trailers cut from the film

'Good.' 'Good.'

A cut moment between Jyn and Cassian, though it's a little hard to tell where this comes from - there's no moment where Jyn sits as co-pilot on the U-wing, since it's usually K-2SO in the seat.

[SPOILERS] 13 scenes from Rogue One's trailers cut from the film

Jyn faces off against a TIE fighter

What's interesting is that this shot of Jyn limping across the Scarif communications tower is, of course, in the final film. It's just that the TIE fighter is entirely absent. Was this a cut moment? Was Krennic piloting that thing? Or was it even just cut into the trailer to keep audiences off the scent?

[SPOILERS] 13 scenes from Rogue One's trailers cut from the film

Krennic on the Scarif beaches

And what about this great shot of Krennic marching amongst the dead? The set-up and lighting seem to imply he survives the initial battle without getting shot by Cassian, and is on the ground when the Death Star destroys Scarif - if that's indeed the source of the glow in the background.

[SPOILERS] 13 scenes from Rogue One's trailers cut from the film

Jyn and Cassian in the Scarif battle

In fact, the trailer footage seems to hint at a drastically different ending, which may point to what exactly got changed during the re-shoots. We see multiple shots of Jyn and Cassian running along the Scarif beach with the Death Star plans. Considering the battle is still in full swing, it suggests the archives and the communications tower may have been separate locations in the original version.

[SPOILERS] 13 scenes from Rogue One's trailers cut from the film

Jyn, Cassian, and K-2SO running through Scarif base

And here, again, we see Cassian, Jyn, and K-2SO running with the data plans through the Scarif base. That means the droid wasn't originally meant to die (or whatever happens to droids) defending the archive room.

"Also Jyn [Felicity Jones], how we set her up and her escape from the transporter, that was all done to set up the story better." Goudie added further. "the introduction in the opening scene, in the prologue, was always the same. Jyn’s just a little girl, so when you see her as an adult what you saw initially was her in a meeting. That’s not a nice introduction. So having her in prison and then a prison break out, with Cassian on a mission… everybody was a bit more ballsy, or a bit more exciting, and a bit more interesting."

Gilroy also explained how different the third act turned out to be: "It changed quite a bit. The third act has a lot going on. You have like seven different action venues, the mechanics of the act changed quite a bit in terms of the characters, and I don’t want to go into too much detail about what had been there before, but it was different. We moved some of the things that our heroes did, they were different in the original then they were as it was conceived."

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story IMAX Featurette

"Because you needed to figure that out, and everything else changes. Everything was connected to everything so doing something to one venue would change all the other venues, so really we had to… we were working on that until the last minute, because we working closely with ILM, they were giving us temporary shots and we’d put them in, we’d work them, we’d reconceive again. It was really like a very tight puzzle and we had to keep honing that and honing that, and I’m very proud of what we did there."

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is in cinemas now.

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