Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Rogue One: The thing you didn't notice about the names of the X-Wing pilots

Another undiscovered detail about the Star Wars prequel has just surfaced

Jacob Stolworthy
Thursday 05 January 2017 12:13 GMT
Comments
A scene from ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’
A scene from ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’

Rogue One may have been released over three weeks ago but undiscovered details are surfacing all the time, and the latest concerns the X-Wing pilot characters briefly seen in the film's climactic scenes.

British actors Geraldine James (short-lived Channel 4 drama Utopia) and Simon Farnaby (Yonderland) appeared as the brave Blue Squadron fighters who battled in the Scariff scenes and, while their names weren't revealed in the film, an interesting tidbit can be discovered about them in the film's official tie-in book Rogue One: The Ultimate Visual Guide.

Radio Times noted that their names are strikingly similar to those belonging to the actors who play them. In fact, they're direct anagrams.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story IMAX Featurette

James' character is called Jaldine Gerams while Farnaby is Farns Monsbee. It doesn't end there; Ariyon Bakare, star of BBC series Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, is named Barion Raner.

While it doesn't affect Rogue One's plot or even the wider Star Wars universe in any way, the discovery is yet another sign of how seriously Gareth Edwards took the task of directing this film (you can read some more behind-the-scenes secrets from him here including why he didn't include the iconic opening crawl - something its creator was not happy about).

Rogue One stars Felicty Jones, Ben Mendelsohn, Diego Luna and Riz Ahmed and has proved a box office smash around the world particularly in the UK where it earned a staggering accolade on New Year's Eve.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in