When “Rogue One” was first announced a couple of years ago, fans of the “Star Wars” franchise were worried that the studios are looking to exploit the brand name instead of delivering on a solid Film. Needless to say, most concerns were squashed when the film finally hit the big screen a few months ago. Not only did the film explore a fascinating new story set within the world we are all too familiar with, but it managed to do what “Animatrix” did for the “The Matrix” franchise – showcase the vast possibilities left to be explored in a fully realized world.
The creators of “Rogue One” recently opened up about the tough calls made about the final act of the film, and it makes a lot of sense, despite being thoroughly heartbreaking.
A sacrifice for the cause
If you haven’t seen “Rogue One” yet, now might be a good time to switch to another article because we are firmly heading into spoiler territory. That being said, “Rogue One” explores the narrow sliver of time before “Star Wars IV,” when a small group of rebels takes drastic steps to secure the details of the weakness inside the death star. As we all know, these details are later used by Luke and Hans to blow the powerful machine to smithereens.
The task of securing the details of the death star is certainly not easy, and it ends up costing nearly every character on “Rogue One” their lives.
It is a poignant take on a detail that one nearly takes for granted in the larger scheme of things, but it goes to show us the depth of the conflict between the empire and the rebellion.
The original ending for “Rogue One” was not supposed to be as grim as the final cut, but director Gareth Edwards’ believes that the bleaker finale adds more weight to everything that transpired before the ultimate sacrifices.
Not only that, but it just made a lot more sense to him overall.
He recently said in an interview: "The fact that we had to jump through so many hoops to keep them alive was the writing gods telling us that if they were meant to live it wouldn't be this difficult. We decided they should die on the surface [of Sharif,] and that was the way it ended.
We were constantly trying to make all the pieces fit together. We tried every single idea. Eventually, through continuous development, you get through an evolutionary process where the best version rises to the top.”
Death of K-2SO
Another major detail that was eventually tweaked in the final version of the film was the heroic death of the droid K-2SO. The calculative droid was easily one of the strongest characters of the movie and was perhaps given as much depth as any other human character. This was the exact reason why K-2SO ended up receiving a far more heroic death than originally planned.
Alan Tudyk and animation supervisor Hal Hickel recently explore K-2SO’s character as well and revealed to us that the Droid was initially supposed to be killed by Ben Mendelsohn’s Orson Krennic, but that seemed a bit anti-climatic.
In order to add more impact to K-2SO’s death, the creative minds behind the film decided to go with the moving scene used in the final cut, where K-2SO battles many Stormtroopers before succumbing to gunshots.
The final choices made for “Rogue One” were certainly the way to go if you ask me, as everything came together nearly perfectly in order to deliver a powerful and poignant ending that adds more value to the original trilogy that came decades ago. If the Star Wars franchise continues to make such fine films within their own world, then there is no doubt that the series will continue far into the distant future, and maybe someday even screen in a galaxy far, far away…
