Star Wars Director Reveals the Secrets Behind Rogue One’s Final Vader Scene
It could very well be the best scene in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story— Darth Vader violently pursuing rebels as they try to escape with the Death Star plans. But, as Director Gareth Edwards reveals, the scene fans saw in theaters almost didn’t happen.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, or simply Rogue One, is a 2016 American epic space opera film directed by Gareth Edwards and written by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy based on a story by John Knoll and Gary Whitta. It was produced by Lucasfilm and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. The eighth film in the Star Wars franchise and also the first installment of the Star Wars Anthology series, it is a standalone film set immediately before the events of A New Hope, and stars Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Riz Ahmed, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Jiang Wen and Forest Whitaker. Rogue One follows a group of rebels on a mission to steal the plans for the Death Star, the Galactic Empire‘s superweapon.
Based on an idea first pitched by Knoll ten years before it entered development, the film was made to be different in tone and style from the traditional Star Wars films, including omitting the conventional opening crawl. Principal photography on the film began at Elstree Studios near London during early August 2015 and wrapped in February 2016. The film went through extensive reshoots and additional filming in mid-June 2016, with Gilroy joining for these. The film premiered in Los Angeles on December 10, 2016, and was released in the United States on December 16, 2016.
Rogue One received generally positive reviews, with praise for its acting, action sequences, musical score and darker tone, although some criticism was directed at the characterization and the film’s use of computer-generated imagery to recreate the likenesses of some actors. The film has grossed over $1 billion worldwide, making it the second highest-grossing film of 2016 and 20th overall unadjusted for inflation. It received two Academy Awards nominations for Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects.[3]
