For fans of the halcyon days of Star Wars – that glorious blend of analogue retro-future-tech, cod-Japanese mysticism and swishy laser swords – 2016’s Rogue One: a Star Wars Story is perhaps the last great movie set a long time ago, in a galaxy, far, far away. At the very least, it is the last Star Wars movie that has not proven fiercely divisive, alienated large portions of its fanbase (even if quite a few of them seem to be right-wing trolls) or ruined entire trilogies.
It inspired the prequel TV series Andor, an unusual example of a Star Wars show that has flourished despite having almost no connection to George Lucas’s original trilogy, and felt like that rare example of the nostalgia-fest that somehow manages to say something new while it mines our souls for moon-eyed dopamine hits. If Daniel Mays’ terrified Tivik and Riz Ahmed’s teary-eyed Bodhi Rook don’t turn up in Andor season two, Tony Gilroy and his team will have missed a serious trick. I would happily watch an entire Disney+ show based on either short-lived character’s torpid existence floating around the spaceports of the outer rim.
Perhaps it shouldn’t matter who was really responsible for this unexpected late-era treat for the hardcore Star Wars fan. Yet even before Rogue One debuted in multiplexes, there were rumours and reports that the movie’s ostensible director, then sci-fi ingenue Gareth Edwards, had effectively been replaced for the final cut by Gilroy. The general consensus was that Edwards had shot cheesy dialogue, failed to spot the obvious opportunities to make a wonderfully gloomy Star Wars’ equivalent of Blake’s 7 (because pretty much everybody important dies at the end) and generally disappointed Lucasfilm so badly that they felt the need for major reshoots and a new hand on the writer-director helm.
Both Tony Gilroy and his brother John, who helped edit the eventual film, have been vocal about what happened. John told The Playlist: “The basic plan was very simple. They had the movie that they had and they called Tony in, and Tony huddled for a while with another editor – who was on already, Colin Goudie – and used a lot of the things he had discovered when we were working together, and basically made a new story. It was quite a different story. They convinced Disney to invest in that story, which was a sizeable investment in time and money, and then it was just realising what that was. So, it’s a new plan – you’re not just going in and experimenting. We had a new blueprint.”
In 2018, Tony Gilroy told The Moment With Brian Koppelman podcast that Rogue One was in “terrible trouble” when he was called in. “If you look at Rogue, all the difficulty with Rogue, all the confusion of it … and all the mess, and in the end when you get in there, it’s actually very, very simple to solve,” he said. “Because you sort of go, ‘This is a movie where everyone is going to die.’ So it’s a movie about sacrifice.
“I came in after the director’s cut,” said Gilroy. “They were in such a swamp, in so much terrible, terrible trouble that all you could do was improve their position.”
Edwards, to his credit, has been remarkably taciturn in his response. But no longer. Perhaps it’s down to the generally positive praise for his new, original sci-fi flick The Creator, which has just hit cinemas. Or perhaps he is just fed up with other people controlling the Rogue One narrative. This week he began to finally push back, telling KCRW’s The Business: “The stuff that is out there on the internet about what happened on that film – there is so much inaccuracy about the whole thing. Tony came in, and he did a lot of great work, for sure. No doubt about it. But we all worked together until the last minute of that movie.”
According to Edwards, he was present for the entire five weeks of reshoots, including some of Rogue One’s most iconic scenes. “The very last thing that we filmed in the pickup shoot was the Darth Vader corridor scene,” Edwards said. “I did all of that stuff.”
Most intriguing was Edwards’ explanation as to why he has waited seven years to speak out about Rogue One, and those reshoots. “Someone who gets that opportunity to make a Star Wars film and then starts complaining about it, I don’t think many people have that much empathy for that kind of person. I so don’t want to be them. It was a dream come true. I’m proud of the movie we all made,” he said. “What goes into Fight Club stays in Fight Club kind of thing. It’s like that. I just want to sound grateful for what happened and not talk negatively about anything.”
It’s possible we’ll never know the truth about Rogue One, though it would be no surprise if clamour erupted for an Edwards-led director’s cut in the wake of the film-maker’s comments.
Would Edwards himself even want this? Could we finally get to see a version of the movie in which famously bad but weirdly iconic lines such as Jyn Erso’s “This is a rebellion isn’t it? I rebel” (seen only thus far in early trailers and subsequently cut from the final movie) were reinstalled? It seems unlikely. Then again, this is a march towards Star Wars rehabilitation for Edwards that appears to be more glacially paced than death in the Sarlacc’s belly. Who knows where this might lead in a decade or two’s time?
I for one would be intrigued to see an Edwards cut. But let’s face it, the powers that be will probably just get him to direct an episode of Andor season three instead. In Hollywood, there’s always another way to square the circle.
