It seems in the Lucasfilm writers’ room, no idea is a bad idea, but obviously, not everything can be used. Rather than fight the speculation about the reshoots and development process of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” everyone involved has gladly shared plenty of stories about the directions the spinoff/prequel didn’t take, and a couple more interesting tidbits have landed today.
First up, Alan Tudyk has revealed that his android, the smart-mouthed K-2SO, originally met a different end in the early versions of the film.“Yeah, I got shot by Krennic,” he told Collider. It’s interesting as it would seem that at least in another version of the movie, the Imperial commander was more closely on the tail of Jyn and Cassian as they rooted around those archives for the Death Star plans.
However, in yet another variation of the story, K-2S0 would’ve been on the beach, in the extended chase sequence on the beach of Scarif that was ultimately dumped from the movie, as Jyn and Cassian race to get the contents of the hard drive transmitted from the broadcast tower.
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“We’re running down a beach where there’s explosions. This was built actually in London. There’s all these troops, all these Alliance troops. They have a ship on a crane coming over us with that monkey dude [seen in the behind-the-scenes footage] on that gun on the side going ‘Ahhhh! Ahhh!’, screaming and shooting. It flies over us, touches down almost. Things are going ksh-ksh, blowing smoke out of the bottom as it touches down. Troops unload from either side, hub-hub, they join the flight. We’re still running while this is happening. Guys are next to me getting launched. The stuntmen are — explosions — and launching in the air, jumping with cables pulling them up,” Tudyk enthusiastically told Slashfilm (listen below). “Oh my God! If you wanna play ‘Star Wars’ battle — while we’re running towards there’s Stormtroopers — like the best version of playing ‘Star Wars,’ you could never have come up with this. Because I think it was $1.5 million just to do that one thing. Oh my God, it was so cool. All cut, but who gives a shit?”
Damn. The current digital and Blu-ray release of the film won’t have any deleted scenes, but here’s hoping they’re collected down the road, because it sounds pretty incredible. And if you’re listening, Kathleen Kennedy, Tudyk has some ideas for a K-2SO spinoff.
“I want a Cassian and K-2 movie where we see who they were beforehand. And see the story of Cassian finding K-2 and who was K-2 back when he was in the Empire and all of that. So there’s a lot of stories. Now that they’re telling these different stories, there’s a lot of opportunities to branch out. I’m pushing for that one! That one sounds good,” he told Uproxx, while also adding he wouldn’t mind if his phone rang for the Han Solo movie.
Lastly, it was learned last year that one of the early ideas for the movie was that Jyn Erso’s mom, Lyra Erso, was a Jedi. That was changed, and screenwriter Gary Whitta and director Gareth Edwards explain why to EW.
“[Jyn Erso’s] mother was a Jedi Knight who was hiding out. But her father was still the scientist,” Whitta said of the concept.
“Our instinct told us that we wanted a scene where Jyn is orphaned because of what Krennic does, which sets her on her path of being a child of war,” Edwards added. “The problem was that the second you make her mom a Jedi you spend the entire movie questioning whether Jyn is a Jedi or not. Eventually, we came up with the idea that her father should have designed the Death Star. That became a stronger way into the stealing of the Death Star plans. We let go of the mother being a Jedi, and she became just a rebellious mom.”
“We just had to pick a lane,” he added. “We ended up feeling like her father should be the reason this thing existed. The guilt for that felt like better motivation in stealing the Death Star plans.”
Fascinating stuff, and I’m sure there’s more to come.“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” hits digital on Friday, and physical formats on April 4th.