Ben Mendelsohn Talks The "Enormously Different" Versions Of 'Rogue One' That Could Be Made From Alternate Takes

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” is a massive, global hit, but occupying the conversation around the movie all month long has been an examination of the tremendous changes the film went through during the reshoots. Everything from the ending to the shape of certain characters and narrative arcs were all tweaked and tinkered with throughout the production. And according to Ben Mendelsohn, even on set he was providing different versions of scenes for director Gareth Edwards to work with.

“I think that Krennic developed sort of along as we went, [the director] had different ideas….He was still thinking of a couple of variations in a lot of things at [the pitch] stage. If you want to talk about alternative takes on things, there’s been quite a few different renderings of this within Gareth’s mind, and I dare say some of it’s been captured on film. So there are different renderings,” the actor told Collider. “We did have multiple, multiple ways of going at any given scenario, we had multiple readings of it. So should they ever decided to, there would be a wealth of ways of approaching these different things. And I know from having seen sort of the crucial kind of scenes throughout it, I know there’s vastly different readings of at least four of those scenes.”

That’s pretty fascinating stuff, and if you’re wondering if there’s an computer somewhere holding a bunch of alternate takes that could be cobbled together into a different version of ‘Rogue One,’ you’d be right.

“Absolutely, with enormous differences within I would’ve said 20 or 30 of the scenes,” Mendelsohn confirmed. “There really would be. There would be enormously different renderings.”

It’ll certainly be interesting to see which, if any, of that material will make next year’s home video release(s) of ‘Rogue One’ (remember, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” has already seen two editions hit shelves).

“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” is now playing everywhere.