Gilroy Opens Up About the Problems With the ‘Rogue One’ Script

During production on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, there were rumors that the script was a mess, and the director’s cut of the film wasn’t good. According to the rumor, Lucasfilm brought in Oscar-nominated screenwriter Tony Gilroy to rework the script into something palatable. It was a story that didn’t gain much traction, but now a recent interview hints that these rumors may in fact be true.

The rumors said that Lucasfilm wasn’t satisfied with the finished draft of the film that Gareth Edwards made, and brought Gilroy in to rework the film and oversee reshoots and post-production to fix several issues throughout the film. It is even rumored that Gilroy is responsible for at least 40% of the final film.

In a recent interview on The Moment With Brian Koppelman podcast, Gilroy finally spoke about the situation that Star Wars: Rogue One was in when he was called in:

“I came in after the director’s cut. I have a screenplay credit in the arbitration that was easily won. I’ve never been interested in Star Wars, ever. So I had no reverence for it whatsoever. I was unafraid about that, and they were in such a swamp … they were in so much terrible, terrible trouble that all you could do was improve their position.

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. Because you sort of go, ‘This is a movie where, folks, just look. Everyone is going to die.’ So it’s a movie about sacrifice.

So, it’s all a question about why are these [characters], why are all these people going to sacrifice themselves? And you need to motivate them with a purity throughout the [story] and every scene has to be about the movie. And so, is that a theme, that everyone’s going to die, sacrifice? In that sense, in that film, yeah, I thought about it.

I don’t think Rogue really is a Star Wars movie in many ways. To me, it’s a Battle of Britain movie.”

Ben Mendelsohn also previously stated that there is an “enormously different” cut of the film, which seems to be Edwards version. Gilroy gives Lucasfilm credit for averting disaster. Sometimes, it would be nice to see these additional cuts of the film released, in order for fans to grasp the state of these moves. It would also serve to show the fanbase that the studio is not acting as big brother, rather they are trying to release the best film possible. A few films have encountered these drastic recuts recently, including Rogue One, Fantastic Four, and Suicide Squad.

Rogue One won over critics and nabbed over $1 billion t the box office. Gilroy, who has no love for Star Wars, is not planning on returning to the franchise.

Do you wish that studios would release early cuts of films, like Rogue One,  for fans to grasp the state of certain films when big changes were made? Let us know in the comments below!