Star Wars: Rogue One Was Originally Longer, Director Says

Star Wars: Rogue One was a story that took place before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope. While people have probably wondered about these events for years after the original movie, director Gareth Edwards talked about condensing Rogue One into the movie we have today and why there's footage in the trailer that isn't in the movie.

Spoilers for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Below

In an interview with Slashfilm, Edwards states that the original ending was too long. Originally, the transmission tower they scale on Scarif was separate from the rest of the base. This would have Jyn and crew running across the beach to get to the tower to deliver the plans to the Death Star.

"In cutting the film, it just felt too long. We had to find ways to compress the third act, which was quite long as it was. And one real, fast, brutal solution was to put the tower in the base, so they don't have to run across the beach and do all of that stuff to get there. That became a decision that eliminated the shots you see in the trailer of the back of Cassian and Jyn and the AT-ATs. That was some of the reinvention that happened. It was all to do with compression."

While extended scenes can be a fun watch, Edwards explained that it made the movie too long and ultimately didn't service the movie well overall.

"You can't outstay your welcome," he explained. "We've all sat in a movie, and even if you love a film, there's that moment where you want to look at your watch, or you feel like, 'Okay, I hope it ends soon.' You don't want the audience thinking that. You don't want them to lag. If you feel that when you watch something back, you need to find a way to tighten it somewhere. That was a big win for a compression."

Rogue One went through a number of changes throughout its life in the planning stages. For instance, the movie originally didn't end with everyone dying. Edwards wasn't sure Disney would go for such a grim ending.

Recently, Edwards also revealed that the obviously absent screen crawl for Rogue One actually does exist, but is sitting on a cutting room floor somewhere. It didn't make it into the final cut of the movie but is probably somewhere out there in the stars.