Almost three years down the road from the release of Rogue One it’s interesting to now look back at roads not taken, and while it’s well known that there was plenty of footage shot for the film that only saw the light of day in the trailers, there were also versions unfilmed that had distinctly different endings.
Speaking with the Cult Popculture podcast, writer Chris Weiss looked at these alternate options.
“The version prior to [me taking over] didn’t have everyone die. As a matter of fact, it ended with a wedding. I think it was on the presumption that Disney wouldn’t allow characters to die with such abandon.”
That said, Weiss feels the brutal Wild Bunch ending was a logical and necessary one.
“because nobody ever mentions them or sees them again. But also because we’ve done this whole sort of theme about sacrifice that it was appropriate that all of our main characters die.”
“If you imagine the beginning of the second act and the end of the second act kind of swapping places, that would not be an inaccurate way to portray how it structurally was changed”.
“A lot of the deaths were put in different locations than they were originally put in the script and were originally shot. I’m not sure why, for instance, K-2 died in a different place.”
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