Writer Gary Whitta reveals that in the alternate ending, Jyn Erso and the rest of the Rebel team will be given an escape plan.
- Mar 21, 2017
AceShowbiz - A new alternate ending for "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" has been revealed three months after the movie was released. Screenwriter Gary Whitta opened up about the very earliest script, which had a happier ending compared to what actually happened in the movie.
[SPOILER ALERT!] In the movie, everyone in the Rogue One team died in the process of getting the Death Star plans. However, Whitta told Entertainment Weekly that the original plan was to give Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) and the rest of the team an escape route because the production team thought that Disney wouldn't let them go with such a dark ending.
"Jyn did survive," said the writer. "Cassian (Diego Luna) also survived. There were a lot of casualties on both sides, in both versions of the scripts," he added. "We were constantly trying to make all the pieces fit together."
Whitta continued, "The original instinct was that they should all die." He explained, "It's worth it. If you're going to give your life for anything, give your life for this, to destroy a weapon that going to kill you all anyway. That's what we always wanted to do. But we never explored it because we were afraid that Disney might not let us do it, that Disney might think it's too dark for a 'Star Wars' movie or for their brand."
The screenwriter went on saying, "We were still scratching the itch that they all needed to die. Chris Weitz [who wrote another draft] thought we were right." He added, "They finally went off and fought for it. We told them, we feel they all need to die, and [Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy] and everyone else said to go for it. We got the ending that we wanted."
If Disney and Lucasfilm had pushed for the happier ending, there wouldn't be Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed), Chirut Imwe (Donnie Yen), or Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang). And instead of a street criminal recruited on a spy mission, Jyn was supposed to be an enlisted Rebel soldier. Meanwhile, the security droid K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) was already a member of the Rebel team.
