Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was the first spinoff movie released by Lucasfilm and was pretty damn great. Cassian Andor is now getting his own Disney+ TV series, and that's a testament to how memorable some of the characters were. The film did have a very bleak ending which saw pretty much everyone die by the time the credits rolled, but things could have been considerably different.
"The version prior to [mine] didn’t have everyone die," writer Chris Weitz has revealed. "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."
"I felt it was necessary because nobody ever mentions them or sees them again," he continued. "But also because we’ve done this whole sort of theme about sacrifice that it was appropriate that all of our main characters die."
He went on to explain that earlier versions of the script handled the Death Star in a very different way and there would have been some (unnecessary?) mystery about the Empire's weapon. "It wasn’t clear at the beginning of the movie that the Death Star was going to be the Death Star. It was just the sense [in] the Rebellion that something bad was going down and we need to find out about it. There was this developing sense of dread throughout the film."
Rogue One was plagued by problems behind the scenes and reshoots significantly changed the story. For example, Jyn Erso no longer faced off with a TIE Fighter - a scene which was prominent in the trailers. Despite this, it's fair to say that the darker ending was the best decision for the movie.
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