Apparently plenty of you rebelled over the weekend as Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was the number one film, grossing over $290 million worldwide. Many critics were overjoyed by Lucasfilm’s first Star Wars spinoff praising it for being new by mixing in the old — the new being focusing on the untold story of how the plans to the Death Star were stolen, the old being seeing digitized classic characters from the original trilogy. But the old also included some unused footage – that many of us didn’t even notice at the time – from the original 1977 film Star Wars: A New Hope. Check out the full story below. Minor spoilers follow. There’s your only warning.
Director Gareth Edwards told the Radio Times that he discovered that there was unused footage from the first Star Wars film while on a tour of Skywalker Ranch.
We went to Skywalker Ranch, and there’s the archives there. And as we’re walking around, and doing all the cool things and looking at the Millennium Falcon and trying on Han Solo’s jacket and things like that, in the back at the bottom was all these cans of film. And we said “˜what are they?’ and they said “˜Oh, it’s Star Wars.’ And you go”¦ “˜has someone gone through all this?’ And it’s like “˜not really, they’re not fully like digitised at all.’
Just in case you didn’t know who we were talking about, Rogue One sees Gold Leader and Red Leader (played by Drewe Henley and Angus MacInnes) engaged in a dog fight with the Empire during the climatic third act. Edwards had to rewrite some of the script in order to incorporate the footage into the new film. ILM then digitally inserted the actors into the new cockpits. While the General Tarkin, Princess Leia, General Organa, C-3PO and R2-D2, and Baba and Evazan cameos in Rogue One are great, a lot of what makes the film work are the unseen and new characters. So Gold Leader and Red Leader making it to the film adds a little bit more depth to the Star Wars history. While we clearly see they survive the Battle of Scarif, we know they perish in the Battle of Yavin-4.
Edwards also notice that fans were paying attention to what they were watching during the premiere.
At the world premiere in LA, there was this massive cheer at a particular point in the film. It was the only time during the premiere where I actually punched the air.
How’s that for excitement? I know I cheered when I heard those two call signs.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is out in theaters now. Check out our review here.
[Source: Radio Times]
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