Earlier this week, many Bothans died to bring us a rumor that there would be a few weeks of reshoots on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (first trailer here) because Disney executives were allegedly unhappy with the tone of Gareth Edwards’ New Hope prequel. To be fair, reshoots were already scheduled in advance for this June — with Rogue One still set to open this December 16 as expected — and Star Wars: The Force Awakens also underwent three weeks of reshoots.
Now The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, and other sources confirm the Rogue One reshoots and explain Disney’s motivation for them, which boils down to both the tone of the film and a potential cameo (more on that in a moment).
Contrary to all of my theories, they aren’t adding three weeks worth of lovingly slow panning shots of Ben Mendelsohn’s fancy capes. Reportedly, Disney executives thought Rogue One was “lacking the edge that Force Awakens had,” and was “tonally off with what a ‘classic’ Star Wars movie should feel like.” Sources told The Hollywood Reporter the current cut of Rogue One is like a “war movie” (um, yeah, they’re at war) and Disney wants to broaden the appeal.
The goal of the reshoots will be to lighten the mood, bring some levity into the story and restore a sense of fun to the adventure. […]
“This is the closest thing to a prequel ever,” a source tells THR. “This takes place just before A New Hope and leads up to the 10 minutes before that classic film begins. You have to match the tone!”
Geez, now we know what happens after the ending of Rogue One. Thanks for the spoilers! I’m never reading “a source” again. (Yes, this is sarcasm.)
Writers for The Hollywood Reporter and Variety are also weighing in on Twitter, saying pretty much the same thing:
ROGUE ONE, according to one of my guys, as prequel-ly as a prequel can get, leading up to 10 minutes before A NEW HOPE begins.Tone matters.
— Borys Kit (@Borys_Kit) June 1, 2016
Yes, there will be more shooting for ROGUE ONE. The first cut was pretty serious. The new stuff to inject fun, "classic" #StarWars feel.
— Borys Kit (@Borys_Kit) June 1, 2016
Sources say reshoots are expected on ROGUE 1; nothing to worry about, most of the shoot will involve the cameo of a very important character
— Justin Kroll (@krolljvar) May 31, 2016
As the last of those tweets references, another theory going around quite a bit is that the reshoots will add a cameo by Alden Ehrenreich as a young Han Solo. Will a quick cameo by Han Solo interject enough fun to turn this “war movie” into a four quadrant adventure? Would that it were so simple.
(Via The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, and CBM)
