Star Wars Rogue One Reshoots – Uh, Everything’s Under Control. Situation Normal

‘Uh, we had a slight reshoots malfunction, but uh… everything’s perfectly all right now. We’re fine. We’re all fine here now, thank you. How are you?’

I’m good. Darth Vader is back with James Earl Jones bringing one of the most iconic villains back to life. We all assumed it was happening, but it’s good to see official confirmation. It’ll also help folks who weren’t sure when Rogue One took place in the Star Wars timeline. I thought the big ass Death Star gave it away, but hey maybe some of you weren’t sure.

We got confirmation of Darth Vader in the latest Entertainment Weekly. Lucasfilm execs and director Gareth Edwards also touched on the reshoots that caused many to speculate Rogue One was in trouble. Anytime word of reshoots hits for a major movie, many of us start assuming the worse.

Kathleen Kennedy and Gareth Edwards sought to put our minds at ease in the EW piece.

According to Edwards, the Star Wars Rogue One reshoots were always planned. Which is a common practice in the industry. You don’t know how everything is going to shake out in the editing phase, so it’s smart to have some time set aside for reshoots. Edwards said as they were editing the final film, they began to get a clearer idea of how the final cut of Rogue One should look. Now five weeks of reshoots are underway with them wrapping up in mid-July.

When speculation of reshoots and the reasoning behind them were at their fiercest, people pointed to Disney wanting to change the tone of the movie. It was said to be too dark, and Disney wanted lighten it up some.

Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy says that is not the case. None of the story was changed according to Kennedy. Here’s the exact quote.

“There’s nothing about the story that’s changing, with a few things that we’re picking up in additional photography,” said Kennedy. “I think that’s the most important thing, to reassure fans that it’s the movie we intended to make.”

Speculation was widespread about the possibility the movie was too dark. But the EW piece repeatedly hits on the notion that Rogue One is a war film. Kennedy talks about they want each movie to have its own distinct tone and style. While the main entries (think episode 7, 8, 9, etc.) will be more light-hearted, the anthology films will experiment more.

Edwards compares Rogue One’s tone to The Empire Strikes Back and says the studio “has been very supportive” of the darker tone.

Hey, I’m completely on board with the darker tone. We already know Disney is going to pump out Star War movies every year. One way to avoid franchise fatigue is to make sure they all don’t feel too similar. Varying the tone does just that.

I’m crossing my fingers we get a movie adaption of something like the X-Wing series of books in the old Expanded Universe. Give me nothing but space battles. No Jedi. No force. Just Star Destroyers, Cruisers, X-Wings and TIE Fighters duking it out.