New Zealand born Editor, Jabez Olssen, was the mind behind THAT now iconic Darth Vader moment at the end of Rogue One according to his nations Stuff website.
Near the end of the film, Darth Vader is seeing cutting a swathe through Rebel Alliance troops with his lightsaber, in a last-ditch attempt to stop the Death Star plans falling into the hands of the Rebel’s leaders.
It was a crowd-pleasing moment involving one of cinema’s greatest villains and it was only there thanks to an 11th hour brainwave from and the persistence of Rogue One’s New Zealand-born editor Jabez Olssen, director Gareth Edwards has told American film website Fandango.
He says the film’s original climax never had Darth Vader on Princess Leia’s ship, instead he would be finally seen pursuing a blockade runner. “And then Jabez was like, ‘I think we need to get Darth on that ship’, and I thought, ‘yeah, that’s a brilliant idea and would love to do it, but there’s no way they’re going to let us do it’. ”
The problem was they were only a few months from release and reshoots would be costly for an already rumoured to be in trouble production.
“Kathy [Kennedy, the films executive prodUcer] came in and Jabez thought, f.. it, and pitched her this idea, and she loved it. Suddenly within a week or two we were at Pinewood shooting that scene.”
