Given it’s location in the official established Star Wars timeline, fans basically knew how Rogue One would end up once the final credits started rolling (how we would be getting there is a completely different story). In an article posted over on Heroic Hollywood, director Gareth Edwards talks about the ending of the film and the decision made to portray the fates of our main characters in the way that was seen on screen. Was there ever discussion within the Lucasfilm ranks to alter things in a way that would result in certain characters existing beyond the battle at Scarif? Read on for that answer.
When asked about the decision to kill off every member of the Rogue One team, Edwards explained the process to how the story team was brought to that conclusion:
I mean, it’s a great Disney tradition isn’t it? For ever single character to die in all their movies. I think there was an early version – the very first version they didn’t [die] in the screenplay. And it was just assumed by us that we couldn’t do that and they’re not gonna let us do that. So we’re trying to figure out how this ends where that doesn’t happen. And then everyone read that, and there was just this feeling of like, “They gotta die right?” And everyone was like, “Yeah, can we?” And we thought we weren’t gonna be allowed to, but Kathy [Kennedy] and everyone at Disney were like, “Yeah, makes sense.” I guess they have to because they’re not in A New Hope. And so from that point on, we had the license and I kept waiting for someone to go, “You know what, can you just film an extra scene where we see Jyn and Cassian, they’re okay, and they’re on another planet and la la la…” And [that] never ever came, and no one gave us that note so we got to do it.
