Speaking over at io9, animation supervisor Hal Hickel explained the reasoning regarding the appearances of various vehicles in Rogue One, and why we get to see these cool easter eggs.
“You see the film and think it’s a kind of corporate synergy but really it’s just casual and friendly contact between folks at Lucasfilm working on different aspects of the Star Wars universe and going, ‘This would be super cool. Can we put your ship in our movie?’”
The appearances of the Hammerhead Corvettes, first seen in this era in Rebels but influenced by a similar vehicle designed for Star Wars The Old Republic, was also broached by ILM legend John Knoll.
“That came out of discussions a bunch of us had about ‘What should the Rebel fleet really consist of?’” The Story Group said “Well, they could have the Hammerhead Corvette” and they showed me some images from Rebels. So that prompted me to grab the model and make a movie version of it. And we had that underway as a background ship when we were fleshing out some of the story beats of what happens in the space battle. Suddenly I needed a ship that could act as a tugboat and I thought, “Well, let’s use the Hammerhead for that.” So it kind of turned into a starring role.
The last word goes to Pablo Hidalgo.
Being just a floor apart helps with stuff like this, too. 🙂 https://t.co/FNzhurS6qh?
— Pablo Hidalgo (@pablohidalgo) January 9, 2017
