Rogue One could have ended very differently.
Screenwriter Garry Whitta told Entertainment Weekly that the filmmakers always wanted to have all the characters die at the end of the Star Wars spinoff movie, but didn’t think Disney would go for it.
“The original instinct was that they should all die,” he said. “It’s worth it. If you’re going to give your life for anything, give your life for this, to destroy a weapon that going to kill you all anyway.
Alternate ending: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story could have ended very differently | Disney
“That’s what we always wanted to do. But we never explored it because we were afraid that Disney might not let us do it, that Disney might think it’s too dark for a Star Wars movie or for their brand.”
Because the creators didn’t think Disney would be on board with such a dark end to the tale, the first version of the script had the two main characters survive.
It would have showed Jyn (Felicity Jones) and Cassian (Diego Luna) make it on to a rebel ship only to have the craft be destroyed by Vader as they were trying to get the data over to Leia.
The audience would at first think the pair had died, but it would then be revealed that they had escaped in a pod that looked “like just another piece of debris”.
Survivors: Jyn and Cassian didn’t die in the first version of the script, because the writers thought it might be “too dark” for Disney | Disney
However the creators weren’t happy about that ending, and fortunately early on they were given the go-ahead by Disney to let the movie play out how they wanted.
“The fact that we had to jump through so many hoops to keep them alive was the writing gods telling us that if they were meant to live it wouldn’t be this difficult,” Whitta told EW. “We decided they should die on the surface [of Scarif], and that was the way it ended.
“We were constantly trying to make all the pieces fit together. We tried every single idea. Eventually, through endless development you get through an evolutionary process where the best version rises to the top.”
