Tunnel Vision
As a note of warning, this is not a Rogue One: A Star Wars Story review or spoiler discussion, nor is it either of those things for any other movie discussed throughout the article. That being said, SPOILER ALERT for any movie discussed anyway.
Pusha T said it best on the song Sunshine when he raps:
“They’ll never rewrite this like they rewrote history/The fact that the Statue of Liberty is black is a goddamn mystery.”
Much of the same can be said about Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Yup, just went there.
To summarize a handful of conspiracies and “rumors”, many believe that France’s gift of the Statue of Liberty to America in 1875 was originally a black woman, commemorating the end of slavery in The United States. It was obviously changed to a white woman in regards to many officials’ concern of having a large black statue so soon after slavery. France wanted to give the gift of change, help us celebrate the idea that we could be different, and we decided to take the path of least resistance and construct a statue that was a color we were more comfortable with. Go figure.
Much has been said, both on the record and off, about the reshoots that took place for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. It’s well recorded that Bourne director and writer Tony Gilroy was brought on for a very handsome sum of money to reshoot and rewrite a very handsome portion of the movie, just months before release. It’s also well documented that some characters needed backstories, namely Riz Ahmed’s Bodhi, who went through the lion’s share of the reshoots as well as getting a completely different backstory for his character. But just like anything that deals with big-budget nerdom, there’s far more outlandish conjecture and rumor mill than anything Ahmed or Gilroy or even the movie’s original lone writer, Gary Whitta, said about the movie’s audible at the line of scrimmage. And no matter what the staff or their loyal fanbase says, one things for sure: Disney’s good at deciding what is and isn’t said about this billion-dollar franchise, so take everything with a grain of Tatooinian salt.
Before the dissection of what was and wasn’t a reshoot for Rogue One begins, it’s imperative you know that I loved the movie. As a young Star Wars fan, there aren’t many absolutist Star Wars opinions I agree with (Episodes 1–3 aren’t the bane of our geeky existence, Force Awakens is a worse New Hope, not the new Titanic), but one that I do agree with is that Rogue One can play with the big boys. It’s the first time since the original trilogy I felt like I was in a Star Wars movie, granted it’s also the closest in both narrative and aesthetic. That being said, there are still parts of the movie that scream “RESHOOT”, parts that were less “Saving Private Ryan in Space” and more “Original Cast Cameos in Season 9 of Scrubs… In Space”.
This piece isn’t and was never meant to be a valuation of the reshoots that be. We’re not really sure exactly what was and wasn’t in the original version of this movie. There’s also plenty of thoughts on the value of reshoots, as described by these first six results when Googling “reshoots”:
Reshoots are a vital part of the moviemaking process. There is no denying them, nor would we want to if given the opportunity. We can however, guess, and guess hard. Much was said by writer Gary Whitta and director Gareth Edwards in early interviews about a much darker, much more down-to-planet version of a Star Wars war film than what we actually got. I didn’t originate the idea of “Saving Private Ryan in Space”. There’s an entire reddit thread linking everything from similar poster poses to scene breakdowns in both trailers and the movie relating the two war films. There’s much to be said about the chances taken to make a gritty, nihilistic war movie about sacrifice and the death of hope in the Disney/Star Wars universe, and one could see why Disney wouldn’t be too thrilled about there first R rating on a billion-dollar franchise. That being said, there’s a darker version of this movie that original Star Wars fans deserve and may never get to see.
Who knows what we’re missing out on? Who knows what was taken out of the original version of this movie, or put in, or Men-In-Black-style neuralyzed out of Edwards’ and Whitaker’s head once Gilroy got on set? One thing that’s certain is that if you accept the idea that at one point we had a near-R-rated Star Wars war movie, or at the very least a hard PG-13 Star Wars war movie, there’s parts that we can certainly see added in post. This is a list of those things, as well as other parts that felt like Felicity Jones sending Gilroy a hologram that said, “Help me Tony Gilroy, you’re my only hope”.
Scrubs: Season 9… In Space
Nobody needed it. As an avid Scrubs fan, I can speak for us all when I say that we weren’t aching for a follow-up to that season 8 finale. But we had a chance to get a little more Sacred Heart in season 9, and with a new cast of orderlies and interns. It was some of our earliest acting from Dave Franco and a sugar-free version of all our favorite original cast members. Even though this was the young gun’s perfect time to shine, much of season 9 still relied on cameos from the original cast and storylines revolving around original cast that didn’t even show up, which felt like the new, young cast just wasn’t trusted with the Scrubs extended universe (I did just say there was a Scrubs extended universe, you’re welcome Braff.)
Come back to the Gritty War Movie Theory for just a second. Let’s imagine Edwards and Co. made a conscious, concerted effort to make a violent war movie, void of lightsabers or The Force or CGI dead people, and had something to say, but at the same time with a voice that no one had heard yet. In that movie, where exactly do you place a C-3PO and R2-D2 cameo? Who was aching to see Ponda Baba and Cornelius Evazan again? Are they just going on the angriest pub crawl across the galaxy known to man? Much of this felt like Disney didn’t trust the keys to the franchise to Yen or Jones without the Kramer-esque storm-in by some of their most famous faces in the franchise. All of the most powerful scenes in this movie are void of the likes of Vader and 3PO, where new characters are being introduced or given their shot to stake their claim in a galaxy far, far away. A lot of this felt like production felt we couldn’t rely solely on K-2SO’s one-liners or Mendelsohn’s villainy, instead in most cases they reverted to villains (and robots) of old.
The All (Death) Star Sixth Man Award: Ben Mendelsohn
One of the hardest casting director jobs in Hollywood is trying to find a part-time villain for a part-time Star Wars movie. Having someone join the ranks of The Emperor, Darth Vader, even Darth Maul isn’t an easy pair of shoes to fill, but Mendelsohn did as much as he could with what he was given. This wasn’t a story that needed to introduce a new Sith Lord, seeing as we weren’t introduced to a new Jedi, but somebody with Sith aspirations and a pretty damn good reason to be on the Death Star. Even when Mendolsohn’s Director Krennic was on screen and giving us the most, it was generally with a CGI rendition Governor Tarkin or a costume that sounds like Darth Vader. Mendelsohn being treated like a sixth man who can’t be left on-court without a starter is a little unsettling, seeing as we know what he’s capable of when he’s left to his own devices in a show like Bloodline or movies like Black Sea and Mississippi Grind. But which new star was trusted with their own scenes in Rogue One?
Star Wars: A Star Wars Story
At the end of the day there’s no denying that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is a great movie, nevertheless a great Star Wars movie on top of that. It takes its time, it sets up shots it never takes, but it ends the way it should, and that may be its most important task, seeing how it introduces the Original Trilogy in such a way that it can’t possibly miss the landing. Even with a sand dune of caveats and about as much ticket assurance as one can have with a Star Wars movie in 2016, there were chances not taken that could’ve benefited the way a future Star Wars movie can be viewed, instead of giving fans a movie they might’ve seen before, but definitely a flavor they’ve tasted. Everything is safe in a movie about stealing the plans to The Death Star. Everyone looks familiar in a movie that takes place before we’re introduced to the likes of Ben, Luke, Han and Leia. If there was ever a chance we’d get a Saving Private Ryan In Space, it was thinking that Disney QA would ever let anything but Star Wars: A Star Wars Story made. If we thought we’d get a “Black Statue of Liberty” in a gritty Star Wars prelude like Rogue One, we forgot that the Powers That Be have bigger, safer plans than changing the way a multi-billion dollar franchise is viewed by everyone on Earth… and probably a galaxy far, far away.
