Director Gareth Edwards spoke at a Directors Guild of America screening of Rogue One the other day, and in his discussion, he explained why the now-iconic shot of Jyn in her Imperial trooper armor standing in the lit tunnel never made it onto the big screen.
According to Edwards, the shot was created during their “Indie Hour” tradition where they’d essentially play with different shots and get experimental with footage and things. They’d sit around and shoot whatever for an hour to see what came out, basically. Of the shot in question, he explained:
Someone called her, and she just turned around a little bit and I was like, ‘Oh my god that looked great.’ And I was like ‘Stop stop stop!’ and everyone stopped. ‘This will take 10 seconds, just roll camera.’ Then, obviously, ten seconds turned into a half hour, and we probably did 17 takes. So that ended and there’s that feeling of, ‘Well what was that for?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know. That just felt good.’
Edwards even cops to forgetting about the shot completely until the marketing team found the footage and put it into the trailer.
Much has been said about Rogue One‘s missing scenes, though the exclusion of this one in particular left a few fans a bit disappointed (myself included). While this is more of a shot than a full-on scene, it managed to resonate with so many people when it ended up being the shot that rounded out the very first trailer. Combined with Saw Gerrera’s incredible monologue and voice over, it was a highly-memorable moment for a movie that would ultimately not need it at all.
(via Polygon)
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