Gareth Edwards’ Blunt Reaction To Rogue One Trailer Scenes Not Showing Up In The Movie

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As we have talked about many times since Rogue One: A Star Wars Story came out last month, there is a bit of incongruity between the finished cut of the film and its marketing materials. Specifically, there are a few amazing shots that are featured in the previews, but not actually included in the actual movie. "Reshoots" has been the main explanation for this thus far, but now director Gareth Edwards has revealed the full answer. According to him, the situation happened because the marketing teams just fell in love with certain footage - and while the filmmakers knew certain scenes weren't actually going to be included in the finished picture, they still felt it was fair to promote because they still sold "the spirit" of the blockbuster.

Empire got the scoop from the director in a recent interview, talking to the filmmaker about the now semi-notorious missing footage. Asked to explain the occasional disconnects between Rogue One's trailers and finished cut, Gareth Edwards admitted that they knew certain sequences weren't going to be in the movie before the trailers were released, but also offered up an explanation for why they felt that was okay for them to do. Said Edwards,

There was a bit of a process to refining the third act in terms of the specific shots and moments, and so certain things just fell away. But then what happens is marketing love those shots, and go, 'Oh, we've got to use that.' And you say, 'well, it's not in the movie'. And they say, 'It's okay, it's what marketing does, we just use the best of whatever you've done.' And so there's lots of little things, but towards the end you go, 'I know that's not in the film, but the spirit of it's in the film.'

He's not really wrong, as the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story trailers did legitimately sell the movie that audiences wound paying for tickets to see... but what we still really want to know is what the hell happened to all of the missing material, and whether or not we will ever actually get to see it in any kind of context. What was the ultimate conclusion of Jyn Erso's showdown with the TIE Fighter?

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How was Saw Gerrera's "What will you do when they catch you? What will you do if they break you?" speech going to fit into the narrative? Were there going to be more flashbacks?

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And what did we miss out on with Director Krennic not being on the ground during the Battle of Scarif?

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That expose regarding the movie that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was originally going to be is still waiting to be broken.

How do you feel about this? Do you think that Gareth Edwards and the other folks at Disney/Lucasfilm were right in selling Rogue One: A Star Wars Story footage that didn't wind up in the movie, or did you feel misled when those big moments didn't wind up happening in the film? Hit the comments section below with your thoughts.

Eric Eisenberg
Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.