Rogue One: Saw Gerrera Originally Had Much Bigger Role

Rogue One introduced us to a large and diverse cast, and thus some characters were trimmed in ways that left many fans disappointed. Forest Whitaker’s Saw Gerrera is one such character.

As Rogue One continues to dominate the box office, news of what might have been is slowly beginning to trickle out. And while most agree the movie was quite good as it was, its fun to imagine what might have been for some of the characters we were introduced to in the film. In this particular case, Collider via Empire Magazine tells that Rebel extremest Saw Gerrera originally had a much bigger role in Rogue One.

Image Credit: Lucasfilm

Gerrera was of course played but the criminally underrated Forest Whitaker, and played a pivotal role in both rescuing Jyn Erso as a child, and being the mcguffin to initially bring the Rogue One crew together. Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy told Empire;

"With Saw Gerrera, we just became very intrigued with him as a character [from The Clone Wars] and how he fits inside this story….To be honest, we originally thought we were going to develop Saw into something much larger, but we couldn’t accommodate it. So he is not in the movie as much as we would like to have him in the movie, which creates the opportunity to explore his character even further in our future development."

It’s fun to wonder, as Gerrera’s character did seem fairly underused in Rogue One after serving his initial purpose. We know much about Gerrara’s background thanks to The Clone Wars animated series as Kennedy alluded to, but it would certainly be fun to see more of the character in other arenas. One of the most interesting and lauded aspects of Rogue One was its glimpse into the fledgling Rebel Alliance, something that Gerrera had apparently been ex communicated from for being to extreme.

Photo Credit: Lucasfilm

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Could we someday see Gerrera’s own little private rebellion back on Jedha? Might Gerrera show up in the upcoming Han Solo solo film? Aside from the terrible pun, I think many of us might enjoy a deeper look into the Alliance’s beginning, and perhaps even see the genesis of the feud between Saw and the Alliance. A Rogue One prequel perhaps? We can only dream.