Here’s why those awesome Rogue One trailer scenes didn’t make it into the film

Remember all those amazing scenes from the Rogue One trailers that didn’t end up in the final cut of the film? Well, here’s why they weren’t there…

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has been a smashing success across the globe, and that means that Star Wars fans are going back to theaters to watch the film multiple times. If you happen to be one of those fans, and you’re beginning to notice that some of those awesome scenes from the film’s trailers didn’t make it into the final cut, then you aren’t alone. In fact, many fans noticed this on the first viewing.

As i09 points out , scenes like the one of Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), dressed in her stolen Imperial ground crew uniform, turning around just as the lights come on around her, are not in the film, and that’s kind of a big deal, because that scene made such a huge impression. But scenes like this, and others of its ilk, were never supposed to be in the final cut of Rogue One.

The film’s director, Gareth Edwards, recently spoke at a Director’s Guild screening of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and podcast, The Director’s Cut, was there to catch it all.

Edwards explains that these scenes were filmed at random, as every day the cast and crew would do what he termed an “Indie Hour.” During this time, Edwards and his team filmed random things for no real reason, just to see what would happen. And, as far as that visually stunning scene with Jyn turning toward the camera with the lights lighting up around her, Edwards explains what happened:

"We finished a shot and [Felicity Jones] was just walking to the next shot, which was at the end of the tunnel. And as she walked, someone switched the lights on and the way they turned on they went *clickclickclick* like this. 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 10 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.”"

At least we have some explanation as to what happened with some of these scenes. We’ve heard for some time now — since the film’s theatrical release — that there are several scenes that didn’t make it into the final cut of Rogue One, in fact, Ben Mendelsohn (Orson Krennic) said there was enough for an alternate version of the film.

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We want to hear from you: Would you like to see all these scenes that didn’t make the final cut, put into a special collector’s edition of the film on Blu-Ray? Would you spend extra cash for an alternate version of Rogue One? Let us know in the comments below and on social media.