Rogue One Director Gareth Edwards Weighs In On Reshoot Concerns: “It Was Always Part Of The Plan”

Acting as the next entry into Disney and Lucasfilm’s rebooted universe, it’s hardly surprising that a laser focus has been placed on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ever since its inception. That attention threatened to spin out of control, however, when the House of Mouse ordered reshoots of the galactic spinoff earlier in the year, leading many to believe that Gareth Edwards’ promising Anthology movie had careered into troubled waters.

According to Edwards himself, though, that’s simply not the case; in fact, circling back to re-do select scenes was “always part of the plan” and, as previous statements have indicated, is a result of the tremendous pressure placed on the creative team to strive toward perfection. No one said following in the footsteps of The Force Awakens would be easy, after all.

Much like all Rogue One content of late, word of Edwards’ response arrives by way of Entertainment Weekly, where the filmmaker addressed concerns that the Star Wars prequel was in turmoil. Rather, bringing together the film’s ensemble cast proved to be something of a “logistical nightmare.”

“I mean it was always part of the plan to do reshoots. We always knew we were coming back somewhere to do stuff. We just didn’t know what it would be until we started sculpting the film in the edit. Obviously, you’ve got to work around everyone’s schedule, and everyone’s on different films all over the world, and so it’s a bit of a logistical nightmare. That’s why I think it’s been blown out of proportion a little bit.”

Until Rogue One graces theaters, the exact nature of those reshoots will in all likelihood remain a mystery. However that may be, Edwards’ ragtag crew consists of Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen), Rebel fighter Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed), Alan Tudyk’s droid K-2SO – billed as “the antithesis of C-3PO” – and the villainous Imperial leader Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn).

Also on board are Donnie Yen, Diego Luna, Forest Whitaker as Rebel extremist Saw Gerrera and, as we learned yesterday, James Earl Jones will be back to voice Darth Vader – just don’t expect him to feature too heavily in the story.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is barrelling down on its December 16 release date, but until then, you can feast your eyes on the barrage of new images via the gallery below.