With the “galaxy” — now galaxies, thanks to Ahsoka — “far, far away,” we have to liberty of cooking our own theories till the official word replaces it. But the creation of this mystical universe is rooted in the real world, where Star Wars iconic scenes have crazy and memorable backstories of their own.
Sadly, apart from nailing “memorable” only on screen, Darth Vader’s jaw-dropping hallway scene in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is probably meandering the halls of Walt Disney Studios, waiting for someone to come forward and put an end to the long-stretched discussion that only takes away from the otherworldly wonder of the sequence (though that is hardly stopping fans from celebrating the scene today).
It was today, exactly six years ago, when Rogue One hit theaters and blessed us with the iconic moment where the Rebel Alliance is stuck in a pitch-black hallway with the Sith Lord first striking terror with his telltale breathing and then slashing away the darkness as well as almost every breathing soul away as they fruitlessly tried to escape. Now, the director of the film was Gareth Edwards, so credit goes to him, right?
Eh, the answer is sketchy and all the credit goes to 2023.
You see, the year started with Freddie Prinze Jr., who voiced Kanan Jarrus in Star Wars: Rebels, claiming in an episode of the Lights, Camera, Barstool podcast that the epic scene was, in fact, the genius of Dave Filoni, one of the exceptional brains behind the new era of the franchise.
“Maybe I’m not allowed to say this, (but) Dave Filoni directed that scene in Rogue One where Vader comes through and you see basically what’s going to happen in A New Hope. He directed all that.”
Is it possible? No idea, but that last soul-chilling magnificence was officially not in the original script and was added during the reshoots, just four months before the film’s release. While we were waiting for a Lucasfilm executive to come forward to either shoot down or back the claim, September rolled in with fresh rumors – that Tony Gilroy (the Andor creator) who was brought in for the reshoot, effectively replaced Edwards and the latter was not even present when the new scenes were added to Rogue One.
Hmm. But back in 2017, Edwards had explained how the scene was actually editor Jabez Olssen’s idea. And when the Gilroy rumor hit the newsstand, the director once again came forward, this time in 2023 (via Variety), to put the “inaccuracies” aside.”
“The stuff that’s out there on the internet about what happened on that film — there is so much inaccuracy about the whole thing. Tony [Gilroy] came in, and he did a lot of great work, for sure. No doubt about it. But we all worked together until the entire last minute of that movie.”
So, who is telling the truth? Honestly, there is no way of confirming the truth until either Disney smooths out the wrinkles in the scene’s origin story or well, the God of Truth, Apollo, himself descends to Earth and ends the lies once and for all. Fortunately, it’s not like the hallway scene’s glitchy history is stopping anyone — not the fans and definitely not the studio, which happily recreated its magnificence in The Mandalorian season 2 finale.
