'Rogue One' Screenwriter Says the "Purity Wasn't There" Before Reshoots

The person likely responsible for Darth Vader murdering all those Rebel soldiers has spoken. Tony Gilory, who oversaw the reshoots on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story back in 2016 has recently spoken about his involvement with the movie. The big takeaway? If you like Rogue One, then you’re going to have to accept the fact that it was fixed by a person who, in his own words, “has no reverence,” for Star Wars.

On Tuesday, the latest podcast episode of the The Moment with Brian Koppelman featured a lengthy interview with Tony Gilroy. Though the director/screenwriter was hesitant to talk about his work on Rogue One, he did drop a few huge details about why he thought the movie wasn’t working when he was brought. “I saw the purity that was missing,” he said in reference to the tone of the film. Though he didn’t get into specifics, Gilroy described the production of Rogue One as a “mess,” and says that he “easily” was given a screenwriter credit, meaning much of the story must have been changed due to his involvement.

Gilroy also described his general apathy toward Star Wars as a whole as his “superpower,” because he didn’t feel pressure about completing the project. “I don’t like Star Wars,” he said. “I was never interested in Star Wars…I have no reverence for it whatsoever.”

Though Lucasfilm supported original director Gareth Edwards in the publicity leading up to Rogue One’s release, it’s fairly clear that Gilroy’s reshoots altered the ending of the film pretty significantly. Fans will likely never see whatever Edward’s final cut of the film was before Gilroy was brought in. But, just a few weeks after the film was released in 2016, Rogue One star Ben Mendelsohn said the original cut of the film had “enormous differences” compared to what was eventually released.

Bizarrely, less than years later, history is repeating itself with the second standalone Star Wars film; Solo: A Star Wars Story. Just like Rogue One, Solo has also undergone extensive reshoots, though unlike Rogue One, Solo formally got a new director, Ron Howard, after Chris Miller and Phil Lord were both fired. Weirdly, some rumors say that Howard is not changing the actual script of the film, but instead, simply reshooting the material in a totally different style.

Despite the reshoot kerfuffle before Rogue One, the buzz for that movie was generally good. But, that was two years ago. Then, Star Wars fandom was a little different. These days, the question of whether or not Solo will rely too heavily on nostalgia could be the movie’s fatal flaw. Which makes Gilroy’s comments about Rogue One all the more prescient. Before saving that Star Wars movie, Gilroy lacked the one thing Ron Howard has oodles of nostalgia. - Rogue One is still streaming on Netflix. Solo: A Star Wars Story will be out in theaters on May 25.