Watch 46 Shots from the 'Rogue One' Trailers That Were Cut from the Film

I really like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but it's funny to think about how here's a whole different version of that movie out there somewhere that we will just never see.

As the legend goes, Gareth Edwards made a version of the movie that Kathleen Kennedy and other Disney execs in the Star Wars world didn't like.

So they hired writer-director Tony Gilroy to oversee extensive reshoots.

The final version that hit theaters in 2016 was vastly different from what director Gareth Edwards initially captured.

I found an old video from editor Vashi Nedomansky, ACE, in which he made a brilliant supercut of the 46 distinct shots that were featured heavily in the trailers, teasers, and promotional materials but were completely cut from the final theatrical cut.

Let's dive in.

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The Marketing Mirage

Marketing campaigns for billion-dollar blockbusters start nearly a year before the film's release.

They want to get trailers out so people know these movies are coming.

But for this movie, which probably had like 40% or more reshot, they had to use Gareth Edwards’ original shots in order to build buzz.

According to stuff I've heard and read, production thought Edwards' version of the movie was slow and had too many characters and storylines. So Gilroy came in to help boil it all down and get the story together.

While we'll never quite know exactly what happened on this production, we do know there were an epic number of shots that we saw in trailers and promos that were not in the final movie.

Some of the most iconic imagery associated with the movie's initial hype simply doesn't exist in the runtime.

And these were images that felt iconic at the time. I mean, the "I rebel" line got cheers in theaters when I saw that trailer, and I distinctly remember everyone talking about the one-on-one fight with the tie fighter.

What This Teaches Filmmakers

For editors and directors, Nedomansky’s video is an incredible study in narrative flexibility. It proves that a film is truly written three times: on the page, on the set, and in the edit bay.

This movie is probably the best example of that.

Gareth Edwards shot Rogue One with a loose, documentary-style, indie-filmmaker approach and captured thousands of feet of beautiful, spontaneous footage. When the narrative direction changed, entire sequences of spectacular cinematography had to be sacrificed for the sake of the new story structure.

It's a stark reminder that in commercial filmmaking, no matter how beautiful, iconic, or expensive a shot is, if it doesn’t serve the final story, you have to kill your darlings.

Summing It All Up

What do you think? Do you prefer the darker, war-movie tone teased in the early trailers, or did Disney make the right call by restructuring the third act?

Let us know in the comments!