Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Director Discusses Film's Tragic End

Now that many of us haveseen Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, director Gareth Edwards has come forward to talk about the film's ending.

Warning: This article contains major spoilers from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Speaking to the Empire Podcast, Edwards discussed the film's tragic ending, revealing the bold decision to kill off ever member of the Rogue One team. . "I think there was an early version - the very first version they didn't [die] in the screenplay," he said, noting they all initially thought the studio wouldn't let them kill off the entire crew of heroic rebels.

Edwards revealed that they tried to make a story where not everyone died."So we're trying to figure out how this ends where that doesn't happen," Edwards explained. "And then everyone read that, and there was just this feeling of like, 'They gotta die right?' And everyone was like, 'Yeah, can we?.

Edwards and his team consulted Lucasfilm and Disney, and were ultimately given a green light to conclude the film with a tragic end for all the members of Rogue One: "Kathy [Kennedy] and everyone at Disney were like, 'Yeah, makes sense,'" Edwards said, pointing out the fact that not a single member of the Rogue One team shows up in subsequent Star Wars films. (Check out our review of Rogue One here)

Despite getting the permission to end it that way, the director was still hoping that someone from the studio would request that they would at least save a member or two from the Rogue One team: "I kept waiting for someone to go, 'You know what, can you just film an extra scene where we see Jyn and Cassian, they're okay, and they're on another planet and la la la…' And [that] never ever came, and no one gave us that note so we got to do it," Edwards said.

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