Gary Whitta on Why Wedge Antilles was Cut from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Probably one of the best scenes to come out of Rogue One was that of the X-Wing pilots from A New Hope where the film used original footage and spliced it into the film. While it was a great cameo, it turns out, another fan-favorite pilot was supposed to appear in the scene.

During an IGN live commentary of the film, Rogue One writer Gary Whitta explained that Wedge Antilles was supposed to appear with the rest of Red Squadron, but his part was ultimately cut because it would have broken canon.

In A New Hope, Wedge is the one to react to the size of the Death Star by saying, "Look at the size of that thing!" before being told to shut-up. Since the Death Star was at the Battle of Scarif, that means Wedge would have already seen it by the time of the Battle of Yavin. Ergo, his scene had to be cut so as to make his line in A New Hope make sense.

Though we didn't get to see old footage of Wedge in Rogue One, Denis Lawson does make a cameo appearance in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Though I would have loved to see him in an X-Wing with his classic helmet, it looked like he was just manning a turret on one of the ships.

Personally it's the pilots of Star Wars that I like the most, and I would really love to see a series on them. Hopefully we finally get to meet the rest of Red Squadron in the upcoming Cassian Andor series for Disney+. I wouldn't even mind if all of them were recast. We need the return of Jek Porkins!

For now, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is available on home video.

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