The fact that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story underwent extensive reshoots is common knowledge. However, it seems like every day we're getting more and more information about something else that was changed in the final film. Now some of the concept artists have revealed even more that didn't turn out quite as planned in the movie. Including the fact that Saw Gerrera was originally going to be found in a very different location, and that some of the film's original designs had to be changed practically instantly.
Several of the concepts artists and concept designers from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, including Dave Grossman, Glyn Dillon, Matt Allsopp, Matt Brockbank, Will Htay, Vincent Jenkins, and John McCoy, recently appeared at comic shop Gosh in London. The Star Wars Hyperdrive Tumblr has a summary of the topics that were covered.
One of the most interesting points is that the place Saw Gerrera is eventually discovered changed multiple times. Designs were apparently shown for both an ice planet and a jungle planet that were supposed to be his home. It sounds like the ice planet was originally going to happen. The designs included Snowtroopers, one assumes they looked similar to what we saw on Hoth in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. There were apparently plans to shoot in Iceland, which seems odd because there isn't nearly as much ice in Iceland as the name implies. It's not mentioned why both the ice and jungle ideas were eventually scrapped in favor of what we got in Rogue One the desert moon of Jedha.
While the ideas of creating an ice or jungle planet were certainly more general concepts, rather than specific creations, there were also some major changes made to key Rogue One set pieces as well. According to the information, The artists spent two months designing the citadel tower on Scarif, the key location in the third act of the film. However, that design is not what we saw in the movie, as the tower was apparently completely redesigned later over the course of only two hours. No explanation was given as to why the redesign was needed, nor why it apparently needed to be done quite so quickly. It's likely the change was needed for something involving the reshoots, perhaps something that nobody realized was needed until the last minute.
It seems that so much changed in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story that we never have a real handle on exactly what the movie was originally like. We'll be keeping our eyes on the movie's eventual Blu-Ray release as that could contain a mass of deleted scenes, and possibly even a version of the film's original cut. Are you happy with Rogue One as it is or would you like to see the version of the film that we almost got? Let us know in the comments.
