Each time a new Star Wars movie is released, you're guaranteed at least one new planet. After all, that galaxy far, far away is full of colorful and unique worlds, and it get would boring quickly if we spent all our time on just a few of these locations. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story did its part by introducing five new worlds: Wobani, Lah'mu, Eadu, Jedha and Scarif. That last planet was one of the more important ones, as it's where the final conflict took place. So how was the name Scarif created? It turns out the inspiration came from someone misunderstanding director Gareth Edwards' name at a coffee shop.
During his appearance at SXSW this past weekend (via THR), Gareth Edwards shared a few stories about the making of Rogue One, from how Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson stopped by the set to where the idea for the movie's ending came from. In the case of Scarif, that planet earned its name when Gareth's name was misspelled on a coffee cup. As Edwards put it:
I must have said, 'It's Gareth,' and they wrote 'Scarif.'
That's not exactly the conventional way one goes about brainstorming the name of a world for fiction, but hey, whatever works! I can understand how if Gareth Edwards was at a Starbucks or whatever coffee shop it was at a particularly loud time of day, 'Gareth" could have sounded like "Scarif"...even though I'm almost positive you won't find Scarif in any baby name book. So to you, nameless barista, we thank you for accidentally providing the name of one of the more notable worlds in the Star Wars universe. If you hadn't misheard Gareth's name, who knows what it would have been called?
Scarif is one of the more scenic Star Wars worlds, but in Rogue One, it was anything but a vacation destination. The Empire was using the tropical planet as a site for keeping top-secret information and research safe, including the Death Star plans. The main military installation was well guarded, but as an added measure, the planet was surrounded by a deflector shield that only had one opening, the Shield Gate. Despite such protection, Jyn Erso and a team of Rebels managed to sneak onto the planet while a Rebel fleet kept the Imperial forces occupied in space. The endgame was obtaining a copy of the Death Star plans, and in the end, the good guys were successful, though it came with great sacrifice.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has nearly concluded its theatrical run, and will be available on home media starting with the Digital HD release on March 24 and later with the Blu-ray/DVD release on April 4.
