Rogue One originally had an opening crawl, admits Gareth Edwards

While ‘Rogue One’ continues to dominate the box office, having already grossed over $800 million across the world, one of the biggest bones of contention regarding the film was its lack of an opening crawl.

There have been those that weren’t bothered in the least by its omission, while others felt that it was needlessly left out and made the film feel a little less ‘Star Warsy’. Clearly director Gareth Edwards was quite divided on whether to include it, too, and he’s admitted that he originally wanted ‘Rogue One’ to do so.

“At some point, probably like six months before we were filming, we were in a meeting, and they talked about not having an opening crawl, because these are standalone films, not part of the sagas,” Gareth Edwards admitted to Empire. “And if I’m honest, there was an initial kind of like, ‘Whaaa? I want the crawl!”

Screenwriter Gary Whitta had originally included a crawl in ‘Rogue One’s’ script, and Edwards explained that the reason it was dropped was because, since ‘Rogue One’ was born out of a crawl, it would have made the ‘Star Wars’ saga feel like an “infinite loop that will never end” if another had popped up.

Gareth Edwards also admitted that he decided against using wipe cuts in ‘Rogue One’ to make it feel different to previous films from the ‘Star Wars’ cannon, adding, “We were given a license by the studio to be unique from the others, and we just took the license and ran with it as an excuse to try and be a bit more out there.”

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