Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is probably the most well-regarded of the new crop of Star Wars movies, and yet considering the great amount of studio meddling that went into the finished product, it’s also the one that most deserves a Director’s Cut. Even for someone who hasn’t seen Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, they’ve likely heard the rumors and seen the proof. The journey towards the final product fans got in this movie was anything but straight. Gareth Edwards had a vision, and that vision wasn’t fully realized because Disney brought in writer and director Tony Gilroy to “tighten up the film.”
The extent of that interference is up in the air, as reports mainly indicate that Disney executives weren’t “fully satisfied with the first cut of the film” and ordered reshoots, but for Disney to make the decision in the first place, implies there was a significant amount they felt needed to be changed. And the result might have left them feeling like it was all worth it, and interference was the way to go.
As previously mentioned, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is probably the best Star Wars movie Disney has produced, and a box office success, as well, making 1$ billion in the box office. This, however, doesn’t mean it’s a great movie, it just means there’s little in the way of competition. Whatever the sequel trilogy might have been, or what each movie is individually, is now hard to separate from how much it failed collectively, and no one’s going to argue Solo: A Star Wars Story deserves the number one spot, so Rogue One: A Star Wars Story basically wins this argument by elimination.
An important note to make here: this entire narrative might be different if Solo: A Star Wars Story was allowed to be what it was promised to be when Disney hired Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, two comedic writers who, according to reports, wanted to give the movie a Guardians of the Galaxy vibe that would have broken all previous Star Wars stereotypes and made the movie truly stand out.
Except interference worked well in the case of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – or at least it paid off box office-wise – so the world never got to see the cut of Solo: A Star Wars Story that was promised. Just as it never truly got to see the vision of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story be fully realized. The movie Gareth Edwards planned to make has a really good setup: a heist story revolving around the Rebel spies who stole the Death Star plans. This works for many reasons – it’s a new storyline, but with enough ties to the original trilogy to hook fans, and heist stories are fun, plain and simple.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story didn’t live up to the possibilities, or the hype, however. The movie’s problems are numerous: the story suffers from clunky exposition, underdeveloped characters who never quite manage to reach the emotional heights that were promised, and an ending that feels dark just for the sake of being dark – and not for plot reasons. Much like The Rise of Skywalker, it’s a fun movie that works best when you don’t think about why anyone’s doing anything, or why they’re doing it the way they’re doing it, and just go with the flow.
But much like the last movie in the sequel trilogy, there’s enough in what audiences saw – and in the case of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, in what they got in the trailer that didn’t make the final cut of the movie – to imagine the possibility of a really good movie, one that would have been more than merely fun. Just as there are clearly characters that Disney and fans alike would like to see more of, as the Star Wars: Andor spinoff proves.
The promise of Star Wars was always about so much more than just fun, though, and so was the original trilogy. There, despite the issues, there was a clearly defined plot, and most importantly, fully developed characters that you wanted to follow on each adventure, characters fans wanted to win. And yes, characters they wanted to see lose.
Of course, there’s no way to be sure that Gareth Edwards vision was better than the finished product – Disney clearly didn’t think so. But, since the Justice League vs. Zack Snyder’s Justice League argument has renewed cries of artistic integrity versus big studio control, if there’s one movie in the Star Wars universe that probably deserves a director’s cut, it’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Fans might like it less, or they might like it more, but in the end, that’s not really what this is about. And, to be honest, the bar isn’t exactly set very high.
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