Rogue One

• 1. Introduction

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  Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ends with two lead characters trapped in a citadel on Scarif, unable to escape a demolition beam. Felicity Jones plays Jyn Erso, a detained renegade recruited by the Rebel Alliance to find her missing father. Diego Luna plays Cassian Andor, the rebel intelligence officer assigned to accompany her. Directed by Gareth Edwards, the 2016 film is a prequel to Star Wars (1977) and Lucasfilm's first Star Wars anthology film. It dramatizes the Rebel Alliance's first effective victory against the Empire, the theft of Death Star plans referenced in the original film's opening crawl. The idea reached the screen after more than a decade of false starts, several writers, and a director determined to break from Star Wars tradition. What took so long? And why did the story's ending, rewritten deep into production, become one of the most talked-about choices in the entire Star Wars franchise?

• 2. A Mission With No Return

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  On the planet Lah'mu, Imperial weapons developer Orson Krennic tracks down scientist Galen Erso, who has gone into hiding with his family. Krennic presses Galen back into finishing the Death Star, and in the struggle Galen's wife Lyra is killed. Their young daughter Jyn escapes and is taken in by rebel extremist Saw Gerrera.

  Fifteen years pass before cargo pilot Bodhi Rook defects from the Empire carrying a holographic message from Galen, intended for Saw on the moon Jedha. Jyn, meanwhile, is pulled from an Imperial labor camp on Wobani and brought before Rebel leader Mon Mothma on Yavin 4. Alliance intelligence officer Cassian Andor receives a second, secret order: extract Galen if possible, but kill him if not.

  Jyn, Cassian, and a reprogrammed Imperial droid named K-2SO travel to Jedha, where the Empire is stripping kyber crystals to power the Death Star. Saw shows Jyn her father's message. Galen has built a hidden flaw into the superweapon on purpose. The schematics that expose it sit inside an Imperial data vault on Scarif.

  When Krennic orders a test-fire that levels Jedha City, Saw chooses to stay behind rather than flee, and dies in the blast. Grand Moff Tarkin then uses Bodhi's earlier defection as an excuse to seize control of the Death Star project from Krennic. At an Imperial research facility on Eadu, Rebel bombers attack while Cassian hesitates to carry out his kill order. Galen is fatally wounded in the attack and dies in Jyn's arms. Krennic, hoping the attack will win him an audience with the Emperor, is instead Force-choked by Darth Vader for failing to contain the damage.

  The Alliance Council refuses to authorize a mission to steal the plans. Jyn's group commandeers a stolen Imperial shuttle, which Bodhi names Rogue One, and leads a squad of volunteers to Scarif anyway. During the raid, K-2SO, Chirrut Imwe, Baze Malbus, and Bodhi are each killed carrying out their part of the mission. Rebel Admiral Raddus destroys the planet's shield generator by crashing two Imperial Star Destroyers into each other.

  After Jyn transmits the stolen plans, Darth Vader boards the fleeing Rebel command ship and cuts through troops trying to reclaim them. A smaller ship escapes with the plans, preparing to jump into hyperspace. Aboard it, Princess Leia Organa declares that the plans will bring hope to the Rebellion.

• 3. Ten Years To Screen

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  John Knoll served as visual effects supervisor across all three Star Wars prequel films. In 2003, during production of Revenge of the Sith in Sydney, he pitched Rogue One for the first time. He wrote a short treatment called Destroyer of Worlds, intended as an episode of an unproduced television series titled Star Wars: Underworld. After the 2012 Disney acquisition, Knoll pitched the idea again rather than 'forever wonder what might've happened if I had.'

  Disney announced in May 2014 that Gareth Edwards would direct and Gary Whitta would write the script. Cinematographer Greig Fraser joined that October. By January 2015, Whitta had finished his contribution and left the project. Simon Kinberg was briefly considered as a replacement before Chris Weitz signed on later that month. The title Rogue One was officially revealed in March 2015.

  Casting moved quickly that spring. Felicity Jones was in final talks for the lead role in February 2015. Ben Mendelsohn, Riz Ahmed, and Diego Luna joined in May, with Forest Whitaker cast that June. James Earl Jones did not confirm his return as the voice of Darth Vader until June 2016. That came a year after most of the principal cast had already signed on.

  Principal photography began at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire on the 8th of August 2015. The crew shot on Ultra Panavision 70 lenses paired with Arri Alexa 65 digital cameras capable of 6K resolution. Filming would continue at locations far from Buckinghamshire before wrapping the following February.

• 4. Building Worlds On Earth

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  In Iceland, the crew filmed at Reynisfjara beach. The volcanic mountains of Hjörleifshöfði and Hafursey at Mýrdalssandur doubled for the Erso family's homestead on Lah'mu. The same Icelandic terrain represented Galen's Imperial research facility on the planet Eadu. The crew also shot around the Krafla volcanic crater and the rock formations of Lake Mývatn.

  Far south, the islands of Gan and Baresdhoo in the Maldives' Laamu Atoll stood in for the tropical planet Scarif. The former RAF Bovingdon airfield in England supplemented the Scarif footage. Jedha's rocky, embattled cityscape was filmed at two real-world sites thousands of miles apart. Wadi Rum in Jordan and the ancient fortification of Masada in Israel both stood in for the moon.

  Closer to the studio, Pymmes Park in Edmonton, London, and Cardington Airfield also served as filming locations. Cardington doubled for scenes set on the Rebel base at Yavin 4. Gareth Edwards personally selected Canary Wharf station on the London Underground for a chase scene set inside an Imperial base. The crew filmed there overnight, after the station had closed to the public.

• 5. Breaking From The Saga

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  'It's the reality of war,' Gareth Edwards said of his approach to the film. 'Good guys are bad. Bad guys are good. It's complicated, layered; a very rich scenario in which to set a movie.'

  That approach shaped one of the film's most debated choices: dropping the Star Wars opening crawl for the first time in the franchise's history. In July 2016, producer Kathleen Kennedy addressed the question. 'We're in the midst of talking about it, but I don't think these films will have an opening crawl,' she said. Edwards explained the reasoning in more personal terms. 'This film is born out of a crawl.... There's this feeling that if we did a crawl, then it'll create another movie,' he said. Kennedy confirmed in November 2016 that Rogue One would open 'in a way that is traditional, with just the title,' skipping the scrolling text altogether.

  At the 2016 Star Wars Celebration, Edwards said the title itself carried three meanings at once. It referenced the Red Squadron call sign from the 1977 film and marked the movie as the 'rogue' entry that broke from the main saga. It also described Jyn Erso's own personality.

• 6. Rewriting The Ending

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  Gareth Edwards originally wrote an ending in which the main characters survived, assuming Disney would not allow the film to end on a dark note. That version was never filmed. Producers ultimately chose a more tragic ending instead.

  Reports emerged in May 2016 that the film would undergo five weeks of reshoots. Tony Gilroy wrote additional scenes and served as a second-unit director under Edwards. Working with Edwards' input, Gilroy oversaw the edit and additional photography, reworking several issues including how the story would end. In August 2016, Gilroy received a screenplay credit alongside Chris Weitz and was paid $5 million for the work. Christopher McQuarrie, Scott Z. Burns, and Michael Arndt also contributed to the script at various points during development.

  On the 11th of February 2016, Disney executives had described the film as 'virtually completed,' months before those reshoots began that June. Speaking in 2023, Edwards disputed reports that he had been sidelined during the reshoot period, saying he remained heavily involved and worked alongside Gilroy throughout. The very last scene shot for the film depicted Darth Vader attacking the rebels, created using digital tools alone.

  What began as an estimated $200 million production ultimately cost closer to $280.2 million, according to United Kingdom tax filings. UK film production tax breaks brought the net cost down to $232.4 million, making Rogue One one of the most expensive films ever made.

• 7. Digital Ghosts

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  Industrial Light & Magic used CGI and digitally altered archive footage to place Peter Cushing's likeness over actor Guy Henry's performance. The recreation brought back Cushing's Grand Moff Tarkin more than two decades after the actor's death in 1994. Henry provided motion capture and voice work, and the effects team mapped a digital model of Cushing over his performance. The team studied Cushing's mannerisms and speech patterns closely to apply them to the digital model. Cushing's estate was heavily involved in the process, granting permission and offering input down to what the production described as 'small, subtle adjustments.'

  A similar technique brought Princess Leia's original 1977 appearance back to the screen. Carrie Fisher's likeness was superimposed over the face of Norwegian actress Ingvild Deila, with archival audio of Fisher voicing her character's dialogue.

  Not every reaction was positive. The Guardian's Catherine Shoard called the Cushing recreation a 'digital indignity.' Fellow Guardian writer Joseph Walsh raised legal and ethical questions about reviving a long-dead actor on screen. The Washington Times' Eric Althoff went further, rejecting the whole concept as an actor imitating a dead performer rather than portraying a character. Criticism extended to the younger Carrie Fisher effect too, with reviewers at Time and The Washington Post both describing the digital face as artificial. Fisher herself, shown the finished rendition by Kathleen Kennedy before the film's release, reportedly 'loved it.'

  In September 2024, Kevin Francis, a personal friend of Cushing for many years before his death, filed a lawsuit against Disney over 'Unjust Enrichment.' Francis argued that Cushing had made clear he did not want his likeness reused without consent.

• 8. After The Credits

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  Rogue One opened across the United States and Canada to $155.1 million over its first weekend, the third-biggest debut of 2016. Thursday night previews alone brought in $29 million, the year's highest-grossing Thursday opening. Its second weekend take fell 58.7 percent to $64 million. By its fourth weekend, the film had slipped to second place behind the newcomer Hidden Figures. The film ultimately grossed $534.9 million in the United States and Canada and $523.9 million elsewhere, for a worldwide total of $1.059 billion. Deadline Hollywood calculated its net profit at $319.6 million, ranking it third on the outlet's list of 2016's most valuable blockbusters.

  On Metacritic, the film settled into 'generally favorable reviews,' with a weighted score of 65 out of 100 from 51 critics. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it a grade of A. It earned two Academy Award nominations, for Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects.

  Among the new characters Rogue One introduced, Chirrut Imwe proved the most popular. In a May 2017 poll on the official Star Wars website, more than 50,000 voters named him their favorite. George Lucas was reported to have enjoyed Rogue One more than The Force Awakens. Tony Gilroy said he received a call from Lucas afterward, telling him he loved the film. On hearing that reaction secondhand, Edwards said simply, 'I can die happy now.'

  In November 2018, Disney announced a prequel series centered on Cassian Andor, set five years before Rogue One's events. Diego Luna reprised the role for the show. Titled Andor, the show ran for two seasons on Disney+, premiering in September 2022 and concluding with a finale in May 2025. Streaming of Rogue One rose again each time a new season of Andor arrived. Disney returned Rogue One to more than 150 IMAX theaters in August 2022, ahead of the series' premiere. That re-release pushed the film's lifetime IMAX gross to $105 million, tenth on the format's all-time list.

  Nearly a decade after its release, in 2025, readers voted for The New York Times' list of the 100 best films of the 21st century. Rogue One placed at number 176.