During a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story writer Gary Whitta discussed some of the film’s deleted scenes and one classic Star Wars cameo he didn’t care for. Here are the highlights:
On the Ponda Baba and Dr. Evazan cameo: “I thought having Evazan and Walrus Man was a little too much. You have to reign in that instinct to go back and put things in just because you loved them when you were a kid.”
On trying to reconcile some lines from A New Hope: “The problem is that in A New Hope, they contradict themselves. At one point, they say, ‘Conjure up the stolen data tapes’ and at another point they say, ‘Several transmissions were beamed aboard the ship.’ Did they steal data tapes or was it transmissions?”
On how the third act and final battle was changed: “The original version was that they stole the plans, tried to get back to the ship and on their way, it all went wrong. They no longer have to go on a journey across the beach, and some of those decisions can be heartbreaking because I loved a lot of the material we got from that moment. … No matter how well you’re doing in a movie there’s always the point where the audience gets a bit antsy. You don’t want people to have that feeling in a Star Wars film.”