If you’ve seen the film, then you’ll know that all the main characters died at the end. However, that’s not how it ended originally, as Edwards has told Digital Spy that the first draft had the two main characters survive:
“It was the first ever draft,” he said. “Jyn and Cassian survived and we assumed that there was no way on Earth that we would be allowed to kill them off. It didn’t feel right – the ideal was that everybody sacrifices themselves.
Quite surprisingly, it was actually Disney and Lucasfilm who changed the ending:
“And we presented it to [Lucasfilm president Kathleen] Kennedy and the studio and she said, ‘Well, shouldn’t they all die?’ And we were thinking, ‘Yeah, but can we do that?’ They were like, ‘Yeah – you can do whatever you want’.
“And we were like, ‘OK, shhhh, let’s never talk about this ever again. We’re going to do that’. And it never changed from that point on.”
So it seems that Edwards was given the freedom by the studio to create his dark Star Wars film. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is out in theaters now.
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