Deleted and Alternate Scenes - Introduction

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From theverge.com - Edited for context

Gareth Edwards appears to have taken an unorthodox approach to filming Rogue One. One of the film’s three editors, Colin Goudie, noted that he began assembling a crude cut of the film in 2014 using nothing more than a story outline, cannibalizing scenes from hundreds of movies like Aliens and War Games, which helped them figure out how to structure the movie. Six months later, the team worked on creating pre-visualizations for the film’s biggest sequences. This looks as though it was monumental amount of work, and by necessity, it changed once the script was written and the cameras started rolling.

Once production was underway, the film’s editors worked through reams of material to come up with a rough version of the film, knowing that they would eventually have to do some pickups and reshoots.

Disney put an enormous amount of effort into Rogue One, bringing in writer and director Tony Gilroy to help fix up the film by writing new dialogue and directing some additional scenes, earning a screenplay credit for the film and a reportedly hefty $5 million paycheck for his efforts.

At one point in the process, editor John Gilroy joined the team, and the story was “reconceptualized,” leading to scenes that fleshed-out characters like Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed). Cassian’s introduction and Jyn’s escape from the Imperial transporter on Wobani were scenes that came from that process.

According to John Gilroy, “things like that have a ripple effect all through the movie,” prompting additional tweaks throughout the film.

As the story was reconceptualized, the filmmakers did some of the usual work of trimming the film down in editing, streamlining the process at some point after that first trailer hit the web.

These changes were pretty significant, going beyond regular editing and trimming that most films get leading up to the film’s release. Speaking to Collider, Orson Krennic actor Ben Medelsohn noted that there were upwards of “20 or 30 of the scenes,” that were changed around, and that “there would be enormously different renderings” of the film.

The final cut of Rogue One certainly connects to A New Hope, but it has been hailed for being a darker story in the larger Star Wars ecosystem. Ultimately, this appears to be an instance where Disney and Lucasfilm were willing to allow for experimentation, and dialed in the film as needed to fit with the larger mythos.