10 Terrible Star Wars Ideas That Nearly Happened

8. Jyn And Cassian Escape

2016's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was proof that Lucasfilm's standalone movies can work, and one that only served to bolster the original (largely thanks to the stunning Darth Vader ending).

One of the reasons it works so well is because the stakes are massive. There's no Luke Skywalker guaranteed to survive; instead it's a rag-tag bunch of rebels, none of whom have been heard of. That suggested they'd all die, but it's one thing for that to make sense, and quite another for Hollywood (and especially Disney) to kill off its heroes.

Indeed, it almost didn't happen. In the initial treatments of the movie, the writers had assumed Disney would never go for such a downer ending, and thus found a way of having Jyn and Cassian escape from Scarif. Gary Whitta told EW:

"A rebel ship came down and got them off the surface. The transfer of the plans happened later. They jumped away and later [Leia’s] ship came in from Alderaan to help them. The ship-to-ship data transfer happened off Scarif.”

Jyn and Cassian surviving would've been far too clean for the war movie we got, a happy ending that it didn't need. It's great they eventually decided to go to Lucasfilm and seek the approval to kill the characters, making for a much more powerful climax, and a stronger movie overall.