20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Wars: Rogue One
16. Unused Footage From A New Hope Was Included In The Film
Though the film's digitally-assisted depictions of both Grand Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia proved relatively controversial with fans and commentators, few were left complaining about a sneaky feat of resurrection they probably never even noticed.
The film actually features unused footage of Red Leader Garven Dreis (Drewe Henley) and Gold Leader Jon Vander (Angus MacInnes) that was shot for A New Hope almost 40 years prior, recycled here as part of the climactic Battle of Scarif.
Edwards and his production team went on a tour of Skywalker Ranch and ended up discovering the unused material, which he was consequently able to include in the film as a neat Easter egg for fans. He said:
"We went to Skywalker Ranch, and there's the archives there. And as we're walking around, and doing all the cool things and looking at the Millennium Falcon and trying on Han Solo's jacket and things like that, in the back at the bottom was all these cans of film. And we said, 'What are they?,' and they said, 'Oh, it's Star Wars.' And you go... 'Has someone gone through all this?' And it's like, 'Not really, they're not fully like digitised at all.'"
There are happy accidents and then there's this. Wow.