Warning: Spoilers for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story follow. You have been warned…
We already knew that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story would be bringing back several characters from the Original Trilogy – namely Darth Vader and Mon Mothma – but, as rumoured, the film also featured a number of “surprise” characters, such as Grand Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia Organa. Eagle-eyed Star Wars fans may also have noticed the likes of Ponda Baba and Dr. Evazan (who bump into Jyn on Jedha), along with the rather fantastic return of Red Leader and Gold Leader during the space battle above Scarif. However, unlike the recasting for the likes of General Dodonna and the digital trickery for Tarkin and Leia, the X-Wing and Y-Wing pilots were in fact portrayed by original actors Drewe Henley and Angus MacInnes, thanks to some unused footage from the original Star Wars movie discovered by director Garth Edwards in the Lucasfilm archives.
“We went to Skywalker ranch, and there’s the archives there,” said Edwards, recounting how he came about the unused footage to Radio Times. “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.’ We got the neg documents and found the clips from A New Hope that hadn’t been used. And there’s pilot photography and lines that were never featured in A New Hope. Through the magic of ILM [special effect studio Industrial Light and Magic] they cut round them and manipulated them and stuck them into our cockpits. It’s the sort of thing you think, ‘how many people will notice?’ Do you know what I mean? It’s like, is this a lot of effort for very little reward? At the world premiere in LA, there was this massive cheer at a particular point in the film. It was the only time during the premiere where I actually punched the air.”
SEE ALSO: Mark Hamill shares his thoughts on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
SEE ALSO: Read our reviews of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story here and here
From Lucasfilm comes the first of the Star Wars standalone films, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, an all-new epic adventure. In a time of conflict, a group of unlikely heroes band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction. This key event in the Star Wars timeline brings together ordinary people who choose to do extraordinary things, and in doing so, become part of something greater than themselves.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is out now and features a cast that includes Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything), Diego Luna (Milk), Ben Mendelsohn (The Dark Knight Rises), Donnie Yen (Ip Man), Jiang Wen (Let the Bullets Fly), Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland), Alan Tudyk (Con Man), Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler), Genevieve O’Reilly (Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith), Jimmy Smits (Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones), James Earl Jones (Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope), Valene Kane (The Fall), Alistair Petrie (The Night Manager), Warwick Davis (Star Wars: Episode IV – Return of the Jedi), Ian McElhinney (Game of Thrones) and Jonathan Aris (Sherlock).
Originally published December 17, 2016. Updated November 30, 2022.
