Ben Mendelsohn Talks Shooting “Different Versions” of ‘Rogue One’
Collider is back with another interview dedicated to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. In this exclusive, actor Ben Mendelsohn drops some interesting details about the time he spent working on the film. Read on for more details.
Two weeks ago the highly anticipated Rogue One: A Star Wars Story film was released to cinemas all over the galaxy, telling a story of a band of Rebels that steal the plans to the ultimate power in the universe, the Death Star. Collider.com got the chance to chat with one of the stars of the film –Ben Medelsohn, about landing the role of the evil director Krennic, the man who attempts to foil the Rebels plot, and “how they would shoot different versions of the same scene to give Gareth Edwards choices in the editing room”.
Check out what he had to say below!
COLLIDER: I’m curious, from what he (Gareth Edwards) told you that day to what people are seeing on screen, is it very similar to what he pitched you?
MENDELSOHN: In terms of the overall swoop, yeah, very much. I think that Krennic developed sort of along as we went, he had different ideas. And he settled yet on exactly –He was still thinking of a couple of variations in a lot of things at that stage. If you want to talk about alternative takes on things, there’s been quite a few different renderings of this within Gareth’s mind, and I dare say some of it’s been captured on film. So there are different renderings.
COLLIDER: I heard from a lot of the people I’ve spoken to –and I could be wrong– that when you shot it they would sort of play it multiple ways on set, so that way in the editing room…
MENDELSOHN: Yep, absolutely, very much. We did have multiple, multiple ways of going at any given scenario, we had multiple readings of it. So should they ever decided to, there would be a wealth of ways of approaching these different things. And I know from having seen sort of the crucial kind of scenes throughout it, I know there’s vastly different readings of at least four of those scenes.
COLLIDER: So in essence there’s basically a completely different version of the movie that could be played on like an alternate cut of the entire film.
MENDELSOHN: Absolutely, with enormous differences within I would’ve said 20 or 30 of the scenes.
COLLIDER:That’s crazy.
MENDELSOHN: There really would be. There would be enormously different renderings.
Check out the entire interview over at Collider.
May the force be with you!
Interesting…
What did they smoke during the interview? (I wish Krennic was the main villain and had more presence to stay a little on topic; loved Ben Mendehlson in the role, role wasn’t meaty enough.
Krennic WAS the main villain – or what film did you see?
he was until tarkin showed up.
Tarkin has like 3 scenes, lol.
i know but when things are going down he’s the one who takes charge. i’m not against it just pointing it out.
True, from a plot perspective. I’d say Krennic still gets more focus as the “main villain” though, since he’s the one who *almost* battles Jyn at the end.
Tarkin is not in opposition to the heroes in the way that Krennic is. Krennic is the villain. It is his actions that start the movie by killing Lyra and taking Galen. It is he who is going to kill Galen and is trying to thwart Jyn and Cassian.
Krennic is the main villain, even if Tarkin is above him.
Is Vader not the main villain of ANH simply b/c Tarkin gives him orders? Or in ESB b/c the Emperor is telling him what to do?
Not really. I enjoyed Rogue One. But my biggest complaint will be in the handling of the Empire. Krennic had to play cheap man to Tarkin, let alone Vader. Plus his death scene wasn’t that impressive. For me his character would’ve been better served with a more memorable death and not being an also ran to Vader and Tarkin. The last few minutes of Regoe One are great Star wars porn, but if you view the movie as a single piece those scenes are disjointed and undermine the charters of Rogue One, which I think is a shame.
Tarkin is not in opposition to the heroes in the way that Krennic is. Krennic is the villain. It is his actions that start the movie by killing Lyra and taking Galen. It is he who is going to kill Galen and is trying to thwart Jyn and Cassian.
Krennic is the main villain, even if Tarkin is above him.
Is Vader not the main villain of ANH simply b/c Tarkin gives him orders? Or in ESB b/c the Emperor is telling him what to do?
His death scene wasn’t memorable? Tarkin torched an entire planet full of mostly his own allies just to shoot him in the face with a giant laser…there’s no way I can read that scene other than Tarkin giving the order to fire upon Scarif in order to make absolutely sure Krennic will never bother him again. He’s got to be the only person in the entire history of the galaxy to be shot with a planet sized gun. That’s pretty damn memorable.
Maybe it’s just me, but I assumed that shit was more to do with stopping the release of Death Star plans?
In all likelihood, Tarkin figured that the plans had already been transmitted. but if you remember, there’s a scene where Tarkin asks to speak with Director Krennic, but is then informed that he’s on Scarif. And Tarkin gets this very subtle, but very devilish smile.
The pettiness of those characters are perfect representatives of the real villain….the Empire.
very curious to see all the deleted scenes.
Simple. Just watch the trailers.
lol. true enough. 🙂
Lol, true.
This is unsurprising. They threw everything at the wall during filming to see what stuck during editing. But they, if it works, it works.
the amazing luxury of having access to disney’s war chest. 🙂
That’s what Lucas did, too. Directing in the editing room. A lot of people do different takes and string them together in the editing room.
true. the one difference being they saw the film take a different shape in the editing and had the money to go back and shoot new material to fit the new direction as well as hire on the best and brightest to assist. the one big advantage of working within the system, $$.
Lucas crafted an entire subplot for Revenge of the Sith using editing and reshoots alone.
Good point.
thats cool. they could’ve made it into like a ‘choose your own adventure novel’ so the movie pauses and it’s like ‘if you want vader to choke krennic press green on your remote. If you want vader to take off his helmet and insist that krennic feel his flaky skill, press red.’
I wonder if they had done this with any of the other actors? Reminds me of some of the old footage of Return of the Jedi I saw where they had like 30 pilots just yelling stuff so they could use the best takes
I like the ending from trailer, where a limping Jyn comes out and challenges a tie fighter with only a blaster at her side. That’s a way to meet your end. The final cut that they went with is a happy sad ending.
That Tie fighter shot was apparently added by those who put the trailer together.
Trailer houses don’t add CGI to shots.
When I figure out where I heard or read it I’ll confirm, but it was the case. That’s one of the reasons why there’s so much discussion lately on whether or not trailers should more accurately depict what the actual final product is like.
Pablo said it.
It was Pablo Hidalgo who said this, but he didn’t say it was a trailer house. They probably had ILM people put shots together for the trailer.
Just like for Force Awakens, Rogue One trailers were full of lies. But since the fanboys aren’t complaining, why would Disney refrain themselves from lying again?
Actually no. They were open about the re-shoots that were being filmed. Which clearly indicated that changes from the trailers were likely.
“lies” haha. Is this your first movie?
Dude, about 80% of the trailers didn’t make it in the movie, are you trying to pass this as normal? This should be enough to demand a refund
Did you know that there is an 80% chance that you made up that statistic on the spot?
😉
80% is high. Lots of movies have scenes not in the trailers. Refund? lolololol.
“Please give me the inferior movie seen in trailers!”
whatever, man.
the vast majority of the stuff in TFA trailers made it in. the only shots i recall not in the film was kylo lighting up his blade in the snow and maz handing leia a lightsaber.
And a few quick shots from the very first teaser trailer, along with the “Who are you? I’m no one.” exchange between Maz and Rey. Nothing major.
And that famous shot of Kylo lighting up his saber happens just before Rey and Finn come across him. So that shot wasn’t done solely for the trailer — it was simply removed to tighten the pacing of the movie.
I think that it now only exists in the teaser, well, it helps to make the teaser a unique piece of filmmaking on its own. That sho now plays as a “see what happens next — to be continued” in the actual movie.
No, it was actually part of the film, they cut it out of the movie because it was too repetitive to the battle sequence during that part of the movie. That came from Gareth Edwards
I figured it was either a deleted action shot, or they added the TIE to “punch up” this shot in the trailer.
Either way, I don’t remember there being TIE Fighters in the sky over the Scarif Imperial base — does anybody know if any were in that battle?
According to Gareth Edwards, that TIE Fighter was originally going to be shot down by an X-Wing, but they found the sequence to be too close to the shot where an X-Wing shoots the recovering AT-ACT that Baze blasted with his bazooka.
It also would have been redundant, since a TIE Striker shoots at Jyn and the catwalk anyway.
Exactly. I originally just figured that they replaced that TIE Fighter with the TIE Striker.
That Tie fighter was apparently added by those who put the trailer together.
All I’m hearing is a possible cameo of one of these characters in 30-40 years time, using these scenes that were filmed as templates for the CGI work. Mmmmm
P.s. Ben Mendelsohn was amazing in Rogue One and his death was very poetic. Great movie.
I agree. I adored the shot of him staring up at the Death Star right before it fired at him.
The Imperial intrigue stuff was really fascinating. I’d like to see more of it and I’m sure the deleted scenes cover a lot of it.
He was the best part of the movie. He owned every scene he had. If someone wants to catch another nice performance, check out Ridley Scott’s Exodus. He plays a true slimeball in that.
Agreed, he was great in R1. His best performance IMO is in Animal Kingdom.
Wandering if the Vader laying into Saw was one of the alternate scenes….
I don’t know why it would have been. They would have had to change the story quite a bit to put Vader on Jedha. Although it seems like Vader did originally appear on the Death Star instead of his castle on Mustafar.
Yeah, it would have been much different and I’m guessing he would have been there years before Rogue One story line. I’d like to know and hope they’ll reveal all the changes that were made. I have to say,,,this is very close to being my favorite SW movie!
Same here! 😉
I can’t wait for the blu ray’s extra goodies
I liked the scene where krennic says the power is immeasurable in the trailer. It changed to power is awwsome