'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story' Reshoots: The Tone Needs To Be Lightened Up A Bit

Yesterday brought the worrisome news that four weeks of extensive and expensive reshoots needed to be completed on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. At the time, there were no reasons given as to why the reshoots needed to be done, and Disney played off the news as just a normal part of production. While reshoots are built in to the production schedule of pretty much all blockbusters nowadays, the reason for those reshoots is important, and now we know why they're happening for Rogue One.

Find out more about the Rogue One reshoots after the jump.

The Hollywood Reporter reveals Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is undergoing reshoots in June with director Gareth Edwards and most of the cast because after the the first screening, Disney executives thought the film was "tonally off with what a 'classic' Star Wars movie should feel like." This was a screening just for Disney executives and not for any general audiences just yet.

Reportedly the tone of the Star Wars movie was more that of a traditional war drama, and the reshoots will attempt to "lighten the mood, bring some levity into the story and restore a sense of fun to the adventure." When we reported this news yesterday, we guessed that the tone might be a problem, mostly based on the somber first trailer, so it's good to hear it's not something more troublesome.

One of THR's sources told the trade, "This is the closest thing to a prequel ever. This takes place just before A New Hope and leads up to the 10 minutes before that classic film begins. You have to match the tone!" It certainly makes sense that the movie needs to be more lined up with the tone of the original Star Wars since it takes place just before the classic story we know and love. You don't want a drastically different tone leading up to A New Hope, if only for the sake of consistently.

In addition, there are rumblings that the reshoots might involve bringing Alden Ehrenreich into the mix for a quick appearance as young Han Solo. The actor wasn't cast by the time principal photography was over, so including him will help to set up the future spin-off following the smuggler's days before A New Hope.

It sounds like Disney thinks the movie isn't a disaster and will hopefully be saved by these reshoots. There's certainly a lot riding on the success of this future spin-off so fans are just as invested in these side stories as much as they are in the ongoing primary episodes. As one studio insider said, "Anything less than extraordinary won't do."

However, I hope that future Star Wars spin-offs are allowed to veer into more unexplored territory as far as tone is concerned. I don't think every spin-off needs to be in line with the tone of the trilogy episodes, and it would be nice to see some variety with these standalone stories.

What do you think?