For the casual Star Wars viewer, Admiral Ackbar is a character who probably doesn’t even register in the long term. More discerning fans will know him from his famous “It’s a trap!” moment, which has since been meme’d to within an inch of its life. And even more hardcore fans love Ackbar so much that they’ve registered their fury online about the character’s death in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (we’ll get to that in a second).
Gary Whitta (The Book of Eli) is credited as one of the writers of 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and he recently took to Twitter to reveal that Ackbar originally had a significant role to play in that prequel – if only J.J. Abrams hadn’t have laid claim to Ackbar first.
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Producers have been wanting to remake the 1984 sci-fi film The Last Starfighter for years, but the rights to the project have been tied up with the original film’s writer. Even Steven Spielberg couldn’t lock them down. But now Gary Whitta, the screenwriter of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, has hinted that not only is more Starfighter is on the way, but he’s teamed up with the movie’s writer to write the screenplay. Learn more about The Last Starfighter sequel below. Read More »
With the marketing push for Solo: A Star Wars Story just around the corner, you might think Star Wars: The Last Jedi will start taking a backseat to the origin story of one of the saga’s most beloved heroes. But you’d be wrong. There is much more from Star Wars: The Last Jedi we’ve yet to see.
Recently we found out the upcoming novelization of Star Wars: The Last Jedi will include some deleted scenes that weren’t in the movie, and even more that won’t be included on the home video release. Now we have word that there will be a Star Wars: The Last Jedi comic book that will also include previously unseen elements of the story. Read More »
Back in 2014, we learned that screenwriter Gary Whitta (The Book of Eli, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) had been tasked with penning the screenplay for a film adaptation of a six-issue Mark Millar comic called Starlight. Since then, things have been relatively quiet about the movie, but a new rumor states that 20th Century Fox is eyeing Sylvester Stallone to play the film’s lead character, a retired space hero named Duke McQueen who is called back into action one last time.
Read on to learn the latest Sylvester Stallone Starlight news.
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Earlier this week, a mysterious hashtag popped up online teasing something exciting having to do with Star Wars. The details behind #OperationBlueMilk have now been revealed, as Disney will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the saga with new stories centering on the weird background characters of the series.
Here’s the basic set-up: 40 stories written by dozens of writers, including Rouge One screenwriter Gary Whitta, famed comic book writer Paul Dini, Thrilling Adventure Hour creators Ben Acker & Ben Blacker, and more will soon be collected in one book. Get the details and the full list of authors below!
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In this edition of Star Wars Bits:
- Mads Mikkelsen talks about Galen Erso’s fate.
- Learn more about Saw Gerrera’s origins.
- Screenwriter Gary Whitta reveals the cameo he didn’t like.
- How J.J. Abrams was responsible for Admiral Ackbar not making the cut.
- Director Gareth Edwards says there are “loads” of easter eggs yet to be discovered
- And more!
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With Rogue One: A Star Wars Story available for digital download, we have been learning a lot more about John Knoll‘s original pitch for the film, Gary Whitta‘s original screenplay, and the pre-reshoots cut of Gareth Edwards‘ movie. The latest bit of trivia gives us some insight on who Riz Ahmed‘s character, Imperial pilot Bodhi Rook, was in the original plans for the movie.
Let’s run down the details about Riz Ahmed’s original Rogue One character and how/why the story evolved to what we saw on the big screen.
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Now that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is finally hitting home video, we are beginning to get some insight into the original screenplay and earlier cuts of the first Star Wars stand alone movie. In a new interview, screenwriter Gary Whitta reveals that Darth Vader originally killed one of the main characters in the film. Learn more about it, after the jump.
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Star Wars fans love legends. They love the expansive, complex, and seemingly infinite universe that George Lucas built 40 years ago. But they also love the mythology surrounding the moves themselves, the stories of the creative decisions behind iconic moments and the tales of how certain characters came to be. So is it any wonder that we’re obsessed with the original endings of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story? Is anyone surprised that we’ve noticed all of the trailer shots seen in the movie and wondered what happened to them? It’s only natural.
Thanks to original screenwriter Gary Whitta, we now know a little bit more about the film’s original ending. No, not the ending glimpsed in the previews. The original ending. The one they never even shot. And now, we can take a closer look at all three Rogue One endings that existed at one time or another.
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Cool Posts From Around the Web:
One of the biggest departures from Star Wars tradition that was taken by Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was the lack of an opening crawl to set the stage for the movie to come. However, even though we didn’t see one in the final movie, we did find out that there was once an opening crawl that was part of the original draft of the script.
The existence of a Rogue One opening crawl was further confirmed just a few days ago when director Gareth Edwards confirmed in a Reddit AMA that Gary Whitta wrote one in the first draft of the script. But he said that we would have to bug him to find out what it entailed. Thankfully, someone was able to follow up with the writer, and now we have some clarification on the matter.
UPDATE: Apparently writer Gary Whitta’s memory isn’t what it used to be. It turns out the Rogue One opening crawl did exist in the first draft of the script, but was removed when he did revisions. He reached out to us on Twitter to clarify his previous comments. In addition, we got some brief details about what that opening crawl entailed. Our original story follows, and you can find the update with details on the opening crawl after the jump. Read More »
