“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” had a slew of other alternate titles before the film was released, some of which showed a connection to “Star Wars” lore.
What happened:
- “Rogue One” screenwriters Chris Weitz and Gary Whitta spoke with IGN’s WFH Theater about “Rogue One” and what it was like to make the film. In one moment, the writers talked about the title for the movie.
- Both Weitz and Whitta said they were surprised “Rogue One” ended up as the title.
- Weitz said: “There was one point at which we were kicking around titles for this, right? Rogue One was a good choice eventually, but one of them was ‘Dark Times.’”
- The phrase “dark times” as a connection to an Obi-Wan Kenobi quote from “A New Hope” when he tells Luke Skywalker about the Jedi Knights, saying they were warriors “before the dark times, before the Empire.”
- According to ComicBook.com, Whitta said most “Star Wars” films have titles with three or four words. So the writers figured they could differentiate their film by making their titles one or two words. Examples included “Star Wars: Rebellion” and “Rogue One.”
- Another example was “Shadow of the Death Star.”
- The writers said they didn’t know the title until the film was officially announced.
Meaning of ‘Rogue One’
- “Rogue One” director Gareth Edwards once explained the meaning of the title in an interview with Empire:
- “What does it mean? ‘Rogue One’ is a military call sign to some extent, but this is the first film that’s gone off-piste and is not part of the saga — or the Anakin story — so it’s the ‘rogue’ one, you know?”
- He said it may also reference the movie’s main character Jyn Erso: ”It’s kind of describing her as well in a similar way. It has (all) these split, multiple meanings that made it feel like the right choice.”