Star Wars Director Reveals the Secrets Behind Rogue One's Final Vader Scene

(dramatic music)

(alarm sounding)

(door creaking open)

(heavy breathing)

(lightsaber powering up)

So we knew we were gonna be dealing with a blockade runner

escaping from the Calamari ship.

We were cutting the film together

and my editor, Jabezz Olssen, he said,

I think you need to see one last moment with Darth Vader,

like I think he needs to have, like a bad ass moment,

and we all felt the same way.

When he mentioned this, it was about four months,

maybe, from, from release and so we thought,

Oh, maybe we've missed the opportunity to do this.

and Kathy Kennedy came in

and Jabezz pitched this idea to her

and she really loved it.

Argh!

Help us!

The way I like to work is you try and come up

with visualization milestones of like,

Well, I'd love to see this and I'd love to see this

and I'd love to see this.

I'm not sure how they all connect,

and then what you do is you create visuals of things

that would be great and then you try

and find a way of linking them all in.

Open fire!

We had three days to shoot this sequence.

We just had a brainstorming session, like,

What's, what's cool shots?

little moments that, you know,

we feel we'd wanna see and hear

and I like the idea, I really like the idea

of them all being trapped

and that Vader's gonna kill every single one of them

and that potentially the only thing that can escape

is, you know, the card that Princess Leia gives to R2-D2.

What's interesting about that card actually

is there is no record whatsoever of what that looks like.

The only reference whatsoever

is in the Blu-ray of A New Hope,

and there's one close up where she starts to slide it in

and we just couldn't, that's all we had

to base this card on,

and so it looked like they'd made a kind of credit card,

but with also a disk in it, like a gold disk.

The Props Department, you know,

suggested a few different ideas

and I think they did a really good job

of trying to match that perfectly.

I was highly aware of where that prop was

for the Death Star plans

and I took that prop and so that,

I'm not saying where it is, but I have, I have,

I did steal the Death Star plans.

(lightsaber humming)

I think the golden rule was not to let Vader do anything

you haven't seen or established in the original trilogy

and so everything you sort of see him doing

down that corridor is pretty much something

from the previous films.

Arghh, arghh!

Greg, the DOP, actually had Vader hold a real lightsaber,

so, in the sense that it would, when you turn it on

(makes sound of lightsaber)

it would actually light up

and the problem was, if when you turn that on,

you can't see Vader, you just see the lightsaber,

so we put a light behind Vader and smoked up the background,

so that as it was synchronized, as the lightsaber turns on,

the background illuminates and you see the silhouette,

'cause it feels like the most iconic thing

about Vader is that silhouette.

And I guess it's sort of represented in the sequence,

but with the film, we tried to do a mixture

of the very classical, very considered camera moves,

you know, that you saw in the original trilogy

and then sort of more frenetic,

handheld, sort of embedded photography

and this sequence, I really like way it sort of,

it intercuts both styles and I think that contrast

is what keeps it energetic.

I knew I wanted to have a cameo in the film,

because I love Star Wars so much,

but I was saving it for the right thing

and it felt very appropriate to play the guy,

who runs down the corridor and pulls the handle,

because that way, I get to survive

and therefore technically, according to Star Wars canon,

I'm in Episode 4 of New Hope.

I like to think that guy is kind of the savior

of the entire rebellion really.

Everything kind of, the whole original trilogy

and the prequels and everything

all comes through that one person.

If it wasn't for him, you know, there'd be no Star Wars.

And so, I'm still waiting for the action figure.

(dramatic music)

(alarm sounding)

(door creaking open)

(heavy breathing)

(lightsaber powering up)

Open fire!

(gunfire and lightsaber humming)

(dramatic music)

Argh!

Help us!

(gunfire and lightsaber humming)

Victor!

Pull!

(gunfire and lightsaber humming)

Argh!

Pull!

Argh!

Here, here, take it!

Take it.

(gunfire and lightsaber humming)

Arghh!

Launch!

(dramatic music)

[Announcer] Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

on digital and blu-ray, rated PG13.