Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - Special Edition

“They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally, they became heroes.”
-Senator Leia Organa of Alderaan, as quoted by Alan Dean Foster
Star Wars, from the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, by George Lucas (Nov. 1976)

Hello there!

So, this wasn’t supposed to happen, LOL. As some of you might have seen, this was, originally, just a test reel of a couple tweaks, based on a couple suggestions, in Hal’s thread about his halfass (yeah, right) edit of DigMod’s Rise of the Rebellion cut of Rogue One. But then I just uh… kept making changes? Not to the edit, but to the whole movie?

Next thing you know: I look away from the monitor, it’s a couple weeks later, I’m verging on a case of carpal tunnel, and a full-blown fanedit has happened. It ended up moving pretty far past the scope of just applying some tweaks to pre-existing edits (although some of those pre-existing choices by Hal and DigMod are still in here, because they’re too damn good), and by then I was about 99% done, so… yeah. I guess I did another Star Wars fanedit!

And then I did a trailer for it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_dUgMflIus

So the idea is… well, here, let the YouTube description sum it up in short

A trailer for a new fanedit of Rogue One (2016), incorporating VFX and voice-over fixes from fans, a few edit ideas from previous fan-editors, and all-new changes to the film; in an attempt to make it a tighter, more tonally consistent, structurally solid bridge between both Star Wars (1977) AND Andor (2022-2025) - without trying to rework it as a “series finale” for that show, or moving it towards being a standard prequel full of references & callbacks.
Trailer Music: Quantum Field by Rok Nardin
Tarkin Deepfakes by Shamook
Vader voice-over by Ryan Golden via Star Wars Theory
Select edit ideas by Hal9000 and DigModiFicaTion

I’ll replace this post with the deets and the “you can download now, please don’t just beg for links, it makes everyone sad, DM me instead” bits when the edit goes up here soon, aiming for the end of June/beginning of July, hopefully no later than 4th of July weekend

Any questions, comments, whatever you got, I’m all ears!

LOL that is probably the gentlest way to put the absolute most pressure on me possible 😃

Seriously though, Thank you, man! And hopefully this works for most folks, although if some of the choices do not work for some viewers, hopefully it can become the base for some “half-ass” edits for other folks! In the reddit version of this thread, the reinstatement of Bor Gullet (which is a thing that’s happening here) has caused some “hmmmmmm’s” to pop out - which I get!

But also, I figure at this point, what made Bor Gullet cuttable in 2017 is not as applicable in 2025. When the movie came out, all we knew of Saw was The Clone Wars and a Rebels appearance? So him being a complete wackjob with a pet beanbag monster was… WAY out there. But now? Oh, Saw Gerrera drooling and shouting and taking massive hits of Rhydo is extreeeemely in character, LOL. Plus now Bodhi’s defection/capture is one 3 minute sequence, it’s not cut up and spread around the first half of the movie anymore.

Definitely agree, @Vladius.

I believe it was an addition during the reshoots. I feel that the higher-ups said “Wait… we don’t have a creepy alien/monster, add one in!”

In the theatrical I agree it seemed like he got Bor Gullet’d and then took a nap and was good, LOL.

But I think placing the now-3min sequence between Rings of Kafrene and Krennic meeting Tarkin, the movie-time between Saw being a giant weirdo (and Mon underlining that through dialog about 6min later) and Cassian/Chirrut/Baze finding him during Galen’s message, the “getting over it right away” doesn’t actually feel like that anymore: Instead of checking back in with Bodhi every 6-7min, now he’s getting absolutely screwed by the Partisans in one intense 3min glut (if this was a reshoot then this is Gilroy work, which makes a little more sense as to why it fits butted up against the Andor/Tivik scene that was also straight Gilroy work) then Tarkin talks about him, then the Alliance talks about him, then we see the Empire flipping Jedha upside down for him, and when we finally see him again outside of the one hologram on the street, it’s about 30min later and he’s mumbling to himself about being the Pilot.

Since my aim is trying to rebalance tone and characterization in the context of Andor being released & Rogue One having aged 7 years, that Bor Gullet is not as plot important (and you’re 100% right, it never was!) isn’t a big deal I don’t think. The focus for me is more on what introducing Saw fully before the Alliance does for that tone, and poking at how what he’ll do to Bodhi (and how Bodhi will endure it) will feel like for post-Andor rewatchers. Can I heighten what’s happening without overtly bringing in references FROM that show; but calling that feel to mind through reshaping all those scenes into one sequence by cutting for pacing/performance.

Well, I don’t think he’s getting tortured for longer, I think he gets chucked in the cell right after the scene ends. I’ve never read it as Saw’s got him plugged into the mindreading ballsack the whole time 😃 Also nothing says Saw’s not bs’ing him a little either. Saw’s on that Rhydo. He says a lotta things, haha.

But since it’s a tone thing, not a plot thing for me, the only real argument I think I can make for it, is if it plays in the context of the cut! But if it doesn’t, the fact I’ve got it consolidated into a single 3-min sequence should make it super-easy to lift right out for folks who prefer a more plot-oriented POV on the edit!

I still think Bor Gullet feels out of place. Sometimes “show don’t tell” isn’t always the right approach.

Hal’s edit handles the Bodhi stuff quite well, with us meeting Bodhi for the first time in the prison cell and him being less out of it.

However, if you’d want to reinstate some stuff to include more Saw:

• I think the initial Bodhi intro scene could still work fine as is.
• When Saw pulls his mask tight back to his suit, cut to the next scene.
• Leave Bor Gullet out of the edit.
• Re-add Bodhi being more out of it and not knowing who he is when he is in the jail cell. His mental state leaves it to the imagination of the viewer to dwell on the extent of his interrogation.

By cutting this way, Bor Gullet is removed, and the assumption is instead that Saw was the one that did something to him to jack his head up so badly. I think that works to make Saw seem even crazier if that is your goal.

Question: did you rip Ryan Golden’s VO straight from YouTube?

Yup! I don’t think there’s any other way to get it. I used yt-dlp, grabbed the highest bitrate possible, converted it to the proper framerate, retimed it, and had to re-edit to fit the scene proper since the scene as uploaded to youtube is also slightly edited IIRC. While I was in there doing all that and converting it to mono for the center channel mixing I added a little bit of extra processing to nudge it a LITTLE closer to taste towards 1977 Vader.

Is there a better source available? I honestly didn’t mind that the YouTube source was what it was in this instance since 77 Vader isn’t exactly hi-fi sounding in the first place.

Broom Kid said:

I’ll replace this post with the deets and the “you can download now, please don’t just beg for links, it makes everyone sad, DM me instead”

Good luck with that.

Bingowings said:

Presumably you have heard this voice adjustment. https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1Bp9Z3wbEj/

I haven’t! I don’t have facebook and clicking that link brings me to a locked page.

I’m familiar with a guy named Canadian Vader on YouTube as well - his style is, to cite the Beastie Boys, slower and lower in general. It’s a good impersonation, but I prefer the Golden performance of that scene.

I also haven’t been able to find anyone doing anything with “Prepare a boarding party” but that ended up being a non-issue because that scene is mostly cut in this Special Edition anyway.

Bingowings said:

Presumably you have heard this voice adjustment. https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1Bp9Z3wbEj/

Link’s broken. 🥲

I appreciate the reach out anyway though, thanks! I’m okay with keeping Guy Henry’s vocal performance as-is, I’ve already trimmed down some of Tarkin’s lines in this cut anyway.

The other thing that jumped out at me that I don’t think I noticed as much on previous watches - I mean I noticed it, but I don’t think I noticed how much of it was still hanging around - there was obviously an edit of this movie where Cassian and Jyn clearly have a much flirtier relationship that culminates with kissyface in that elevator on Scarif. In the original cut, nothing actually happens in the elevator (in this Special Edition I’ve simply gotten rid of the elevator ride altogether) but there are still like three or four weird moments setting that up still orphaned in the theatrical cut.

Now, seeing as Bix is a real thing and we know where she is and who she’s holding in a wheat field somewhere, none of that can stay. But it was interesting seeing how much of the theatrical cut seemed to tie Jyn’s maturation as a character and getting over her dads’ abandonment of her, into her suddenly wanting to make out with Cassian.

Editing Jyn was interesting: I found a lot of what improves Jyn’s character came from trimming out the more demonstrative and overtly smartass moments (i.e. curtseying and “I appreciate the support” after Cassian volunteers, for example) and doing way more with how expressive Jones is as an actor. The weakest part of her character was her putting up a front anyway. It was always unbelievable, and nobody in those scenes ever really believed it, so why keep any of that stuff? She’s wounded but earnest, and that’s what’s on her face, and that’s what comes through. And if this cut is trying to be a better bridge between Andor and Star Wars, this version of Jyn hopefully works better as a midway point between Cassian and Luke Skywalker, too. I’m aiming for a little more openly earnest, but still scuffed up and pissed off. The key difference is that she believes to a degree Cassian just can’t.

The crimey wiseass doesn’t play, and she drops it as soon as anyone pokes her hard enough in the eye so… just skip to the part where she’s being angrily earnest in the first place. Less fronting, less words, more emoting, better pace. Less lines, and more room to read between them, I guess.

Bingowings said:

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19WwhfhthF/

Dunno if that’s made a difference. It could be closed off to faceboot users only. I can’t find another link.

I can click on the previous link and it opens. Probably some Meta shenigans.

Bloody Meta! 😭

I did not cut it!

Well, I did not cut ALL of it. It’s sort of like in Spectre how you only needed “And now we know what C stands for.”

Him deadpanning “Are you kidding me?” is legitimately funny.

I think I’m locked at a final running time of 2:06:12