When Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was first revealed to the world, there was a lot of excitement for the spinoff that was billed as a grounded and gritty war film set in a Galaxy Far, Far Away. We didn't immediately learn what the title would be, of course, and screenwriters Chris Weitz and Gary Whitta have now shed some light on some alternative options.
"There was one point at which we were kicking around titles for this, right?" Weitz told IGN. "Rogue One was a good choice eventually, but one of them was 'Dark Times.'" That was meant to be a reference to a line from Obi-Wan Kenobi in A New Hope when he says, "Before the dark times...before the Empire."
Whitta, meanwhile, would go on to express surprise that Rogue One was ultimately chosen, as he had a few different ideas in mind. "We had a lot. At one point, John Swartz, who was one of the creative executives on the film had a list and we all kind of voted on the ones that we liked."
"I went back and looked to all the previous films, and this continues to be true even with the sequel trilogy now being completed, the titles of Star Wars Saga films are always either three words or four words long. They just all are. So it occurred to me that one of the ways we could differentiate this movie from the rest is we had a title that was only one word or two words long."
"So like Star Wars: Rebellion, Star Wars: Rogue One, let's do a title that's shorter so that even from the title of the movie you know this is something that doesn't necessarily conform to the unwritten rules of the Saga films," he noted, adding that "Shadow of the Death Star" was also considered.
"They don't tell you these things either, that's how I found out," Whitta concluded. "When Bob Iger announced it at a shareholder's conference I went 'Oh, that's my title.' That's how I found out."
It's certainly interesting to think about what might have been, but Rogue One was definitely a title that worked, especially as it obviously referenced the name of the team that stole the Death Star plans.
Do you guys prefer any of these alternate titles for the 2016 movie?