Director Gareth Edwards is finally back with a new feature film, “The Creator,” after the haphazard production of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” While on the press tour for the futuristic film about artificial intelligence, Edwards is trying to clear the record about what exactly did or didn’t happen during the filming and subsequent reshoots for the “Star Wars” film. Tony Gilroy famously was brought on to help with the extensive reshoot, and ultimately, led to him landing the chance to flesh out Rebellion spy Cassian Andor’s backstory with the acclaimed Disney+ series “Andor.” When Gilroy was brought on there had been rumblings that Edwards was replaced completely and stopped working on the film, according to the director that just isn’t true.

Speaking with the KCRW’s The Business Podcast (via GamesRadar), the British filmmaker denied speculation/rumors that he had been thrown off “Rogue One” by Lucasfilm. Countering that narrative by stating it was a collaborative situation until the “last minute” and hammering home that point by revealing the last thing they had shot was the Darth Vader hallway action sequence, which Edwards says he shot himself.

“The stuff that’s out there on the internet about what happened on that film… there’s so much inaccuracy about the whole thing, and Tony [Gilroy] came in and he did a lot of great work for sure, no doubt about it. But we all worked together till the entire last minute of that movie…”

 “The very last thing that we filmed in the pickup shoot was the Darth Vader corridor scene,” Edwards added. “I did all of that stuff.”

After watching “The Creator,” a film with a lot of over-the-top violence with a focus on the visuals, it’s hard to argue with the man.

If you don’t remember the final events of the billion-dollar hit, the sequence in question saw Darth Vader being let loose on a group of Rebel soldiers/crew members as the Sith Lord is trying to get the Death Star plans back before they ultimately reach Princess Leia and directly into the start of “A New Hope,” the first film in the original trilogy. Some corners of the internet tried to push the idea that Dave Filoni (Only known for shooting animated scenes at this point in his career) had secretly directed the scene, not the case.

The action scene got such a segment of the “Star Wars” fandom pumped, and a handful of fans (alongside some blogs) began a small online campaign for Lucasfilm to make a solo Vader project simply based on that scene alone (Not exactly a great basis for a spinoff but okay). With that in mind, we did see prequel actor Hayden Christensen reprise the role of Anakin Skywalker in both “Obi-Wan Kenobi” (playing Anakin and Vader) and having some cameo scenes in the new series “Ahsoka” as well. Perhaps, the reaction to that sequence helped convince the studio to at least bring back Anakin/Vader? It’s a strong possibility given that it does seem that Lucasfilm does use internal polling to figure out what characters they should bring back or which ones could make the jump to live-action/canon.

“The Creator” is out in theaters and we recommend you check it out on the biggest screen available to you.

SOURCE: THE BUSINESS PODCAST