ZachPerilstein Disney Reporter Ever since hitting theaters, Rogue One has been a roaring success. If you haven't seen Rogue One yet turn back now. Spoilers are ahead.

The ending that we all saw in theaters was basically a suicide mission. Explaining why none of these unique characters ever appear in other films. It was a gutsy move to see all the characters die. Rogue One is a prequel to A New Hope. So the ending makes sense. Although this ending wasn't always planned.

Gareth Edwards, director of Rogue One, recently revealed on the Empire podcast, the ending for Rogue One was significantly different in the early development stages.

“The very first version, they didn’t [die]. In the screenplay. And it was just assumed by us that we couldn’t do that. ‘They’re not going to let us do that.’ So I was trying to figure out how this ends where that doesn’t happen. And then everyone read that and there was this feeling of like, ‘They’ve got to die, right?’ And everyone was like, ‘Yeah, can we?’ We thought we weren’t going to be allowed to but Kathy [Kennedy, President of Lucasfilm] and everyone at Disney were like ‘Yeah it makes sense; I guess they have to because they’re not in A New Hope.’ And so from that point on we had the license.”

Disney and Lucasfilm were fine with all the characters dying. Yet the two still believed the ending would change throughout production. Gareth Edwards continues:

“I kept waiting for someone to go, ‘You know what? Could we just film an extra scene where we see Jyn and Cassian, they’re okay and they’re on another planet?’ And it never came. No one ever gave us that note, so we got to do it.”

Rogue One was an ambitious film. The gamble paid off. Although it would of been cool to leave in "A What If" factor to the film. It's hard to argue with the ending.

Source: Collider