Freddie Prinze Jr. claims that Dave Filoni directed one of the most memorable scenes from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but this is disputed.
Speaking on the Lights, Camera, Barstool podcast (as reported by Star Wars News Net), actor Freddie Prinze Jr., who voiced Kanan Jarrus/Caleb Dume on Rebels, The Rise of Skywalker, and The Bad Batch, made a claim that may surprise many Star Wars fans.
“I don’t know if people know this, maybe I’m not allowed to say this, but I don’t care anymore,” the actor said. “[Dave Filoni] directed that scene in Rogue One where – basically, the whole end of the movie, where Vader comes through, and you see basically what’s gonna happen in A New Hope. He directed all that.”
Prinze Jr. went on to say that Filoni had even more impact on the film’s iconic scene.
“He also recast Darth Vader. They cast another actor, and they asked Dave to watch the movie, to see what he thinks. And I remember him going: ‘Well, you got some of the buttons wrong, some of the lighting wrong. Why’d you hire an Italian?'”
“And they go: ‘What do you mean? How’d you know we hired an Italian?’ And he’d go ‘Well, Darth Vader doesn’t talk with his hands, but this one clearly does.'”
Whether this is true or not has yet to be confirmed, but it seems highly-unlikely director Gareth Edwards would have handed over the creative reins for such a key sequence in the film to someone else. There’s certainly been no official word from Lucasfilm that Filoni was as heavily-involved with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as Prinze would suggest. The credit for the standalone Star Wars film is given to Edwards and other reporters have contested Prinze’s claims.
Factually inaccurate. Filoni was involved with creative but the actual scene was shot by 2nd unit director Simon Crane.
— Umberto Gonzalez (@elmayimbe) March 1, 2023
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’s co-writer, Gary Whitta, has also previously stated that, while Filoni had creative input into the sequence, Edwards was still the principal director for the scene, alongside Tony Gilroy during reshoots.
*Update*
Following on from the original story, a number of reputable sources have come forward to clear up Prinze Jr.’s recent claims. ILM visual effects artist Hal Hickel took to Twitter to offer his perspective on the debate, stating, ‘Don’t spread this story, it’s not true,’ which was then backed up by Lucasfilm Creative Executive Pablo Hidalgo and Whitta himself in no uncertain terms:
There appears to be some bullshit going around about who directed Rogue One’s Vader/hallway scene. It was Gareth. ILM’s Hal Hickel, who was on set that day, clears up any confusion here: https://t.co/DCUvowjZDN
— Gary Whitta (@garywhitta) March 5, 2023
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