Highlights
- Rogue One director Gareth Edwards hilariously reveals how the planet Scarif got its name, thanks to a coffee cup mishap.
- The organic nature of the naming process shows that the film was not simply made to fix plot holes.
- Edwards's childhood dream of naming something within the Star Wars universe came true with Rogue One, showcasing the opportunities for aspiring creatives in the franchise.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story director Gareth Edwards recently shared a hilarious anecdote about how one of the most iconic locations in his standalone Star Wars project got its name.
Premiering in 2016, Rogue One was a standalone film that took place before the events of the first Star Wars film from 1977. The film tells the tale of the first victory the rebel alliance scored against the Empire, chronicling on screen for the first time the dangerous mission that led to the acquisition of the Death Star plans that before then had only been alluded to in the iconic opening crawl of A New Hope. The film was successful and passed a billion dollars at the box office, despite the production of Rogue One standing as a huge warning sign heralding the interference that creators within the franchise would receive from the studios.
Recently, a clip of Rogue One director Edwards was posted to social media by Industrial Light and Magic, in which Edwards sets up the events leading to the naming of the planet Scarif, a central location in the film that was added to the Star Wars Battlefront 2 video game in a Rogue One themed expansion. "Gary Whitta was writing the draft of the movie,” Edwards recounted. ”He was really excited about it but after a while, after naming like the 50th thing and trying to come up with a unique name, he was getting a little bit bored and wanted to share this problem, and he was like. 'Gareth you got to start naming some stuff.' And he's like, 'Okay, you've got to name the end planet.' And I was like, 'Okay this is a big deal.'"
"I came out and I went and got a coffee. You know, they write your name on the coffee and everything and I must have said when they asked my name, 'It's Gareth.' And what they heard was 'Scarif,'" Edwards recalled. "And so I just looked at the coffee cup and it said, 'Scarif.' And I just came back in to Gary and I put it on the table and I went, 'It's called Scarif.' And I feel like the Barista doesn't realize the influence they've had in a galaxy far, far away." The anecdote is hilarious, and the earnestly organic nature of the naming shows a snippet of why it’s untrue that Rogue One was only made to fix plot holes.
The idea of naming something within the Star Wars canon while he worked on Rogue One appealed to Edwards, who more recently worked on The Creator to mirror modern concerns about AI. Before revealing the story behind Scarif's name, the director commented, "When you're a kid and you dream about making a Star Wars film, one of the amazing things that could happen if you got lucky enough to do that would be to name characters or name something in the movie."
The idea is certainly one that any Star Wars fan can appreciate. With Donald Glover setting a new first for Star Wars recently, Ahsoka gearing up to hit Disney Plus, and more projects being worked on and conceptualized in numbers never before possible, there won’t be a shortage of new people, places, and ideas for aspiring creatives and fans of the series to name any time soon.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is available for streaming on Disney Plus.