You know that awesome Darth Vader scene in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story? The one at the end with all the lightsaber-swinging and Force chokes that shows Mr. Vader trying to retrieve the stolen Death Star plans? Yeah, that almost never happened.
Director Gareth Edwards and his editor, Jabez Olssen, were already cutting the film together when Olssen pointed out that it needed one more shot of Vader being badass. It was four months until the movie’s release date, but they decided to pitch the idea to Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy anyway. “She really loved it,” Edwards says.
The resulting scene was completed in just three days and required some tricky lightsaber lighting and a little help from the props department. In the video above, Edwards explains just how they pulled it off—and why he chose that final-escape sequence to give himself a small role. “I wanted to have a cameo in the film, because I love Star Wars so much,” he says. “but I was saving it for the right thing.”