'Star Wars: Rogue One' Almost Featured A Jedi Character

It's been almost a year since Star Wars: Rogue One came out, yet rumors surrounding the film still abound. After a production filled with heavy reshoots, and discussions about drastically different endings, Rogue One became a big blockbuster hit, albeit one that could've stood a much better script. Now comes word that the Jedi character Rahm Kota from the Force Unleashed video games might have made an appearance in an earlier draft. Here's what we know about the Rahm Kota Rogue One rumor.

Director Marcos Cabota, a filmmaker behind the documentary I Am Your Father, about original Darth Vader actor David Prowse, appeared on the podcast La Fosa del Rancor and let slip some information regarding an unused Rogue One character. Per io9, Cabota claims a friend of his auditioned for a part in Rogue One and saw the name Rahm Kota mentioned:

"In fact, they were talking about a Jedi who then did not appear in the movie but did appear somehow... Rahm Kota was in Rogue One, I can tell you, he was a blind Jedi. And what do we find in Rogue One? A blind user of the Force... In the script we had from Rogue One, before coming Rogue One, it was Rahm Kota."

In The Force Unleashed video games, Rahm Kota is a blind Jedi Master who conducts guerrilla warfare against the Imperial establishment. Of course, in the finished film, Donnie Yen played Chirrut Îmwe, a blind man who is one with the Force. It's possible that certain elements of Rahm Kota's character was transferred onto Chirrut. The script for Rogue One seemed to always be evolving, and with the extensive reshoots, it's unclear how much from earlier script drafts changed. Regarding the numerous reshoots, director Gareth Edwards said:

"All great films have stories attached to them of how horrific they were to get made. Knowing that going in, you're kind of expecting a bit of a war. You end up feeling like the characters in the film, that we're trying to do this impossible task. Their pretend one is to steal the Death Star plans but the actual one is to make a great 'Star Wars' film..."What happened was that I'd say a third of the movie or more has this embedded documentary style to it, and as a result we shot hours and hours and days and days of material. Normally when you put a film together it goes together like A-B-C-D-E and you move on. Whereas we had so many permutations, so many different ways it could be constructed, it took longer in the edit to find the exact version."

Star Wars: Rogue One is now streaming on Netflix.