Rogue One Writers Reveal Surprising Alternate Titles for the Movie

It turns out that Gareth Edwards had several alternative titles for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Rogue One screenwriters Gary Whitta and Chris Weitz just recently joined in IGN's WFH Theater commentary for the Star Wars film, and during the discussion, the writers opened up about alternate titles that had been prepared for the film.

"There was one point at which we were kicking around titles for this, right?" Weitz revealed, "Rogue One was a good choice eventually, but one of them was 'Dark Times.'"

The title Dark Times might sound a little bit corny, but it would have tied Gareth Edward's Star Wars spinoff to the larger Star Wars franchise. After all, the title does come from Obi-Wan Kenobi's line in Star Wars: A New Hope where he tells Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), "Before the dark times, before The Empire."

The Dark Times wasn't the only title that Weitz and Whitta had for Rogue One. At one point, the team even wanted to name the film the Shadow of the Death Star, though that would have been too on the nose.

It was a long process. According to Whitta, the team voted on the ones that they liked. Then the screenwriter realized that Star Wars saga movie titles usually come in three or four words. So the team decided that they would settle on one-word titles, hoping that it would differentiate the spinoff from the main Star Wars saga.

The writers played around with names like Rebellion and Rogue One. In the end, Rogue One was chosen even though it was two words long.

Which title would you have preferred for Rogue One? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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