Rogue One: A Star Wars Story‘s writer Gary Whitta is bucking back against a claim from actor Freddie Prinze Jr., as the writer is clarifying that Dave Filoni had no part of filming the iconic Darth Vader sequence in the Star Wars prequel.
Whitta’s response comes following a statement made by Prinze Jr. that gives credit for Rogue One‘s final Darth Vader scene to Filoni — the fan-favorite creative behind some of Star Wars‘ biggest properties, including The Clone Wars series and Disney+’s The Mandalorian.
“I don’t know if people know this, maybe I’m not allowed to say this, but I don’t care anymore,” Prinze Jr said recently. “He directed that scene in Rogue One where — well, 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.”
Taking to Twitter, Whitta said that the comments made by Prinze Jr. were incorrect, and that Dave Filoni had no hand in directing the infamous scene where Darth Vader invades a space station and takes down a room full of soldiers. In his tweets, Whitta says that it was director Gareth Edwards who filmed the scene, and references Industrial Light & Magic’s Hal Hickel, who also credits Edwards for having been behind the camera.
While Whitta claims that Gareth Edwards was behind the scene, a report from TheWrap’s Umberto Gonzalez said that neither director had done so and that it was actually 2nd unit director Simon Crane who was behind it. However, Whitta remains steadfast that it was in fact Edwards, and even went into detail about how the scene was added late into the film’s production.
