Since Rogue One was announced as an interstitial movie, settling between not just movies but also trilogies and acting as a preamble to A New Hope, its fate has been sealed: Someday, someone would cut the two films together. That day has come. Video editor Barre Fong has done god’s work, and you can now watch as the Death Star plans make their way into Rebel hands much to Darth Vader’s chagrin and then soar to Tatooine in the form of two lovable droids. (Please pay no attention to the fact that, canonically, Darth Vader constructed one of those damn droids. That’s prequel logic, and we’ll not have it here.)
“Rogue One Melded” to “A New Hope” v.2 from Barre Fong on Vimeo.
Rogue One director Gareth Edwards was intentional in his homages to the original trilogy and the way that his film laddered into the original, and much of the production design is a seamless fit, even as the camera angles are not. (A New Hope had a much more stately touch.) Still, the edit does add a sense of propulsion to A New Hope’s intro, reminding you that it begins with a hot chase scene and not just some vague exposition. The whole thing is worth watching just to see Darth Vader destroy all those guys in the hallway at the end of Rogue One again. And anyway, we should get used to it: When Rogue One comes out digitally at the end of the week, we will be in for fan edits of these scenes for the rest of our lives. It is our destiny.