Star Wars: Watch Rogue One Director Gareth Edwards Explain Where Scarif Got Its Name
Who knew a coffee shop was responsible for naming such a pivotal Star Wars planet?
You ever wonder where characters and planets in Star Wars get their names? They come from all sorts of places, depending on who came up with the idea and what was on their mind that day, but one of the most pivotal names in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story actually came from a mistake at a coffee shop. A barista serving director Gareth Edwards coffee didn't hear his name correctly and accidentally named the final planet in the film.
Scarif, the planet that housed the plans for the Death Star, was home to most of the third act of Rogue One. Edwards was tasked with coming up with the planet's name before going out to get a coffee. In an interview with Edwards that was recently posted to social media by Industrial Light & Magic, the filmmaker said that the barista misunderstood his name and wrote "Scarif" on his cup. You can check out the clip from the interview below!
"When you're a kid and you dream about making a Star Wars film, one of the amazing things that could happen if you got lucky enough to do that would be to name characters or name something in the movie," Edwards said in the interview. "Gary Whitta was writing the draft of the movie. He was really excited about it but after a while, after naming like the 50th thing and trying to come up with a unique name, he was getting a little bit bored and wanted to share this problem, and he was like. 'Gareth you got to start naming some stuff.' And he's like, 'Okay, you've got to name the end planet.' And I was like, 'Okay this is a big deal.'
"I came out and I went and got a coffee. You know, they write your name on the coffee and everything and I must have said when they asked my name, 'It's Gareth.' And what they heard was 'Scarif.' And so I just looked at the coffee cup and it said, 'Scarif.' And I just came back in to Gary and I put it on the table and I went, 'It's called Scarif.' And I feel like the Barista doesn't realize the influence they've had in a galaxy far, far away."
The Creator: Gareth Evans' New Movie
Edwards is returning to the big screen later this year with The Creator, his first film since Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. John David Washington stars in The Creator as an ex-special forces agent named Joshua, who is grieving the disappearance of his wife. In the middle of a war between humans and artificial intelligence, Joshua is hired to hunt down and killed a being known as the Creator, the architect of the AI who has the power to end the war, as well as mankind itself.
In addition to Washington, the film stars Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe, Madeleine Yuna Voyles, and Allison Janney. Edwards wrote the script with Chris Weitz and produced the film alongside Kiri Hart, Jim Spencer, and Arnon Milchan. The executive producers are Yariv Milchan, Michael Schaefer, Natalie Lehmann, Nick Meyer, and Zev Foreman.
The Creator is set to arrive in theaters on September 29th.