In Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Admiral Raddus ordered a Hammerhead Corvette to ram a Star Destroyer in order to disable the Shield Gate above the planet Scarif, but was this a suicide mission? The fate of the crew of this Rebel spaceship may now have been made clear: They made it as far as the escape pods.
Talking about the final space battle in the most recent Star Wars film, VFX artists John Knoll and Hal Hickel spoke to Anthony Breznican of Entertainment Weekly on January 12. Both revealed that the inclusion of the Hammerhead Corvette for Star Wars Rebels did create questions as to whether or not the crew of that ship survived their experiences or not. “Is this a suicide mission? Are all these guys going down with the Star Destroyers?”
Though the ILM VFX team wanted to include a shot of all the escape pods (or “lifeboats”) being jettisoned from the ship, the show was nixed because director Gareth Edwards thought it was too distracting.
Still, Knoll says that when the ship is destroyed, “but the lifeboats are all gone on the Hammerhead,” it means the crew did get off the ship. But once they found themselves in the life boats, they ended up on the surface of the planet Scarif. And since the Death Star zapped most of Scarif, that probably means they died anyway.
Like most characters in Rogue One, even when people achieve a major victory for the Rebellion, that doesn’t mean they get to live for much longer after that.
