Rogue One Wedge, Porkins, and the Rebel Fleet / Squadrons

Thanks for the info Ricardo! It's interesting to see the changes to the squadron within a what, 1 week time? I'm not sure if anyone has determined the time to jump to Tatooine, escape pod to the surface, get captured by Jawas, be sold to the Lars, run away, be found by Luke, run into slaughtered Jawas, wait for Luke to find his Aunt and Uncle, travel to Mos Eisley, travel to Alderaan, travel to Yavin, and prep for battle (R2's point of view). I guess it really depends on the time traveled between Scarif, Yavin, Alderaan, and Yavin.

I imagine after losing most of Red Squadron at TBY, the Rebels decided to let Luke be the new Red Leader, but after hearing about the heroics of Jyn and her attack on Scarif, he chose the Rogue callsign.

As for Blue Leader, he was pretty awesome. That cheesy grin on his face after taking out the walker was funny.

 

Interesting..... Red Five was from planet Denon, the homeworld of General Maximillian Veers. The Denon System sounds like an interesting place. Planet Denon is a city planet, like Coruscant. I wonder if people in certain neighborhoods of the planet use ghetto blasters, for either offensive or defensive purposes. I would imagine Denon is the home to some decent speakers, being loud and clear in the Imperial Senate about their concerns.

 

Incoming Blue Squadron prequel spinoff spinoff.

 

I really liked how you're shown Red Five kicking the bucket, paving the way for Luke taking the mantle. I love how Rogue One has so much little things like that to tie into A New Hope.

Also, regarding Wedge, I've heard rumours that you can hear him over the comms chatter at the Battle of Scarif but I've never been able to get another viewing of the movie to check, has anyone else confirmed that?

 

Siphonophore wrote

Red Five was from planet Denon.

Probably famous for its cultural activities revolving around music. I wonder if there is also a planet Marantz...

 

Thread merge

 

Thread merge and title update

 

i think gold leader jon vander will make an appearance in rebels season three.

 

^ Then I can only hope he will be referred to correctly as "Dutch", as that is the only name general audiences would be able to link the character to ANH.

Never could stand these conjectural EU names that totally ignored that the Rebel pilots were using their first names, not call signs (that would be "Red Five" etc.). Red Leader's first name (according to the complete ANH screenplay) was "Dave".

Luke, Biggs and Wedge are all referred to by their known first names, so it stands to reason the same applies for all the other pilots that participated in the Battle of Yavin.

 

I'm almost positive they showed him in the trailer ( in the cockpit behind Mon Mothma).


It was awesome seeing those guys in R1. Although I'm still a bit confused by some of the Vander dialogue. When he says "hit that opening" is he somewhere else in the battle? The female pilot seems to be leading the Y-wings during the ion torpedo sequence

 

Just a tip.... real fighter pilots (in the US anyway) never refer to their squadron as a "squad." That's a term the grunts use, not steely-eyed, glinty teethed fighter pilots.

 

Strongbow

Are real fighter pilots also that cheerful like Blue Leader in RO when on a mission?

(I'm aware that in ANH there was nothing to be cheerful about, as the veteran pilots probably considered it a high probability that they wouldn't survive and that their base would be destroyed, but the Scarif operation wasn't exactly just a walk in the park, either)

 

All combat pilots respond to the mission according to their own personalities. I've flown with deadly grimdark serious ones, and totally laidback jokers. I usually leaned toward the relaxed side myself; it reduces stress and doesn't drain your energy.

 

Blue Leader was FANTASTIC. Loved his dashing appearance and that epic mustache...he almost looked Errol Flynn-like with his helmet off. The scene where he saved Baze from the AT-AT was awesome too.

 

Well, you know Disney wouldn't have a planet Sony.

 

So some more food for thought about the starfighter squadrons at Scarif -

Green Squadron - I haven't read the novelization, where it may have mentioned them more, but I recall seeing a tweet by Pablo Hidalgo concerning the rebel squadrons participating in the battle, he says something like "Red, Blue, Gold, and apparently the unseen Green squadrons". Ive checked a few times on BluRay and haven't seen any ships that i can undoubtedly confirm as having green markings. There are certainly green squadron pilots featured in the visual guide, with photos and some degree of backstory. It makes me wonder why they would go through the trouble of this, but not even have a 4 second shot of a "Green Leader" reporting in.

Grey Squadron - According to some online articles, writer Gary Whitta was due for a cameo as "Grey leader", but all his scenes were cut. Supposedly he is quoted as "Gray Leader died heroically on the cutting room floor." Did the interviewer mishear him, and he meant to say he played "Green Leader"? or was there to be an entire additional squadron there?

Alan Tudyk - supposedly he was also set for a cameo as a pilot, but i have seen conflicting reports as to him being a TIE Pilot (Having a TIE pilot with dialogue other than "watch out" would be great) or another T-65 Pilot. It could also be possible he was meant to play Green Leader

Gold Squadron's losses - I cant remember where i had heard it, but I did see someone somewhere claim that Gold Squadron had suffered the fewest losses at Scarif. I'm not sure if or how this could be corroborated.

Wedge's comms chatter and Porkin's X-Wing - After the DVD release, has anyone been able to pinpoint when and say with any level of certainty if Wedge's voice can be heard during the battle? I've also heard that Porkin's X-wing, or at least one marked as Red Six, can be seen, but i have yet to see this for myself.

 

Seriously - that guy looked like he stepped right of the set of ANH in 1977.... great casting

 

Rogue One's space battle was amazing. It actually flows right into the Battle of Yavin, explaining some key answers. That hyperspace build-up got me really hyped in the theater. As for answered questions, "Where was all of the capital ships in the Battle of Yavin?" Well, they all probably got destroyed during the Battle of Scarif and capital ships can't attack the Death Star. Also, earlier in the film, some of the rebel leaders wanted to leave the rebellion, taking their 'fleet' with them. Since the Battle of Scarif suffered major losses, it makes sense that there are 30 or so X-wings. I believe they kept Wedge out of the film, to preserve that one line he says in a New Hope.

I still don't understand that TFA battle. Whatever.

 

It's confirmed on wedge's wookieepedia page and his ANH actor returned to voice him. He's on the intercom as the pilots (apparently he had intercom duty that day instead of being with the rest of the pilots) are all redirected to scariff so that he doesn't see the DS till ANH:
"Attention, all flight personnel, please report to your commanders immediately. All flight personnel, please report to your commanders immediately. We have been redirected to Scarif. Pilots, you'll be briefed by your squadron leaders en route. May the Force be with you."―Wedge Antilles to all rebel pilots

 

They really got Dennis Lawson to do that? I wonder what changed his mind. I hope it was more than just cash.

 

The dialogue in A New Hope has always highlighted that having only snub fighters attacking will give the defenders a false sense of security. And that larger ships are no use in any case

What's not to understand about TFA? They are only a small band of resistance fighters. Their whole fleet is put into the battle and at least half of it is destroyed.

 

THAT was Wedge? Now I'll have to go back and listen more carefully.

I guess that solves one mystery.
I'll be interested to see this supposed cut footage of more pilots. Let us suppose, at the moment, that the Whitta cameo was indeed supposed to be "GREEN" Leader instead of Grey. To me this is a logical assumption because the book has images of and mentions Green Squadron but nothing about a Grey Squadron. Once his cameo scenes were cut, he no longer would report in as a squadron to Raddus, and so they simply edited Raddus' dialogue or had him re-record it so only mention Gold, Red, and Blue squadrons.

The flaw in this would be that one would assume that Pablo Hidalgo would have seen an earlier cut of the movie that had the cameo, but in the tweet (which i need to dig up), he acts like green Squadron was an afterthought.

 

I thought Porkins should have been in the movie it would have gotten a cult clap

 

But then he would not have been the original actor but a look-a-like.

The way I understood it the main reason to feature the other original ANH pilots and actors was that Edwards found unused footage from ANH in the Lucasfilm archives featuring them.

So he didn't reuse or redub existing footage from ANH (something that would have needed to be done with Porkins) but featured something previously not seen - which apparently was the Leitmotiv for the film.

Theoretically Edwards could have reused TIE fighter pilot and Death Star gunner personnel footage from ANH (just as Lucas partially did for ROJ), but apparently that's something he just didn't want to do - and that excluded poor Porkins.