'Rogue One' briefly had a happier ending, but it wasn't filmed

Spoiler warning: If you still haven't seen "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," stop reading now.

"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" surprised some fans with its grim, un-Disney-like ending.

But at one time, there was a small glimmer of hope for our heroes. A proposed version of the script had Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) and Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) making it safely off the planet Scarif.

Screenwriter Gary Whitta told Entertainment Weekly how that version would've unfolded.

"A rebel ship came down and got them off the surface," Whitta says. "The transfer of the plans happened later. They jumped away and later [Leia's] ship came in from Alderaan to help them. The ship-to-ship data transfer happened off Scarif."

Fans would've seen Darth Vader attack Jyn's shuttle and apparently destroy it, only to discover that what looked like a floating piece of debris was really an escape pod.

But Whitta and the rest of the creative team felt that the gloomier ending was justified.

"If you're going to give your life for anything, give your life for this, to destroy a weapon that's going to kill you all anyway," he said. "That's what we always wanted to do."

To the team's surprise, Disney bigwigs allowed the honorable sacrifice.

"We told them, we feel they all need to die, and (Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy) and everyone else said to go for it," Whitta said. "We got the ending that we wanted."

But if you still really need to see a happy ending for Jyn and Cassian, the How It Should Have Ended YouTube video channel has your back.

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