Why Adding Peter Cushing to ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’ Was Horrible

Disney brought back Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. It was the worst technological decision in Star Wars since Jar Jar Binks. Worst of all, the inclusion of Grand Moff Tarkin was painfully unnecessary.

Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin served his purpose in ‘Star Wars’ a long time ago

For many years, Cushing was primarily known as a horror movie star who appeared in productions by a British studio called Hammer Films. Then, he played Grand Moff Tarkin in the original Star Wars. Millions of people now know him from that film and that film alone.

Enter Disney. They made a film set just before the original Star Wars and decided to make Grand Moff Tarkin a character in it. In an earlier time, Hollywood would have just hired a different actor to play him. After all, plenty of Star Wars characters have been played by multiple actors. However, they resurrected Cushing as a CGI creation. It looks grotesque, and no one was fooled by it.

Nobody cares that much Peter Cushing’s character anyway

Of course, there’s no real reason Tarkin has to be in Rogue One in the first place. The Star Wars universe is as expansive as a fictional universe can possibly be. So many people work for the Empire. Disney could have given us a new villain to take Tarkin’s role in the story. Anyone who suggests otherwise lacks imagination.

In fact, there is a new villain in Rogue One: Orson Krennic. The story could have given him more to do and excised Grand Moff Tarkin. The only reason to bring back an old character for no reason is to appeal to nostalgia. However, no one cares enough about Grand Moff Tarkin to warrant his nostalgic inclusion. 

How a ‘Star Wars’ director justified all this

During a 2017 interview with CNN, Rogue One director Gareth Edwards discussed recreating Cushing with technology. “I think it’s fair enough and you should tread carefully around this area,” he said. “We felt like we weren’t recreating Peter Cushing so much as we were recreating Tarkin, like a character he’d already established, and we were doing our damnedest to pull from his performances to tell the story. It was nearly impossible to do a proper job of Rogue One and the periods that led up to [Star Wars: A New Hope] without having Tarkin in the movie. 

“We did think about doing it discreetly where you never really see him,” he added. “What about if we cast a different actor that kind of looked like Tarkin maybe a little bit? They all felt like bad choices. [Industrial Light & Magic CCO] John Knowles, specifically, was at a point where he felt like the time has come technologically where we can pull this off, so we can do anything you want to do.”

Maybe Edwards didn’t watch a little sci-fi movie called Jurassic Park. In that film, Jeff Goldblum’s character remarks, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Well, just because Lucasfilm had the technology to make something that vaguely looks like Cushing doesn’t mean they should have.

I rest my case.