Rogue One: What Happened After the Hammerhead Crew Saved the Day?
By Buckie Wells
The crew members aboard the Hammerhead Corvette played a crucial role in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. But what happened afterward to them?
The third act of Rogue One began when our heroes traveled to Scarif to access the Imperial archives. (Spoiler alert! Because we’re going to discuss other plot points…) Unfortunately, the Imperials were alerted to their presence rather quickly and closed the shield gate. This not only trapped the Rebels on the ground, but stopped them from being able to transmit a signal. Thankfully, the Rebel space fleet eventually arrived and Admiral Raddus developed a plan: Crash the Hammerhead corvette into one Imperial Star Destroyer, and allow the subsequent domino effect to break the gate open. With great success, the gate opened and Rogue One transmitted the plans to the Alliance, then A New Hope, and so on and so forth.
However, Rogue One never showed us the fate of the Hammerhead crew. We got a glimpse inside as the commanders prepare to hit the Star Destroyer straight on and the “brace for impact” moment. But did they survive, or like Rogue One, are they the unsung heroes that paved the way for Luke Skywalker’s heroic journey?
According to executive producer and ILM supervisor John Knoll (via Entertainment Weekly), they had plans to let the crew escape via mass pod deployment. “We did an animation of that, but Gareth [Edwards, the director] thought it was a little distracting, so we turned that off,” explained Knoll. Whether we saw it or not, Knoll maintains that they did make it to shore: “Our story was that they made it down to the surface of Scarif, and were standing around the beach going, ‘You know what, it isn’t so bad here!” At least, not until the Death Star arrived a few moments later, which would lead the crew members to ponder, “’Hey, what’s that bright thing on the horizon?’”
So, they suffered the same fate as the rest of the Rogue One crew sadly. But they went down in style just like everyone else. Considering the size disparity between the corvette and the Imperial ship, the Hammerhead pulled off an exciting feat. And if you thought it would be impossible to pull that off, think again. Thanks to the lack of air resistance in space and the fact that the Hammerhead crew was pushing the top of an already crippled ship, they managed to reopen the barrier protecting the planet.
Related Story: Rogue One Editor John Gilroy Explains Why They Pushed the Envelope
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is now playing in theaters everywhere.