Rogue One: A Star Wars Story writer Gary Whitta revealed that the Star Wars anthology film did originally have the classic opening crawl that is so characteristic of the franchise -- but it'll never see the light of day.
Upon its release in 2016, Rogue One became the first film without the opening crawl that has been a franchise mainstay since 1977's Star Wars. It is now generally understood that the traditional crawl is reserved for mainline entries, with the 2018 anthology film Solo: A Star Wars story eschewing the convention as well.
"I did write one," Whitta said on IGN Watch From Home Theater. "You'll never see it, but I did." The writer also says he wrote more than one crawl before the decision wade made to keep the film crawl-less entirely. Ultimately, Whitta and director Gareth Edwards made the decision to not use any of those drafts in the film. "[We decided] it was okay to liberate ourselves from the traditional storytelling language of Star Wars."
In addition to the lack of the opening crawl, Rogue One also largely did away with wipe transitions -- another technique that has come to be associated with the franchise. "We felt like the standalone movies had more license than the saga films to do something a little more different," Whitta explained.
Rogue One originally hit theaters in December of 2016 as the first of two Star Wars Story anthology films -- Solo being the second. Disney+ has plans to produce a prequel television series based around Cassian Andor, Diego Luna's character from the 2016 film. The show is expected to arrive sometime in 2021.