The Imperial facility on the planet Scarif may have once housed the plans for the Death Star, but its terrestrial origin is connected to coffee. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story director Gareth Edwards has admitted that the name for the planet Scarif was the result of a barista in a coffee shop misunderstanding his name.
On Monday, Edwards delivered a SXSW keynote address in Austin, TX and revealed that a barista at a coffee shop once called Gareth “Scarif” on accident. This mispronunciation served as the direct inspiration for the name of the Imperial planet in which all the major action takes place in the final scenes of Rogue One. At present, it’s unclear if the coffee barista who heard the name “Gareth” as “Scarif” is aware of the impact they had on the Star Wars forever. Either way, it seems to have been a happy accident, since, among fans, the name of the planet is easy to remember. When he was asked what to call the planet, he said, “I just slid the coffee cup … it’s called Scarif.”
This isn’t the first time something in Star Wars has had a strange origin story. Some sources maintain that George Lucas conceived of the shape of the Millennium Falcon thanks to a half-eaten cheesburger with an olive next to it.
Edwards also explained the human element of his films, including Rogue One, saying, “The human body is the hardware, stories are the software you download into them.”
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, complete with director’s commentary from Gareth Edwards hit stores in DVD and Blu-ray on April 4.
