Rahm Kota from The Force Unleashed video game series was included in the early version of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story script. Rogue One had a lot of cameos, but most of them involve characters from previous movies - this latest reveal would have brought over a character from the old Legends continuity.
Introduced in The Force Unleashed, Kota was a Jedi Master who survived Order 66 due to his use of private militia instead of clones. He was blinded during a duel with Darth Vader' secret apprentice Galen Marek - the lead character of the game - but returned to train the young Force user and helped lay the groundwork for the early Rebellion. This is, of course, no longer canon; everything pre-Disney acquisition (aside from the movies and The Clone Wars TV show) was made Legends. However, a new report suggests that he was almost reintroduced to the mythos.
Related: How Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Changed During Reshoots
Filmmaker Marcos Cabota recently guested on a podcast titled La Fosa del Rancor and recounted a story of friend auditioning to be in Rogue One. Per Cabota, during the testing process, they read a couple of pages of the prequel's script and noticed a part for a blind Force user called Rahm Kota. Obviously, Kota didn't appear in the Star Wars spin-off but a similar character was present in the form Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen). This led Cabota to believe that the blind Force-believer was a modification of the Force Unleashed character:
"In fact, they were talking about a Jedi, who then did not appear in the movie but did appear somehow ... Rham Kota was in Rogue One, I can tell you, he was a blind Jedi. And what do we find in Rogue One? A blind user of the Force ... In the script we had from Rogue One, before becoming Rogue One, it was Rahm Kota."
While Cabota's story suggests there's scope for Kota or other Force Unleased characters to make the jump from the expanded universe to the current canon, it is possible that the script that his friend read was a bogus one used for the audition process only. It's not an uncommon practice to shield real details, especially for a project as secretive as Star Wars. So while it's possible Kota was originally meant to appear and was changed into Chirrut, Rahm's name could have just been a placeholder.
Chirrut's not the first time that Kota's been compared to a canon character. Star Wars Rebels' Jedi Master Kanan Jarrus have also drawn a comparison to him, especially after the Ghost Crew member lost his eyesight during his Darth Maul battle by the end of season 2.
Having said that, it is not impossible for old Legends characters and concepts to return in the current Star Wars canon. Rebels did just that with the introduction of Grand Admiral Thrawn and almost included Force Unleashed's very own Starkiller.
Next: Star Wars: 15 Characters From The Expanded Universe You Didn’t Know Were Still Canon
Source: La Fosa del Rancor
