Star Wars: Rogue One - Everything About The Spinoff
BY
BRENT MCKNIGHT
21 COMMENTS
It’s an awesome time to be a
Star Wars fan. When
Disney bought out Lucasfilm back in October of 2012, they laid out a plan to expand the world
George Lucas created to a degree we’ve never seen before. They may have scrapped all of the
Expanded Universe material that accumulated over the years (or at least decreed that it’s not official canon), but they’re working their tails off to fill in that void with projects like the upcoming
Star Wars: Rogue One.
At this point we already have new novels, an animated television series in
Star Wars Rebels, a handful of comic book titles from Marvel, and, of course,
J.J. Abrams’
Star Wars: The Force Awakens. All of the expanded universe stuff is great, but the movies are what fans
really want to see, and in addition to a new trilogy of interconnected
Episode movies, we’re getting a series of standalone, so-called anthology films that examine different areas of
Star Wars, illuminating various corners of that far, far away galaxy.
Within these anthology movies – which have also been called "
Star Wars Stories," we’ll get to peer into the hidden crevices of this universe we love so much, explore different times and places, and possibly learn about events we’ve only ever heard about. The first of these is
Star Wars: Rogue One, and while it will be a while before the movie’s release, we have a lot of questions. Who is going to star? What does the plot? Will we see familiar characters? Will this impact/be impacted the other films? We don’t know a ton about
Rogue One, but let’s take a look at what we do know so far.
The Director
Pretty much the
first thing we learned about
Star Wars: Rogue One, even well before the title was revealed, was that Gareth Edwards was going to direct. Edwards only has two feature directorial efforts under his belt, but they certainly made an impact. His first film, 2010’s micro-budget
Monsters, is a tense, unique take on the creature feature - one where the filmmaker handled all the visual effects himself. While that movie wasn’t exactly a blockbuster hit, Edwards’ talent caught the eye of Hollywood, and he was given the reins of 2014’s
Godzilla revamp, and his attempt to bring the King of the Monsters back to the metroplex was a rousing success.
These two very different films showcase a varied skillset that should serve Edwards well on
Star Wars: Rogue One. He’s shown he can tell a character-driven story, as well as one that relies on action, large-scale special effects, and spectacle, and both of those elements will come in handy in deep space. In
Monsters, the titular beasts are relegated to the background, adding an extra layer of mood and tone to the story that is really about two people wandering the wilderness. This shows that he has the ability to get you emotionally invested in the people onscreen, without relying solely on special/visual effects to keep your attention. While
Star Wars has always been full of eye candy, it’s the characters that stick.
The Plot
Since early on, we’ve heard rumors about the plot of
Star Wars: Rogue One, with whispers of bounty hunters, a daring heist, and an
Ocean’s Eleven-style ensemble of characters coming together to pull off a job. At Star Wars Celebration 2014, we got
confirmation that the story does indeed follow a band of rebel fighters who steal the plans for the first Death Star. That definitely covers the heist element, not to mention it sets the action in the time between
Revenge of the Sith and
A New Hope, as resistance to the Galactic Empire begins to build momentum.
While this links the story to the main narrative thrust of the
Star Wars saga, it also looks like it might do something no movie in the franchise has ever done: focus on normal people in the universe. The Jedi mythos has figured prominently into every extant
Star Wars film, and while we’ve seen and encountered non-powered people, with the exception of Han Solo, they’ve never really taken center stage. If nothing else, this is going to be a drastically different view of this universe we’ve spent so much time in, and it’s been promised that, while most of the Saga has been rather black and white,
Rogue One is one big shade of gray. Perhaps that’s where the bounty hunter element we’ve been hearing about fits into the story.
Felicity Jones
When the cast for J.J. Abrams’
Star Wars: The Force Awakens was first announced, one of the immediate reactions was that there were only a few
female characters. That was addressed by the production, but perhaps to head off similar issues, the first actor confirmed to be in
Rogue One was
Felicity Jones. In addition to popping up in 2014’s
The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the 31-year-old British actress received an Academy Award nomination this year for her role as Jane Hawking in the biopic
The Theory of Everything.
While we don’t know the specifics of Jones’ role just yet—and given the
Star Warstrack record, we probably won’t until we sit down to watch
Rogue One in the theater—she’s being called one of the leads, and could well be a Rebel fighter (there have been reports suggesting her character’s name is
Lyra Erso) . Most of the actress’ notable roles have been dramatic ones, so we’re interested to see how she handles the action inherent in this movie. By the time this film rolls around, however, we should have a better idea, as both the action movie
Collide and the horror flick
A Monster Calls will have hit theaters, and they are distinct departures from Jones’ typical roles.
The Leading Men
It appears that Felicity Jones is going to be the de facto lead of
Star Wars: Rogue One, but the nature of the film’s story demands a fairly large ensemble of actors, and that’s exactly what the production has collected. During Walt Disney’s D23 Expo in
August of 2015, the studio released the first ever image from the movie, and simultaneously confirmed a number of the main members of the cast. This is a list that includes:
- Diego Luna
- Ben Mendelsohn
- Donnie Yen
- Jiang Wen
- Forest Whitaker
- Mads Mikkelsen
- Alan Tudyk
- Riz Ahmed
Very little is known about any of the characters that the various actors are playing in the movie, and nothing has been officially confirmed. That being said, there has been some speculation about a few of the cast members. For example, it’s been reported that Alan Tudyk himself won’t be featured in the movie, but instead will be providing a motion capture performance. Interestingly,
Mads Mikkelsen has said that he will not be playing a villain in the movie (a nice break for him), and it’s been said that he may be playing a guy named
Galen.
Perhaps the most interesting bit of speculation surrounds the role that will be played by Diego Luna. As you can see in the image, he’s sporting a mustache for his role in the movie, and this has led some to wonder if he may be playing Rebel Allicance pilot
Biggs Darklighter in the movie. Played by Garrick Hagon, Biggs was a character featured in George Lucas’
Star Wars and was introduced as a childhood friend of Luke Skywalker’s. Sadly, he didn’t wind up surviving the attack on the Death Star featured in the third act of the movie, his X-Wing being taken down by a TIE Fighter.
What 'Anthology' Means
You have probably noticed by now that
Rogue One is being called an "anthology" film. When you think of what normally constitutes an anthology film, you generally call to mind films made up of multiple chapters - essentially a series of connected short film. With the
V/H/S and
ABCs of Death series, there has been a glut of such projects in horror lately. We now know that any of the standalone
Star Wars movies, those that are developed outside of the traditional
Episode realm, including
Rogue One.
This classification of sorts sets these films apart from the saga films, and while the events will impact the continuity of the
Star Wars universe—obviously stealing the Death Star plans plays a big role—they’re markedly different from what has come before. The Episodes tell the larger, overall saga of this far, far away galaxy, while it looks like the Anthology films like
Star Wars: Rogue One are almost supplementary, like appendices at the back of a book. These movies will explore side stories that don’t figure into main saga narrative, and also appear to have less focus on the Force and the Jedi. For example, we don’t necessarily need to know the story of how the Rebels got the
Death Star plans in
A New Hope, but how many of us sat there and thought to ourselves, "I bet that’s a cool story." With films like this one, the upcoming Han Solo movie, and the third film that’s yet to be announced, we’re going to hear some of those tales.
The Rumored Characters
One of the persistent rumors surrounding
Rogue One involves bounty hunters. We’re not sure how they figure into the plan given the other details we know, but one theory supposes a group of them could be hired by the Rebels to secure the Death Star plans (they are loyal to nobody but themselves, after all). We’ll have to see how this works out, but whenever the phrases "bounty hunter" and
Star Wars are mentioned in the same breath, the name Boba Fett follows shortly after. This is pre-
Sarlacc pit, so there’s no question of whether or not he’s still alive, and early rumors even said the character had been
cast, so we’ll be waiting to see if he shows up among the other possible bounty hunters.
There have also been reports suggesting that the movie will also feature two key players from the Galactic Empire in the original trilogy:
Darth Vader and
Grand Moff Tarkin. Both characters have only been rumored and most definitely not confirmed, but their presence would certainly make sense, given that they are both incredibly important figures where the first Death Star is concerned. We don’t necessarily expect that either one of them will be the primary antagonist, though it would make sense for both of them to be pulling strings in the background.
The Release Date
As I said before, it’s a good time to be a
Star Wars fan. In addition to the surplus of other officially canon material—which includes everything from TV shows to comics and video games like
Star Wars: Battlefront—we’re getting at least one movie a year for the foreseeable future, alternating between Episode titles like
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Anthology chapters, like
Star Wars: Rogue One.
Star Warsmovies have, up to this point, traditionally arrived in theaters in May of their respective years of release.
The Force Awakens is changing that, however, and will be
dropping this December. For a time the franchise will stick to this schedule, as
Rogue One is scheduled to follow a year later, with a December 16, 2016 release date scheduled.
From the look of things, this is going to be a limited time set up, as the
Rian Johnson-directed
Star Wars: Episode VIII shifts back to the more standard
May release. This makes sense, as the franchise has a strong bond with the month, with the previous release dates and, of course,
Star Wars Day (May the 4th), and many fans lamented the break from tradition. Even better, however, this schedule means that between
Rogue One and
Episode VIII, we’re getting two new
Star Wars movies in a six month span, which is sounds pretty damn awesome.
No John Williams
For many of us, John Williams and his rousing scores are practically synonymous with
Star Wars. If you need a reminder of just how important his work is to these movies, just check out
this scene from
A New Hope without his signature sound. While the 83-year-old composer is back to
contribute to
The Force Awakens, he
will not work on any of the Anthology movies. Consequently, we won’t hear his soaring themes in
Rogue One, making it the first
Star Wars movie to hit theaters without a Williams score.
While he may be no John Williams, Gareth Edwards and company have found a strong replacement in Academy Award-winning composter
Andre Desplat. He and Edwards worked together on
Godzilla, and there are few composers out there as celebrated as Desplat right now. He walked away with an Oscar earlier this year for his work on Wes Anderson’s
The Grand Budapest Hotel, and he was actually competing against himself in that race, as he was also nominated for his contribution to
The Imitation Game. It will be interesting to see if he puts his own unique stamp on
Star Wars with
Rogue One, or if he attempts to channel John Williams.
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