On Sunday, during the final day of the Star Wars Celebration, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy and director Gareth Edwards revealed some details about the first stand-alone Star Wars movie, Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One.
“Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.”
Of course we’re all familiar with that introduction to Star Wars from the opening crawl in A New Hope, but as of Christmas, 2016 we’ll get to see the story behind those few sentences, as that battle and the theft of the Death Star plans will be the focus of Rogue One. Obviously, the movie is set in the period immediately before Episode IV. Little else is known about the film as of now, other than that it is being directed by Godzilla’s Edwards, will be written by ILM vet (and Photoshop co-creator) John Knoll, who apparently came up with the story, and will bring over many of the production crew from The Force Awakens.
Two things in particular set this movie apart from the other Star Wars films. First, it will star recent Oscar nominee Felicity Jones as a Rebel trooper, so it will be the first female-centered Star Wars film. And that’s all-around great news.
Second, this is going to be the first Star Wars property (not counting the books and comics that are no longer canon) that will not feature the Jedi at all. Edwards stated, “It comes down to a group of individuals who don’t have magical powers that have to somehow bring hope to the galaxy.”
Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One is scheduled to hit theaters in December, 2016.
As a child born in the 80’s, I grew up with Start Wars and took it in greedily. I am proud to say my children (all nine so far) also can’t get enough Jedi and blasters. However my disappointment over the prequels (Episodes I, II, and III) have me unsure whether to be excited or not. We will just have to wait for Episode VII to see if the Star Wars story gets salvaged. After that I will allow myself to either get excited, or expect disappointment.