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Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One – New Details on the First Spinoff Movie


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An overhead tracking shot of a jungle, as Alec Guinness in voiceover delivers his speech about Jedi guarding the peace for a thousand generations.

“Before the dark times”

A solitary TIE screeches into view and up towards the sky.

“Before the Empire.”

Like a giant moon, the upper hemisphere of the Death Star appears on the horizon.

Fade to black. Barely audible, anxious radio chatter as the logo crackles and comes into view in gold. “ROGUE ONE.”

That was our first teaser, made before any of the actual film has been shot, by ILM. And it looked good.

There’s more…

Finally confirming the rumors, director Gareth Edwards announced that this will indeed be about the mission to steal the Death Star plans – and it’s set in a universe where there are believed to be no Jedi left. “God’s not coming to save you.”

Realism is important – he wants this to feel like a real war movie set in the Star Wars universe.To that end, he has the cinematographer of Zero Dark Thirty and special effects guys from Black Hawk Down and Saving Private Ryan. He said that while Star Wars is quite black-and-white in terms of good and evil, Rogue One will show the gray area that becomes polarized. Good guys are bad, bad guys are good – it’s like the reality of war.

We saw a piece of concept art that looked like Star Wars by way of Halo. Imagine a large dropship that’s shaped like the body of a Snowpseeder, with the four engines of an X-Wing and the troop carrying area of a Republic Gunship. It’s in the rain, and troops are running below – think Hoth Rebel soldiers, but in green.

The story is by John Knoll, who pitched to Kathleen Kennedy during what she says were her first ten minutes on the job. She knew if she said yes, it would open the floodgates for more, but also that it’s very difficult to get it right, and she thought he did.

The movie is filming this summer around the world. Sadly, Josh Trank was sick and didn’t make the panel, which served as an excuse not to say a damn thing about his project.