‘Star Wars Rogue One’ details, synopsis, concept art, teaser description
At Star Wars Celebration, producer Kathleen Kennedy, Lucasfilm’s VP of Development Kiri Hart, and director Gareth Edwards unveiled a teaser trailer for the first Star Wars spin-off film Star Wars: Rogue One.
While the film is still in pre-production and hasn’t started shooting yet, the teaser features footage created entirely by ILM, including an amazing of the Death Star over the horizon of an unknown planet.
Kennedy made a point of saying that these “spin-off” films should be referred to as “Anthology Films” and were part of George Lucas’ idea.
“These films will still feel like Star Wars, but stand on their own and introduce new characters and places,” was confirmed as well.
Edwards discussed this being his first SW: Celebration and how emotional he became when he saw the Star Wars: Force Awakens teaser, especially with Han and Chewie.
The rumors are confirmed: Rogue One takes place between Episode III and Episode IV, but Edwards noted “maybe a little bit more towards IV,” and said that A New Hope is his favorite film. The time frame is pretty much the same as the animated show Star Wars: Rebels.
Edwards is going for a “real” look: “It’s hopefully going to feel very natural and subjective.” He doesn’t want the good guys to be all good, or the bad guys to be all bad. It’s about the shades of grey.
The official synopsis is as follows: “A band of resistance fighters unite for a daring mission to steal the Death Star plans.” The Jedi are all but extinct, “virtually no Jedi” and rely on a “group of people without magical powers must step up to save the galaxy.”
Edwards was recommended as director by a number of people, and they were impressed by his reverence for Star Wars. Edwards said he was so exhausted from making Godzilla that he hoped he would hate the idea, but when he read it and got to the end he said, “Oh f***.” Edwards said, “I couldn’t sit in a cinema and know someone else made this film.”
According to Hart, they want directors to be involved very early in the creation of the Anthology films.
Filming will begin in late summer. They’re in pre-production now with filming set for the UK and other locations around the world.
John Knoll from ILM was credited with coming up with the original idea for the film. Knoll was pitching this story for awhile and everyone at ILM loved it, and he pitched it to Kennedy and Hart very soon after they took over Lucasfilm.
According to Kennedy, Rogue One was one of the first pitches she heard when she came on-board.
Felicity Jones has been cast in a lead role and the creators had benn circling Ben Mendelsohn for a major role.
Rogue One is arriving in theaters on December 16, 2016.
Here’s a description of the footage of Rogue One:
The teaser opens with narration by Obi Wan from A New Hope describing the time of the Jedi before The Empire as the camera swoops over a heavily forested landscape. The camera then pans up to reveal the massive Death Star looming overhead before cutting to the title, with “Rogue One” in big letters, preceded by a smaller “Star Wars” on top. The final thing we hear is garbled comm audio of people screaming.
