With the announcement, last year, that Gareth Edwards (Godzilla), would be directing a Star Wars stand-alone movie, fans began to speculate just what kind of stand-alone spinoff the movie would be. Rumors of a young Han Solo adventure movie, or a Boba Fett type bounty hunter movie, were all anyone could talk about.
Fast Forward to this year, when Star Wars put all the speculation to rest, by announcing that Edwards’ movie would be called Star Wars: Rogue One.
From StarWars.com:
"“Rogue One is the title for the first film in a unique series of big-screen adventures that explores the characters and events beyond the core Star Wars saga. Rogue One will be directed by Gareth Edwards (Monsters, Godzilla) and written by Oscar nominee Chris Weitz (Cinderella, About a Boy, Antz). The first actress cast is Felicity Jones, who garnered an Academy Award nomination and critical acclaim for her performance in The Theory of Everything.”“The idea for the story of Rogue One came from John Knoll, an Academy Award-winning visual effects supervisor and chief creative officer at Industrial Light & Magic. He will executive produce along with Simon Emanuel (The Dark Knight Rises, Fast & Furious 6) and Jason McGatlin (Tintin, War of the Worlds). Kathleen Kennedy and Tony To (Band of Brothers, The Pacific) are on board to produce and John Swartz (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) will co-produce. The film starts shooting this summer in London and is due for release on December 16, 2016.”"
Exciting news, to be sure, but what do we really know about Rogue One? Well, thanks to the awesome folks over at Making Star Wars, we now have some more meaty news and rumors to chew on, until we get another official announcement, that it.
- Rogue One “still has a few months before it goes in front of cameras,” according to several sources.
This is good. One thing we do not want, is a rushed film, just churned out for mass production, simply to fill some sort of big-budget movie quota that Disney may or may not have.
- Felicity Jones is the main character (no duh).
Felicity was brilliant in The Theory of Everything, but got her nerd street-cred when she played Felicia Hardy in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. In case you aren’t familiar with the character of Felicia Hardy, she is the Black Cat, a sort of anti-hero in the Marvel comics.
- Aaron Paul isn’t out… yet. One sources says he is in, others aren’t so sure.
- The other role is the companion character of Jones.
- Paul is up for the “companion” character.
Nothing would please me more, than to see Aaron Paul get a solid role in the Star Wars franchise. I’ve been a fan of his, ever since he first appeared on Breaking Bad, and I think he is an amazing actor.
- It heavily involves an agricultural planet.
This planet may be the Agriworld named Chandrila. Chandrila was home to the Rebel leaders at one point and the New Republic, so it would make sense.
- Ben Mendelsohn is most likely playing “The Scientist.”
- The Death Star plans are still involved.
- The scientist knows the Death Star is wrong.
Mendelsohn is a fine actor, who portrayed John Dagget in The Dark Knight Rises. It makes sense that the Death Star would be involved in Rogue One, as Rogue Squadron had a major hand in destroying the Empire’s planet killer.
- Geonosians are responsible for the prototype and construction; nothing has been retconned.
Those crazy walking-talking locust looking aliens are going to be back, probably causing all sorts of havoc and trouble for the good guys.
Hopefully more information about Star Wars: Rogue One, will start hitting the interwebs rather quickly, once the movie begins filming, later this summer.