Darth Vader, Death Star, Droids: Introducing 'Rogue One'

A year after The Force Awakens, the franchise gets an even bolder refresh with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Director Gareth Edwards and his stars explain why their gritty, risky war film is truly set to stand alone…

- Matthew Leyland

It is a period of Civil War… As in, you know, Cap versus Iron Man, big airport barney, new Spidey and so on. As things stand, Marvel’s Captain America threequel is the biggest hit of 2016, grossing more than $1.15bn at the box office. The only movie with any hope of topping that tally is Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which steals into cinemas mid-December. If any brand can beat Marvel, it’s Star Wars, right? And yet… Rogue One is a new type of Star Wars movie. Stand-alone. Sans Skywalkers. Edgy. Experimental. This isn’t your daddy’s Star Wars. On second thoughts, it sort of is. Clearly, we need to unpack this a bit more…

“I owe my career to George Lucas,” says Gareth Edwards, a life-long enthusiast who’s now committed the ultimate act of Star Wars fandom: he’s directed a Star Wars movie. Being such a die-hard, it’s little wonder Edwards (Monsters, 2014’s Godzilla) describes meeting Lucas during pre-production on Rogue One as “probably my most nervous moment”. The new movie is a pumped-up prelude to the one that started it all, 1977’s Star Wars (as it was simply known back then). Or rather, it’s a filmic fleshing-out of the opening crawl: “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…” (that’s the spoilers out of the way, then). Chronologically, A New Hope follows so hotly on Rogue One’s heels that the latter needs to exercise a strict level of consistency: narratively, tonally, visually. In other words, give major props to King George.