uthinki Considered Opinion?
The first Star Wars anthology film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, set for a 16 December 2016 cinema release is a bit different from other Star Wars movies.
And it’s not just that it won’t feature the space opera’s signature crawling introduction text at the start of the film.
The movie is a one and done.
There will be no sequel to it.
No matter how well it performs at the box office.
Of sorts, that is.
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy told Empire Magazine that the studio has no plans to follow-up Rogue One with another movie featuring the adventures of Jyn Erso.
Technically, according to the director Gareth Edwards, the sequel to Rogue One has already been made and directed by George Lucas.
It’s the original Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) film.
Although for some that may worryingly place Rogue One into prequel territory, George Lucas has already poked some fun at himself about this, and CGI overload, when he visited the movie’s set.
As Rogue One’s director Gareth Edwards recounted:
“He joked a lot about how we should do more in the computer, and not build so much. We didn’t take his advice. We tried to shoot as much in-camera as possible.”
Meaning Padawans, younglings, and the younglings-at-heart can probably breathe a little easier knowing there’s some balance to trust the Force here, and fear is the path to the Dark Side.
Since the almost-intergalactic entity known as Disney also now includes Lucasfilm and Marvel, while a direct Rogue One sequel may have been emphatically ruled out, that doesn’t mean spinoffs can’t happen.
Besides, blowing up and the rebuilding the Death Star time and time again has become an institution in and of itself within Star Wars.
With recent estimates that it would cost £6.2 octillion per day to operate the Death Star, maybe it’s not just the rebels?
The Empire probably has its fair share of corrupt contractors and insurance defrauders amongst its ranks to skim the till on yet another Death Star rebuild.
