Gareth Edwards

Movies in every genre take cues from other movies that came before, and sci-fi perhaps does this most of all. Gareth Edwards had never directed a space operatic sci-fi before Rogue One, so obviously he did some research before diving into directing the movie. There are elements of other Star Wars movies in Rogue One, of course, but he also revealed that there’s one planet introduced in the movie that’s modeled directly after the planet LV-426 from Ridley Scott’s Alien.

It’s telling that Rogue One’s best character is a robot.

For a lot of the creators of Rogue One, making a Star Wars movie was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. Actor Riz Ahmed, who plays cargo pilot Bodhi Rook in the film, told me his Star Wars roots go deep, but he wouldn’t put himself in the category of a “super fan.” When I asked him to name the wildest super fan he’s met so far in his travels, he told me a story about a recent trip from Toronto to San Francisco.

It’s almost too perfect that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is about a bunch of rebels trying to steal information from the Empire. Interviewing one of the film’s stars feels like an act of espionage.

By now, you definitely know that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is the first of what Disney is calling the Star Wars “Anthology Films,” spun off from the main saga. But did you know Rogue One is not the first live-action Star Wars spinoff film? In the 1980s, Lucasfilm produced two TV movies based on Star Wars, The Ewok Adventure and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. They never played theaters in the United States, but they did get theatrical releases overseas. That’s just one of the galactic facts featured in the newest episode of You Think You Know Movies!

The long countdown to the release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story on December 16 has at last hit the ten-day mark, and with buzz now at a nearly deafening roar, each day has demanded fresh preview material to keep the hordes of fans docile. It’s like an advent calendar, but instead of delicious chocolates and trinkets symbolizing holiday cheer, we get fragmented, context-free snippets symbolizing the insatiable will of America’s pop-culture mavens. It’s the reason for the season, and by “it,” I mean “the inability to allow one’s self to be pleasantly surprised by a blockbuster.”

When a director inherits a franchise from another more seasoned, more beloved filmmaker, there’s bound to be some anxiety about whether or not their predecessor will like the finished project. Did I get it right? they ask themselves. Did I do their legacy justice? Gareth Edwards, still pretty new to the blockbuster scene after taking the reins of 2014’s franchise starter/reviver Godzilla, has some galaxy-sized shoes to fill as the director of the upcoming Star Wars anthology film Rogue One. But he doesn’t have to worry too much anymore, because George Lucas has seen the movie, and given it his hearty blessing.

Eleven long days separate the general public from the wide release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. I dreamt last night that in their efforts to continue to stoke the eternal flame of hype, Lucasfilm unknowingly released the entirety of the film piecemeal over dozens of spliced-together promos. Some ambitious fan isolated each snippet of footage and stitched it back together into the competed feature and released it on his own under the title Not Rogue One. Other Star Wars aficionados, out of respect for the effort, then started to edit fan videos devoted to the DIY film that pretty much resembled the original promos from Lucasfilm. If Borges was alive today and far worse at writing, this would be his latest novella.

If you’ve seen Monsters or Godzilla, then you know that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story director Gareth Edwards is an expert at scale. Each of Edwards’ first two films dropped viewers into a world where monsters walked among us, and Star Wars fans have been looking forward to how that sense of scale would translate itself to his upcoming film. They may not be monsters, but the Star Wars universe is full of ships and vehicles that dwarf the smallest rebel troopers; how would Edwards’ style fit in a world of Star Destroyers and AT-ATs?

Let the countdown begin! We’re exactly two weeks away from the next Star Wars movie and the anticipation is building. We’ve seen trailers of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, we’ve rewatched clips on loop, and today Lucasfilm and Twitter collaborated to debut never-before-seen footage from the upcoming spin-off.