It seems that Star Wars: Celebration still has a few surprises left in her – while we’ve known about Gareth Edward’s stewardship of a Star Wars film based on Rogue Squadron for some time, there have been tantalizingly little in the way of details on the film.
Today, at Celebration, a teaser for the first of the anthology films was released along with plot, production, and cast details!
Gareth Edwards (Godzilla, Monsters) – who is notably known for his work in special effects as well as a director – revealed that Star Wars: Rogue One is a “heist film” set between Episode III and IV and centers around a plot to steal the plans for the Death Star. Edwards stated that he wants the film to echo the tone of Black Hawk Down and Saving Private Ryan, and that he was drawn to the project because he was attracted to the idea of “a group of individuals who don’t have magical powers that have to somehow bring hope to the galaxy.”
A rogue band of resistance fighters unite for a daring mission to steal the Death Star plans and bring new hope to the rebellion in the Star Wars Anthology film, Rogue One.
The trailer itself is very definitely a teaser, and features Sir Alec Guinness monologue about “a more civilized time,” from Star Wars: A New Hope. The camera pans across a lush landscape, following a river, and pans upward to reveal a TIE Fighter slicing across the sky, and finally the Death Star.
The cast is led by Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything), a product of the same British training machine that crafted Sir Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing. Jones will be portraying a ‘Rebel Soldier,’ in the film. Ben Mendelson is also rumored to star.
Other production staff of note are Director of Photography Greg Fraser (Zero Dark Thirty) and John Knoll, who’s been associated with not only most of the Star Wars films, but basically everything with brilliant visual effects for the last 30 years. Knoll has been credited with the kernel of the story – the soldiers on both sides of the lines of a war that has been, up to this point, painted with a very black-and-white brush.
We’ll update the video below when an official trailer has been released. Until then, the below is an off-screen capture of the conference. The trailer precedes the presentation.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/gMgjkZLNTVg[/youtube]
Edwards, who was pitched the idea mid-production process for 2014’s Godzilla was initially hesitant to take on the project because of its weight and complexity, but the quality of the script swayed him, and he attributes a lot of that appeal to the concept of a bleak, complicated, dark Star Wars film.
As Star Wars: Rogue One is still in production, and early production at that, there is no announced release date, but the trailer indicates that the film will release in December of 2016. We’ll provide that information as it becomes available. In the mean time, the most refined off-screen version of the trailer we’ve been able to find is available below.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/ivv51UmwTrw[/youtube]