Star Wars Rogue One Thread

[shakinaiken]

So excited for this. 

[TradeTheBeal!]

That is a killer trailer.

[Gibbs Hog Heaven]

After feeling let down by 'The Force Awakens' (no question by far and away the best since Jedi nut I expected so much more from all hype), leaving me cautiously optimistic but still 'meh' on Episode VIII; this first of the anthology looks brilliant. 

Can't wait for this if the trailers are anything to go by. 

Hail. 

[Momma There Goes That Man]

Showed too much. I have watchers regret ?

[justice98]

I dont know how the movie will turn out, but all 3 trailers have been brilliant.

[Chew]

This joint could **** around and be a top 20 action movie of all-time 

[DM72]

Was that a fallen Jedi statue or a temple that appeared Buried in the sand? If it was a statue, it was beyond enormous. I didn't notice that ship flying past it at first.

[Mr. Sinister]

16 hours ago, Momma There Goes That Man said:

Showed too much. I have watchers regret ?

Yep. I was excited, then I was angry... Then I was defeated.

 

Wish I never saw it

[PCS]

International trailer. Few seconds of new stuff. 

 

 

*

And managed to merge the two threads with the original getting top billing without screwing it up. I win.

[DM72]

The novel "Star Wars Catalyst", which is a prequel to Rogue One, releases today.

The only novel that I ever got was Revenge of the Sith. I'm thinking about getting this one.

[Chew]

Seeing the final trailer in theaters this weekend almost made me tear up.  Rogue One is going to be legendary.

[DM72]

Got my tix this morning.

Its been confirmed that Gov Tarkin will make an appearance.

[Gibbs Hog Heaven]

Really enjoyable read from the Director. 

 

10 more sleeps!

 

*The Times online is a subscription publication so I'm C & P'ing the whole article for your pleasure. 

 

 

FILM

Star Wars: The Empire strides out

Gareth Edwards, the British director of Rogue One, on the pressure of making a more grown-up Star Wars spin-off

Jonathan Dean

December 4 2016, 12:01am, The Sunday Times

 

Location, location: stormtroopers invade the Maldives in Rogue OneJONATHAN OLLEY

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On the outside, Lucasfilm in San Francisco looks like an office you’d arrive at to do temping work, then wish you had opted for bar work instead. The only sign that this is home to the organisation that uprooted film for ever is a Yoda fountain — but, like the green mini sage, it is tiny and mostly obscured by trees. Squint through glass doors and you’ll see a stormtrooper, but the best thing to take a snap of is a statue of the photographer Eadweard Muybridge, “Father of Cinema”, the man who enhanced our understanding of motion and pioneered modern projection techniques.

 

Putting him in bronze outside Lucasfilm’s HQ is a provocative gesture. This is the company, best known for Star Wars, that many say has ruined movies with its creed of dazzle over delicacy. Its base is the quietest thing about it. Inside, it’s like a spoilt brat’s Christmas morning, full of toys and models from projects stretching back 40 years.

 

Founded by George Lucas in 1971, Lucasfilm is the parent company of the special-effects supremo Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Both were bought by Disney in 2012. A walk through reveals exhibits ranging from Marvel’s Avengers to a matte painting used for a city backdrop in ET. Sculptures of the metallic baddie from Terminator 2: Judgment Day, in various stages of morph, are housed in glass boxes. Over lunch, two men in motion-capture suits talk in the canteen, which has a glorious view of the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s a workplace that’s good for staying young, buffered from reality by a constant coddling of nostalgia.

 

Sitting back at his desk there is the British director Gareth Edwards: scruffy, relaxed, looking the same as he did six years ago when we met in his London flat to talk about Monsters, the no-budget debut film he fine-tuned on a laptop. Since then, he has made a well-received Godzilla remake. But this month comes his big test — Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the first spin-off that takes the franchise away from its main episodic structure to flesh out tales from the surrounding galaxy.

 

He initially says his is “a little more adult” in relation to other Star Wars films, but stops himself.

“It’s more for big kids,” he says. “I’ve made a film I want to see, and I don’t view myself as an adult, really.”

 

Super fan: Rogue One’s director, Gareth EdwardsJONATHAN OLLEY

 

A friendly 41-year-old, he’s of a generation who have been allowed to take the culture they loved as children to unprecedented levels of grown-up involvement. “We haven’t had to work in a Victorian factory or go to a world war,” he explains. “You don’t have to leave your childhood.” He thinks he had Star Wars toys at home; what was definitely there was a photo of him on the Tunisian set used for Luke Skywalker’s house in the first film in the series. For his 30th birthday, he went as a fan; and, as a boy in Nuneaton, all he wanted was to “live on a desert planet and have friends who are robots”.

 

Star Wars is the reason people work in the San Francisco complex, because of both its financial success and its social impact. In 2012, the franchise’s worth, accounting for everything from ticket sales to Darth Vader duvets, was an estimated $30.7bn — and that was before JJ Abrams’s reboot last year with The Force Awakens. The seven films to date have been nominated for 27 Oscars. But such jaw-dropping figures are mere foundations for the skyscraper above. The series has broken into pop culture like no other movie. A cabinet displays a picture of Michelle Obama dancing with Chewbacca, signed by the First Lady and her husband.

 

The new film, Rogue One, is the behemoth’s biggest risk. The story takes a line from the “crawl” of text that opened the saga’s debut film, A New Hope, in 1977 — “Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR...” — and turns it into an entire plot. It has the best cast assembled for a Star Wars film: Felicity Jones, Riz Ahmed, Forest Whitaker, Mads Mikkelsen, Diego Luna and Ben Mendelsohn. But the gamble is plain to see. There will be no Princess Leia and co, or even popular new characters such as Kylo Ren.

 

 

The gamble is plain to see — there will be no Princess Leia and co

 

What’s more, the last time Star Wars told stories whose endings we already knew, we got the dreadful prequels that began with The Phantom Menace. (On a wall at HQ is a model of those films’ bête noire, Jar Jar Binks, frozen in the carbonite that did for Han Solo — a nod to past mistakes.) The pressure on the new film, then, is such that cynics are looking eagerly for something to blow; hence reports that the project was blighted by reshoots.

 

Edwards is, as is his default mode, relaxed. He says, with reason, it doesn’t matter that people already know that the plans for the Death Star were found. “It’s a problem every single historical film has had,” he argues. “You know how World War Two ended, but it doesn’t stop you being gripped by Saving Private Ryan.” As for the reshoots, he says they were planned. “It’s normal,” he shrugs, adding that knowing you can try something again leads to creativity first time around.

 

“If you’re doing a scene and it’s risky, you reassure people and say, ‘We can redo it.’ It makes everyone calmer. ‘Reshoots’ is the wrong term. Reshoots is like you’re shooting the same scene again, as opposed to finding a way to give it a twist and make it stronger.”

 

So the redos weren’t to insert more humour? “No,” he says emphatically, confirming that he has also been reading the cyber-chatter. “I read a lot online. If you didn’t care what anyone thought, you wouldn’t make films. You’d just be imagining it in your head. So I do care, and it’s interesting the way things are extrapolated. Yeah, there was a comment about the tone, but it’s not the case.”

 

Indeed, push the director on the film’s thematics and he mentions Robert Oppenheimer, co-creator of the atom bomb — an inspiration not usually connected with fun. Edwards says the Death Star is a metaphor for nuclear arms, and he wanted his Star Wars not to be the simplistic good and evil of films past, but something more “grey”. Mikkelsen plays the scientist behind the Death Star technology, and his backstory riffs on the father of the atomic bomb’s quote “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”. It’s hard to imagine anything less Disney.

 

New hopes: Felicity Jones and Diego LunaJONATHAN OLLEY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s hard, too, to imagine anything more annoying than having six-year-old quotes read back to you, but, to prepare, I’d gone through our chat for Monsters — his directing debut after training on special effects. “I love the idea of playing with [a script],” he said then. “When studios gamble a small country’s national debt on a film, it’s a big ask... I’ve worked with big crews and know how restrictive it is.”

 

At the time, Edwards had a crew of four, a cast of two, locals as extras. Now he is here to discuss Star Wars. How does he bring his indie ethos to something this gigantic? “The holy grail is a combination of the two,” he says, predictably. “And we have been more successful than I hoped. The film has a vibe that doesn’t feel like a glossy, disposable popcorn movie; it’s more a character-driven emotional film set in an epic world where visual spectacle happens.”

 

To achieve this, the screenplay was adapted, and, unusually, so were elements of the shooting style — the crew, for example, didn’t always put the traditional marks on the floor to show where actors should stand. “We knocked 10 years off the focus-puller,” Edwards jokes of the man, Boris, who is responsible for knowing the distance between camera and subject. “It was nerve-racking.” But Disney’s chief executive, Bob Iger, had described the film as an experiment, which allowed the director to be “quite” brave, he says.

 

“You want to be different, but not for the sake of it. There’s a fine line between what Star Wars is and isn’t. If you go too far, it might be a great film, but it’s not going to feel like the Star Wars I grew up with.” How much indie invention makes it into the final cut will be fascinating to see. (As is customary with the franchise, no preview prints will be available before the premiere later this month.)

 

Last year’s The Force Awakens is the third highest-grossing film of all time, taking more than $2bn worldwide. That is far behind the numbers for Avatar, the biggest movie, even though you’d be hard pushed to find somebody who remembers what that was about. The reason for the world domination of James Cameron’s blue alien saga, though, is simple. The Star Wars films just don’t have the same impact in new — and key — territories such as South Korea and China; amazingly, until recently, nobody there really knew what the films were. In South Korea, Avatar took $105m at the box office, compared to $24m for The Force Awakens. In China, the former took $204m, the latter $124m. A New Hope didn’t screen in China until 2015, nearly 40 years after it was made, and Darth Vader was best known for his appearances in series such as Family Guy and The Big Bang Theory. So in China, cinema’s best villain is a figure of fun, camping it up and hobbling one of the film’s biggest selling points. No wonder Rogue One has cast two Chinese stars. They are needed to boost this prequel to a film very few of their countrymen have seen.

 

Edwards is diplomatic. “It was a sign of the times — and because it was made in England — that the cast [of A New Hope] were predominately white male. We were keen to counteract that. When our film begins, we are in a very diverse world. Everyone is struggling against the Empire.”

 

Speaking of a powerful body able to crush anyone who disagrees with it, how much does he try to please the Star Wars obsessives? After Harry Potter, the franchise has the biggest Reddit film community (sample post: “The Star Wars Holiday Special aired 38 years ago today. Let’s all take a moment to be thankful”).

 

Edwards smiles. “You don’t have the ‘Get out of jail free’ card you have on normal films,” he admits. “As in, ‘Nobody will notice that.’ It makes you finesse details that normally wouldn’t matter, as people wouldn’t pick up on them.” He is at home, though, in this subject matter, telling me a story about a droid that isn’t interesting to anyone who doesn’t love the series. But that’s sort of the point of the story itself.

 

Empire’s new clothes: death troopersJONATHAN OLLEY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the office along the corridor from his sits Dennis Muren, or “God”, as Edwards calls him. Muren is the visual-effects pioneer behind many of the wow moments in Spielberg’s and Cameron’s films. He’s the man who brought dinosaurs back to life in Jurassic Park. He has nine Oscars and is talked about by the next generation with an enthusiasm usually reserved in tech circles for Steve Jobs. Also on Edwards’s team as a supervisor is John Knoll, one of ILM’s top two. He happens to have co-invented Photoshop.

 

Such behind-the-scenes men have changed cinema more than any actor. But as special effects have become the lifeblood of mainstream film — bangs look brighter on posters; robots make better toys — the stories that feature them have suffered.

 

Many adults, as a result, have come to feel that there is nothing left for them at the multiplex. Abrams’s The Force Awakens seemed different. It was nostalgic. It reunited Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, and found a job for Mark Hamill. Yet, absurd as this is to say, considering it is only a year old, the film hasn’t aged well. It was exhilarating the first time round, but watch again and the plotting is forced and its ideas are copycatted, intentionally, from old films, to bring fans back on board. It actually has fewer memorable scenes than The Phantom Menace.

 

So the baton passes, inevitably, to Rogue One to offer something new, in case viewers tire and shuffle back to their television box sets.

 

There are, it seems, fresh ideas at work here. Aside from the rough and ready film-making style, Edwards has introduced stormtroopers in black, known as death troopers; and he shot on location, on the beaches of the Maldives and the platforms of Canary Wharf Tube. And there will be no opening “crawl”, the text that traditionally moves up the screen, setting the scene. What is there instead?

 

“Wait and see,” Edwards says. “Our film is the opening ‘crawl’, to some extent, to A New Hope, and it would be an infinite loop if we had our own.” He doesn’t think you will miss it. One stalwart is back, though: Darth Vader. In a big role? “His presence is more in the background,” the director says cagily. “If you come in expecting that, you’re going to enjoy the film more.”

 

I sense he can’t wait for all this to be over. Not because he has hated the experience, but because on a Star Wars film everything is a burden until the fans see it. It’s telling that Edwards’s next film won’t be part of a franchise, but a self-initiated project, like Monsters.

 

This work is harder than it looks. The sheer scale of it is daunting. You can see it from a wall at Lucasfilm that is filled with photos taken at the end of shoots. In each, the crew are featured in a relevant costume or with a suitable prop. From the ET shoot in 1982, a little more than 100 crew ride the bike that the boy Elliott had. Twenty years later, for part of the second Star Wars trilogy, Attack of the Clones, hundreds of them are lined up in rows, dressed as stormtroopers.

 

From the outside, these jobs look fun; and, of course, they largely are. But the success of franchise cinema and on-screen spectacle has meant that projects cost more and so lean more on vast success, often having to stick to a tested formula. Turning your childhood passions into the biggest job of your life — as Edwards has — can be ruinous. If it goes at all wrong, it will be like sharing a favourite place with an ex, then never being able to go there again.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story opens on Dec 16

@JonathanDean_

 

Hail. 

 

 

[Chew]

I've been wanting to say this for months, so I'm just gonna let it out.  Rogue One is going to be the best Star Wars movie ever made and possibly a top 30 action movie of all-time.  

 

Seeing the trailer in theaters made me tear up every time.  Rogue One will give you the same feeling when walking out of the theater as The Dark Knight did.  

[codeorama]

I have my tickets for the first showing. Can't wait. I'm expecting this to be better than TFA.

[Metalhead]

14 minutes ago, youngchew said:

I've been wanting to say this for months, so I'm just gonna let it out.  Rogue One is going to be the best Star Wars movie ever made and possibly a top 30 action movie of all-time.  

 

Seeing the trailer in theaters made me tear up every time.  Rogue One will give you the same feeling when walking out of the theater as The Dark Knight did.  

Same here, Chew. I have a feeling it could rank right beside Empire Strikes Back.

 

This is what the prequels should have been...a rough, oppressive past that actually shows the Empire being evil in everyday life.

 

And I already have my tickets for friday night, 8 pm. At that time slot, the crowds and audience are going to be rowdy and passionate, that's for sure!

 

[S.T.real,lights,out]

I have never been a star wars fan. Just got into them too late. Watched the first two star wars and couldn't get myself to watch any more. 

 

However i really liked the newest one they came out with. Going to try and see this one as well. Trailers look awesome. 

[codeorama]

17 minutes ago, Metalhead said:

 

 

This is what the prequels should have been...a rough, oppressive past that actually shows the Empire being evil in everyday life.

 

 

 

The Empire didn't exist yet.  The prequels show HOW the Empire came to be.  It was a different state of the galaxy.  

[Chew]

I'm just excited that we get to see part of the universe Lucas created without being tied to our usual bunch of folks.  As much as I've enjoyed them all, it should be refreshing.

 

18 minutes ago, S.T.real,lights,out said:

I have never been a star wars fan. Just got into them too late. Watched the first two star wars and couldn't get myself to watch any more. 

 

Look at me.  The Star Wars movies are awesome, you can't get enough of them.  You're going to see Rogue One in theaters three times.

 

[Metalhead]

40 minutes ago, codeorama said:

 

The Empire didn't exist yet.  The prequels show HOW the Empire came to be.  It was a different state of the galaxy.  

Sorry, what I meant is that the prequels should have been during, and built upon, the "Dark Times"...basically beginning with the Clone Wars just as Obi-Wan told Luke about. Not to derail further but imo (which I think I said in here before), Phantom Menace should never have happened and Rogue One should be the true Episode III.

[Chew]

8 minutes ago, Metalhead said:

Phantom Menace should never have happened 

 

In more ways than one....

[codeorama]

1 hour ago, Metalhead said:

Sorry, what I meant is that the prequels should have been during, and built upon, the "Dark Times"...basically beginning with the Clone Wars just as Obi-Wan told Luke about. Not to derail further but imo (which I think I said in here before), Phantom Menace should never have happened and Rogue One should be the true Episode III.

 

 

Gotcha. I don't agree but I see what you mean now. I like how they clone wars and rebels cartoon series are used to fill in the other stories. 

[CBass1724]

I will be seeing Rogue One on 12/16!  Pretty pumped to see it.  IMAX too!

 

I'm not huge into Star Wars, really.  I've seen 4, 5, and 6 one time each.  Saw The Force Awakens in the theater last year.  But have been told by many Star Wars fanatics not to bother with the prequels (Phantom Menace, Clones, Sith).  I'll eventually see them but not right now.  I definitely see how everyone has been obsessed with this series since the 70's.  It was way ahead of its time.  

[Yohan]

I scored 4 tickets for a 12/14 prescreening from a vendor who rents out the theater for the big blockbuster movies. My son is pumped up to see Rogue One early. I'm sure to mock his friends. This looks really good as Youngchew mentioned.

[Gibbs Hog Heaven]

2 minutes ago, Yohan said:

I scored 4 tickets for a 12/14 prescreening from a vendor who rents out the theater for the big blockbuster movies. My son is pumped up to see Rogue One early. I'm sure to mock his friends. This looks really good as Youngchew mentioned.

 

Can I be your son for the night? PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

 

I'll be dead good 'dad.' PROMISE!

 

Hail.