The cast and crew of ‘Star Wars: Rogue One’ have appeared at
Star Wars Celebration Europe… and they gave us a hint of what we can expect
from the first ‘Star Wars’ spin-off.
‘Star Wars: Rogue One’ is just around the corner, and with
an all-new behind-the-scenes
sizzle reel, we’ve got our closest look yet at the upcoming ‘Star Wars’
spin-off. Thankfully, there’s plenty more where that came from, as the cast and
crew took to the stage at the ExCel London for a quick panel.
And some of the stars even let on a lot more than they should have.
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Here’s what we learned from the ‘Star Wars: Rogue One’ panel…
Rogue One is a gritty
war story
That’s right – ‘Star Wars: Rogue One’ has more than a
passing resemblance to ‘The Dirty Dozen’ in both plot and visuals… and that’s
surely no coincidence. Director Gareth Edwards explained that he’ll be bringing
something new to the table.
And with a behind-the-scenes glimpse of ‘Rogue One’ filming,
it looks as though we’re getting a very different kind of ‘Star Wars’ movie.
“The pressure’s so high,” explained director Gareth Edwards.
“We’re making a film that’s right touching my favourite movie of all time. But
then, if you’re too respectful of it that you daren’t do anything new or
different, or take a risk, then what are you bringing to the table?”
Jiang Wen really shouldn’t do interviews
‘Star Wars: Rogue One’ star Jiang Wen is playing Baze Malbus
– a rough and ready soldier who takes up arms against the Empire on his
occupied home planet… and soon gets tangled up with the Rebel Alliance.
But while discussing his character on stage, Wen dropped a
massive ‘Rogue One’ spoiler.
If you want to find out exactly what that spoiler is, you
can find
out more here… but suffice to say that Jiang Wen was probably kicking himself
once he got backstage.
Mads Mikkelsen
confirmed to play Jyn Erso’s father
It’s been rumoured for some time, but now it’s finally
confirmed – Mads Mikkelsen is playing Jyn Erso’s father. And now we even have a
name: Galen Erso.
“My character is a person of interest,” said Mads Mikkelsen.
“It would kind of be a big spoiler if I say too much but what can I say… he’s a
scientist and he at one point invented something so beautiful and so fantastic
that it might change the universe. That’s all I can say.”
Quite what that means remains to be seen… but Galen’s robed
look is certainly interesting.
Mark Hamill visited
the Rogue One set
One of the perks of being a ‘Star Wars’ legend is being able
to turn up on set to find out what’s been happening in the galaxy far, far away…
and Mark Hamill took the chance to geek out with director Gareth Edwards.
“I was with Felicity [Jones] and we were in the middle of a
shot,” he explained. “And someone just nudged me and pointed to this guy in the
corner and said ‘do you want to meet Luke Skywalker?’ I looked over and there
was Mark Hamill.”
“I went over to him and he was wearing a Godzilla t-shirt,”
he added, “which is the film I made before… and I was like, you know when you
go up to someone and you’re so in awe of them? I don’t know what I said to him –
I was trying to be articulate and intelligent and I don’t know what came out,
and he was being really sweet and complimentary.”
“All I was thinking, as he was talking to me was: ‘Please
Lord, someone be taking a photograph of this – nobody is going to believe I met
Luke Skywalker!’”
Rogue One was
developed on the back of Star Wars: Underworld
Although we’ve never had a ‘Star Wars’ spin-off film before,
the idea isn’t exactly new.
In fact, it looks as though the concept of ‘Star Wars: Rogue
One’ was created thirteen years ago by ILM’s Chief Creative Officer, John
Knoll. And it’s all on the back of the now-defunct ‘Star Wars: Underworld’ live
action TV series.
“This started about thirteen years ago when we were shooting
‘Episode III’ in Sydney, and I heard that George was developing this
live-action TV series. I got thinking about what sort of fun stories you might
be able to tell in that episodic format and I started playing around with this
idea drawn from the opening crawl of ‘Episode IV’ for this ‘Mission Impossible’
style spy mission to steal the Death Star plans.”
“I started to tinker around with what the plot structure for
something like that would be and… I started to realise that this idea had no
place in that concept, so I dropped it. It wasn’t until later when the new
slate of films was announced a few years back that I was thinking ‘that
original idea could make a pretty good stand-alone film’.”
Alan Tudyk’s K-2SO is
awesome
It’s no secret that Alan Tudyk played a new droid in ‘Star
Wars: Rogue One’.
But what we didn’t realise was that he’s absolutely awesome.
“He speaks his mind and says things that could be …
unsettling,” said Tudyk as he gave
us a hint of what to expect from K-2. “He’s very honest. If you know any
old people, it’s like that. He says whatever he thinks.”
K-2SO is described as being a good friend of Captain Cassian
Anders… and that Anders is the one responsible for re-programming the
former-Imperial droid in order to serve the Rebel Alliance.
“Cassian re-programmed him,” explained Tudyk. “And he did
like, a data wipe… and when he re-programmed him, he’s not quite all there… it
was great to play him.”
Darth Vader is back…
obviously
Not exactly a huge surprise, but Darth Vader has returned.
The iconic ‘Star Wars’ villain is synonymous with the
franchise… and considering the plot of ‘Star Wars: Rogue One’ it would perhaps
be a bigger surprise if he wasn’t in the movie. Still, we finally got a glimpse
of his silhouette in the latest ‘Rogue One’ trailer – still unavailable to the
general public.
And while it was an understated appearance, they did confirm
that James Earl Jones is back providing that iconic voice.
‘Star Wars: Rogue One’ heads to cinemas on 16 December 2016.
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Picture Credit: Lucasilm, Ryan Leston