After Revenge of the Sith, I was not expecting to see another film set in the Star Wars universe at all. At least, not as long as George Lucas held on to the franchise. In 2012, Lucas sold his company along with Star Wars and Indiana Jones to Disney for 4 billion dollars. The moment that happened, I KNEW we were going to get a new trilogy. The first of that new trilogy, The Force Awakens is here and it is AWESOME! Bring on Episodes VIII and IX. Here’s the thing, though: Disney announced that they were going to be doing a new Star Wars film each year for the foreseeable future. I was initially concerned, but after Episode VII was released, I started changing my tune. I’m surprisingly okay with it now. The first spin-off film is due to hit theaters this December: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The story of the film is set between Episodes III and IV. Basically it follows a rag-tag group of soldiers who are tasked by the Rebellion to discover the nature of the Empire’s latest weapon and find a way to destroy it. While the idea of finding the plans to the Death Star was done in a video game called Dark Forces, that wasn’t the focus of the game. Finding the plans to the Death Star seems to be the focus of this new film. The teaser for Rogue One hit the interwebs this morning.
Wow. And I mean, wow! This looks amazing. It looks like a gritty war movie, which you would hopefully expect from a movie call Star WARS. The aesthetic of the film so far, is great. It has the look and a design that seems to be straight out of the 1977 movie. The storm-trooper designs look exactly like they were pulled from the Original Trilogy. The Star Destroy looks more like a model than CG, which is a great accomplishment. We also get a look at some character moments involving Mon Mothma, who made her first appearance in Return Of The Jedi. We also get a good look at Forest Whittaker’s character, and we get to take a look at Donnie Yen’s character mixing it on up on the battlefield. The action looks amazing, and we can see what’s going on because the camera-work looks great. These are my initial impressions of the trailer, but I’m really liking what I’m seeing here. The film is being directed by Gareth Edwards, the man who brought us the 2014 Godzilla, which was freakin’ awesome. This is a great time to be a Star Wars fan. I recently wrote a post on why I loved the franchise, but even so, I’m really excited for what Disney has planned. If this spin-off is ANY indication, we may end up getting an awesome Boba Fett movie, and hopefully a great Han Solo movie. There’s so much to the universe of Star Wars, I don’t know where to begin. I really want this movie to be good, and I think it will be.