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With Rogue One opening tonight across the country, Disney recently held a huge press junket for the film in San Francisco. Unlike Star Wars: The Force Awakens, where we interviewed the cast without seeing anything but the trailers, Disney showed us almost thirty minutes of the film at Skywalker Ranch so reporters could learn more about the story and new characters since Rogue One takes place before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope. Like I said on Twitter and during a Facebook Live chat (which you can watch here), the footage was fantastic and left all of us wanting more.

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Image via Lucasfilm

Without going into spoiler territory, the thing that made me most excited is how, even though Rogue One takes place before the events of Episode IV, it feels completely unique and original. It looks and feels like a war movie that happens to take place in the Star Wars universe. In the footage, we saw plenty of scenes showing how the Empire is trying to take control of the universe and the brutality that happens when you try and resist. Part of the reason it feels like a war movie is because that’s what director Gareth Edwards set out to make. As you can see him explain in this interview, he shot Rogue One like a documentary embedded in a war zone. And after seeing the footage, I can say he succeeded.

During my interview with Donnie Yen he talked about what makes Rogue One different from all the other Star Wars films, how much Lucasfilm and the story group told him about his characters’ backstory, the main reason he wanted to be in the movie, his action scenes, and more.

If you’d like to know what people thought about Rogue One after the world premiere Saturday night in Hollywood, click here. You can also click here for Matt’s review. And if you missed my interviews with Mads Mikkelsen and Ben Mendelsohn, Alan Tudyk and Riz Ahmed, Felicity Jones, or Diego Luna, click the links.

Donnie Yen:

  • How they set out to make a war movie.
  • What was the highlight of being in Rogue One?
  • What did he want to bring to his action scenes?
  • Did he talk to the Lucasfilm story group about the background of his character?
  • Deleted scenes talk.
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Image via Disney/Lucasfilm
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Image via Lucasfilm
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Image via Lucasfilm

 

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