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With Rogue One set to hit theaters in a few days, Disney recently held a huge press junket for the film in San Francisco. Unlike Star Wars: The Force Awakens where they had us conduct interviews with the cast without seeing anything but the trailers, since Rogue One involves new characters and takes place before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope, Disney showed us almost thirty minutes of the film at Skywalker Ranch so reporters could learn more about the story and characters. 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.
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 and looks and feels like a war movie that happens to take place in the Star Warsuniverse. 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 Mads Mikkelsen and Ben Mendelsohn they talked about how much Lucasfilm and the story group told them about their characters' backstories, what makes Rogue One different from all the other Star Wars films, getting to shoot in Iceland, deleted scenes, and more.
Finally, if you’d like to know what people thought about Rogue One after the world premiere Saturday night in Hollywood, click here. Look for our Rogue One review tomorrow morning.
Mads Mikkelsen and Ben Mendelsohn:
- How the film looks like a war movie set in the Star Wars universe.
- How much did Lucasfilm and the story group tell them about their characters backstories?
- Did Mads’ character Galen Erso help create any lightsabers?
- How much they loved shooting in Iceland.
- Deleted scenes talk.
