We’re two films into the Disney Star Wars canon, and while both Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story have went down well with the majority of fans and critics – and earned a fortune at the box office – there has been some criticism that the movies are relying too heavily on nostalgia. “Legacy” characters made up a good portion of both films, next up from Disney and Lucasfilm is the young Han Solo spinoff, and there’s also persistent rumours of future Anthology movies centred around Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi. However, according to Rogue One screenwriter Gary Whitta, future movies will see a shift away from these legacy characters and elements to tell new stories.
“I think you’ve already seen us get 90% of the way there with Rogue One,” Whitta Told ComingSoon. “Yes you see Leia, yes you see the Death Star and Vader, because those are elements of that story and they belong there, you can’t tell that story without those characters. But for the most part, 90% of that story is completely new characters. Completely new planets and places you’ve never seen before. It’s a Star Wars movie with no Jedi! You don’t see a lightsaber once until Vader pops it out at the end. It doesn’t have any spirituality or mysticism… a little bit through Donnie Yen’s character, but it’s very different DNA to the Star Wars films that have come before it. I really like the fact that we tried to do something different.”
SEE ALSO: Gareth Edwards explains why the original ending of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was changed
“The next spin-off is Han Solo, that’s another familiar character, but I think increasingly you’re going to see… One of the thing things we really want to do at Lucasfilm is create a universe and not keep relying on old legacy characters,” he continued. “We’ve got Rey and Finn and Kylo Ren, they’ve already introduced a new generation of characters. Whatever kind of Star Wars films they’re making 10 or 20 years from now, I don’t think they’re going to be relying on the same legacy story elements as we have in the past. I’m speaking purely as a fan. I obviously have no idea what their plans are for the franchise. I did my small piece of it, but it makes sense to me that you don’t want to keep telling the same story over and over again. You want to tell new stories.”
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From Lucasfilm comes the first of the Star Wars standalone films, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, an all-new epic adventure. In a time of conflict, a group of unlikely heroes band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction. This key event in the Star Wars timeline brings together ordinary people who choose to do extraordinary things, and in doing so, become part of something greater than themselves.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story sees Gareth Edwards (Monsters) directing a cast that includes Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything), Diego Luna (Milk), Ben Mendelsohn (The Dark Knight Rises), Donnie Yen (Ip Man), Jiang Wen (Let the Bullets Fly), Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland), Alan Tudyk (Con Man), Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler), Genevieve O’Reilly (Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith), Jimmy Smits (Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones), James Earl Jones (Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope), Valene Kane (The Fall), Alistair Petrie (The Night Manager), Warwick Davis (Star Wars: Episode IV – Return of the Jedi), Ian McElhinney (Game of Thrones) and Jonathan Aris (Sherlock).
Originally published March 18, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
