A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

In Star Wars: The Radio Drama, there are episodes that tell how the Death Star plans were stolen in detail. Why weren’t these ideas used in Rogue One? © 1981 National Public Radio and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) There are several reasons why the Brian Daley-created bits of  Star Wars: The Radio Drama  were ignored when John Knoll, Lucasfilm’s VP for Creative Affairs and former special effects head at the studio pitched his idea for   Rogue One: A Star Wars Story  to his boss, Kathy Kennedy. One of them is purely conjectural on my part, but the others are based on the movie industry reality. Daley’s expository material for  Star Wars’  Princess Leia was not cinematic enough: Sure, the Imperial invasion of Raltiir, Leia’s initial encounters with Vader and Lord Tion, and Tion’s subsequent (and fatal) visit to Alderaan work well as a radio story, but it’s hard to see Lucasfilm shelling out a huge budget for a film with not that many action scenes. ...

Cover art by Phil Noto. (C) 2017, 2018 Marvel Comics Group and Lucasfilm Ltd.  On July 11, 2018, Marvel Comics published the hardcover edition of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, a 176-page volume that collects issues 1-6 of writer Jody Houser’s adaptation of the 2016 Star Wars Anthology film and the standalone Star Wars: Rogue One – Cassian & K-2SO Special #1. Scripted by Houser ( Star Wars: Thrawn ) and illustrated by Emilio Laiso (issues 1-2, 4-6), Paolo Villanelli (issue #3), and Oscar Bazaldua, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story follows reluctant Rebel Jyn Erso’s perilous mission to redeem her father, Imperial scientist Galen Erso, by helping a small group of freedom fighters, an Imperial defector and two acolytes of the extinct Jedi Order steal the plans to a planet-killing superweapon – the Death Star. Th e Rebellion is here! The Rogue One crew makes the leap from the big screen to the comic-book page in this action-packed adaptation! All looks lost for the gal...

(C) 2016 Del Rey Books/Random House and Lucasfilm Ltd. On December 20, 2016, four days after the theatrical release of director Gareth Edwards' Rogue One: A Star Wars Story , Del Rey Books (an imprint of Random House) published the novelization by Alexander Freed ( Star Wars: Battlefront: Twilight Company ) Based on the story by John Knoll and Gary Whitta, and the screenplay by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story chronicles a pivotal event in the mythos created by George Lucas: how the Rebel spies acquired the plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon - the Death Star.  Set, of course, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away before the events in Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope, Rogue One fleshes out the title crawl seen in the original 1977 movie: It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to ...

(C) 2016 Del Rey Books and Lucasfilm Ltd. Jacket design by Scott Biel On November 15, 2016, Del Rey Books, an imprint of Random House, published Star Wars: Catalyst - A Rogue One Novel. Written by James Luceno ( Star Wars: Cloak of Deception and Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader ), this 352-page book is the exciting prequel to director Gareth Edwards' Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Lucasfilm's first film of its stand-alone Star Wars Anthology series.  Released a month before the theatrical debut of Edwards' film and Alexander Freed's novelization (also published by Del Rey), Star Wars: Catalyst - A Rogue One Novel tells how Galen Erso, a brilliant research scientist, is recruited by his friend, Lt. Cmdr. Orson Krennic, to work on Celestial Power, a top secret project for the Galactic Republic.  It is a time of turmoil in the galaxy. As the Clone Wars flare up across thousands of planetary systems, Erso, a polymath with a special interest in the mysterious and po...

We have hope. Rebellions are built on hope. - Jyn Erso Rogue One: A Star Wars Story  is the eighth live-action feature film in the Star Wars saga and a direct prequel to George Lucas's original Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope. Directed by Gareth Edwards (who also directed 2014's Godzilla ) and written by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy (from an original story by John Knoll and Gary Whitta), Rogue One is the first in a series of stand-alone Star Wars Anthology movies produced by Lucasfilm Limited and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Rogue One was conceived by John Knoll, the chief creative officer at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and supervisor of visual effects for Lucas's Star Wars Prequel Trilogy. He came up with the concept of making a movie that explained the back story of A New Hope's famous opening crawl 10 years before Lucasfilm's new chairman, Kathleen Kennedy, approved it.  This crawl, in a nutshell, is the genesis of Rogu...