A few days ago the new trailer for Rogue One dropped and the internet lost its collective mind. I would be lying if I wasn’t included in that. Although my feelings about Episode 7 were mixed, there’s a certain appeal to the look of Gareth Edward’s film that claims to put the war back in Star Wars.
For those of you that are somehow unaware: when Disney bought Lucasfilm (and thus Star Wars) they announced a plan that would bring a new film to theaters annually. The numbered main series episodes would come out every other year (Episode 7 in 2015, 8 in 2017, and 9 in 2019) and in the years in between we would get one shot spin off stories that take place in the Star Wars universe but don’t directly relate to the main series. A young Han Solo film helmed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller was announced. A Boba Fett film was strongly hinted at too. Most excitingly however, was Gareth Edwards’ project: a film about the team that stole the Death Star plans that Leia sneaks on R2-D2 in the opening of the original film. No, not the Bothans. Stop thinking about the many Bothans that died. That was Return of the Jedi. It’s a different team. Stop it.
That project eventually came to be called Rogue One and you can see it in action above. Edwards promised fans a darker, grittier movie that showcased a realistic take on war and the rebellion. To cement this he brought on Cinematographer Greig Fraser who previously worked as the DP of Zero Dark Thirty, as well as production designers from Black Hawk Down and Saving Private Ryan. Things were looking great!
But here’s the thing: I’m really worried about Rogue One and I have a sneaking suspicion that what we end up getting will be very different from what was originally promised. For one thing the film went through extensive reshoots, reshoots that may or may not have involved director Gareth Edwards. But more importantly, my worry about Rogue One centers around one fact: The Force Awakens made 2 billion dollars at the box office.
See the original idea was that the big, numbered movies like episode 7 and 8 be the real money makers of the franchise. These films would be designed to appeal to all typical Star Wars fans (read: everybody on Earth) and would reap the benefits of this wide appeal. By contrast, the one-off “Star Wars Anthology” films as they were originally titled would, by design, be smaller in size and scope. Because these films didn’t have the expectations of the numbered titles they could be more niche, focus on a more specific demographic and do some things the other movies couldn’t.
And then The Force Awakens was actually good and made all that money. The result of this was that Disney (and their investors/stock owners) realized what the true ceiling of these movies was. If a movie with Star Wars in the title can make two billion dollars, then shouldn’t that be what we’re shooting for with each one of these movies? Shouldn’t we (Disney) be doing whatever we can to try to hit that mark with every single one of our films?
So Disney took a look at the original cut of the film and saw something that was dark and gritty: a serious movie that focuses on rebel soldiers instead of Jedi named Skywalker. A film that was much closer to a war movie than a space fantasy fans were used to seeing. This film wouldn’t make 2 billion dollars! “We need to fix this!” they cried. This is all conjecture of course. We don’t know the real reason behind the reshoots and probably never will. Gareth Edwards and Disney say they were always planned and that none of the story items are being significantly changed. But it’s enough to make a guy nervous. This whole thing feels eerily close to another story we heard this year: the disaster that was Suicide Squad.
Like Rogue One, Suicide Squad was originally envisioned as a smaller and darker version of the franchise in which it operates. The target demo and expectations were much smaller than its big brothers. And like Rogue One, something happened which caused WB to re-evaluate Suicide Squad mid stream. In this case it was that Batman v Superman wasn’t near as big of a hit as it needed to be. Suddenly Suicide Squad needed to actually make big money, both to show that DC had righted the ship, but also to make up for the losses in expected revenue. But the movie as it was couldn’t do that. It wasn’t designed to do that. So they frantically reshot and recut the movie to bring it more in line with what the original trailer showed. The result is a mess of a movie that seems like it’s trying to do both things: Be dark and edgy but also funny, quippy and mass appealing. Would the original cut of Suicide Squad have been any good? We’ll never know. But it certainly couldn’t be much worse than what we ended up getting.
So is Rogue One destined for the same? I certainly hope not. Disney has proven that they are much more competent in crafting a film than WB, at least recently. But it’s enough to cause concern. The appeal of Rogue One was that it was a smaller, different kind of story that still took place in the universe we love. But maybe in the world of billion dollar tentpole franchises, smaller stories just can’t exist anymore. Maybe just by being a movie with Star Wars in the title, Rogue One has to check certain, studio approved boxes that don’t allow for something different, new, and exciting to exist…at least not in this galaxy.
Either way, we will find out on December 16th when Rogue One hits theaters.
