And here’s a look at the concept art as seen in the panel! Thanks for following along!
And the video will play one more time! Big applause for the panel.
For Rogue One, they’ll be shooting in the UK and around the world.
AND he took his own watching-the-Tatooine-suns-set photo.
How big a fan is he? For his 30th birthday, he visited the original Star Wars set in Tunisia, took blue dye so he could have blue milk in the Lars homestead. Big applause.
He FaceTimed with his mother when he was finally able to tell her — and took a photo.
Edwards says it was painful to not be able to tell anyone he got the job — even at Christmas when he was getting Star Wars presents.
It was a note that Edwards was almost scared to read — a description of the movie. “I couldn’t sit in a cinema and know that someone else made this film.” He had to take it.
She says that when they met, Gareth was humble and had lots of reverence for Star Wars. “I said I’m going to send you something.”
“I feel strongly that we should involve directors early in the process.” Many people, including Jason McGatlin, recommended Edwards. Kiri and the team watch Monsters “and were really impressed.”
Hart: “I love movies where people try to do something really difficult. I was just immediately excited about it.”
Edwards says he still bugs Knoll to add features.
Edwards says Knoll is “a genius.” When John was young, he and his brother wrote a piece of software — “called Photoshop.”
Kennedy says she was at the job for about 20 minutes when it was pitched. “There was no way I was going to say no. This was a really cool idea.”
“I started thinking about which story would I like to see told? I informally pitched it around…One of the people I pitched it to was Pablo, and he was pretty enthusiastic about it as well…I made an appointment with Kathy and Kiri, pitched the 20-minute version of this, and got a pretty good response.” A round of applause!
Knoll joins the panel!
Edwards is discussing his crew — lots of notable names, including John Knoll of ILM, who came up with the story idea.
An image shows on screen of concept art — Rebel soldiers charging on the ground! Felicity Jones will play a Rebel soldier.
What are they going for? Edwards: “Real…This is a real place that we’re really in…The thing that interests me about it, is Star Wars was basically very black and white. Our movie is gray.”
Hidalgo notes that the Anthology series lets them tell stories that may not involve Jedi.
“It comes down to a group of individuals who don’t have magical powers that have to somehow bring hope to the galaxy.”
What is the role of Jedi?
Edwards: It’s set after Episode III, before IV — and a little more towards IV.
And your official description: A band of resistance fighters unite for a daring mission to steal the Death Star plans in the Star Wars Anthology film, Rogue One.
Huge ovation — let’s roll it one more time.
Footage rolls…. A TIE fighter soars over a forest/jungle planet. An ominous space station-like image is seen in the clouds…
“You came here with nothing?” Pablo asks. “There might be something.” The lights go down.
“It’s not like the more you scream, the more footage gets generated,” he jokes. They have not actually started filming yet — still in preproduction.
Does Gareth have any footage to wow us…?
He says that when the Force Awakens teaser started, he could “feel the tears…I was like, don’t cry…as soon as Han turned up, this tear just went down.”
And now Gareth Edwards joins the panel!
“There are very few filmmakers that we bring into the room that don’t tell us [how Star Wars influenced them].”
“I think this as opportunity for us to tap into emergent directing talent out there and do some things that are unexpected.”
Hart: “We’re extremely excited about these…we’re going to be calling them Anthology films.”
Kennedy says that Lucas “Was really interested in exploring all the stories that existed inside the universe.”
There has been a lot of speculation on the stand-alone films, Pablo points out. Now, we can clarify some things.
And we’re off — host Pablo Hidalgo is on stage! Unfortunately, Josh Trank is under the weather, and won’t be joining. But Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and the Story Group’s Kiri Hart are here!
Welcome!
