SPECULATION How Do You Think Rogue One Will Impact or Enhance the Star Wars Saga?

Just to elaborate some more on my previous post, I often hear the sort of talk about how episode 8 is nearly 2 years away but at least we have Rogue One to tide us over until then etc. I think that is the wrong way to view this movie, I think it's going to be nothing less that a fully fledged Star Wars episode, as I've said, an alternative prequel for those who dislike the current ones. Not only will it lead in to ANH, I think it is going to give us something on the origin of Snoke and thus be relevant to the ST. It also sounds like it's going to have a badass Vader in full flow, something that the PT failed to give us and it's being made by a very talented guy who isn't nearly as burdened by expectation and hype as Abrams and TFA was.

 

Fantastic points. We are going to get something that will be thrilling despite the fact that we know the outcome alread. We already know that the Rebellion won this decisive battle. We don't know how, though. Rogue One will give us more details.

I think everyone needs to keep in mind that our view of the GFFA so far has been very condensed and narrow. We've seen the Clone Wars and the Galactic Civil War both from the perspective of the Skywalker family. It's an important family, but there are so many more players in the conflict. That's what's exciting about Star Wars. You can tell so many different stories just set within a 75-year span. Rogue One will a few more of those stories, hopefully without nullifying anything in the OT or PT. It's just icing on the cake. Extra cheese. Ranch dressing on the side, if you will.

 

Reading you're last sentence .. makes me hungry

 

I agree with you and with @McDiarmid he hit the nail on it's head with his post.

 

I wanted to bring up something @McDiarmid said, in that this will be a test to see how Disney plans on treating the franchise. I agree, but I also think this is a test of Dinsey's to see how we react; this movie is truly new ground for everyone, and time will tell how we all react. I just hope Disney doesn't learn the wrong lesson, like other studios seem to be doing with the success of Deadpool (greenlighting hard-R, genre-subversive flicks instead of passion projects led by true fans who want to get the movie made right). If Rogue One is a success, Disney could jump to any number of conclusions: we liked that it was a prequel, we liked that it was a war movie, we liked that it was dark, we liked that there were bounty hunters, etc. If this movie does well and they look at the pieces instead of the whole, we could be looking at a major degradation of the franchise; that one "key thing" could potentially spill over into every other subsequent movie (by studio demand) and dilute the stories they're trying to tell.

On the other hand, if Disney plays this right, this could be the start of a cinematic EU. The best stories in the old Legends EU were often independent from "main events" (anything the Big Three were involved in) and lovingly crafted. Rogue One could be the cinematic equivalent of (though not the adaptation of) the Rogue Squadron novels. They too featured a mostly new cast with one or two recognizable characters (Biggs in One, Wedge in Squadron), with stories largely independent of the main narrative (though almost always relevant to the galaxy at large), and featured a ton of world-building (new planets, new tech, new characters). The Squadron series occupied a special place in the old EU, and I think Rogue One has the potential to have that kind of place in within the films. And if Disney sees this, we could potentially have a series of films that mirror Legends stories: the young Han movie = Han Solo Adventures, Boba Fett movie = Bounty Hunter Wars, rumored KOTOR movie = KOTOR, rumored Obi Wan movie = Kenobi, by John Jackson Miller, etc. None of the movies would be essential viewing for the main saga, but watching them would hopefully enhance your experience in watching the Episodes.

And, like it or not, this is basically what we're getting for the foreseeable future; the only thing up in the air at this point is the quality of each film, if they're cheap cash grabs or worthwhile narratives crafted by people who care.

Edit:
TLDR: a longer version of what was already said...

 

dont think a major impact would change the whole SW saga. just added characters. I can see them adding the whole church of the Jedi and jedi temples but that wouldnt be a big factor leading into the OT.

 

I would die of happiness if this movie leads to a Rogue Squadron series.

 

That would be pretty sweet, though idk if they would necessarily do a movie series. It'd be awesome if, once they start to open this time period up, they did a Netflix series set post-ROTJ that featured characters set-up in Rogue One.

 

It's tough to say. A Rogue One series would be the kind of thing that has a large enough budget to make television production companies walk away. Netflix has really changed the game though, and series like Battlestar Galactica have been very successful even with a shoestring budget. Game of Thrones is another good example of movie-scale budget for a TV show. I'm betting if there's a follow up to Rogue One it'll be in film form but the landscape has changed so much that anything is possible, really.

 

That's the thing, the landscape really has changed. 10 years ago, there's no way this kind of show would ever get made, but today? 5 years from now? I mentioned Netflix because they already have a great working relationship with Marvel, but even the networks are starting to take to event-series; look at Legends of Tomorrow on the CW. If a Rogue One series ever happened we'd likely have adjust our expectations a bit, but television is rapidly becoming just as big of a spectacle as movies currently are.

You're right though, IF there is a follow up it would likely be another film, but I honestly don't expect there to be a follow-up at all. The point of these anthology movies seems to be to make them stand-alone, to jump from story to story as opposed to being an on-going narrative. Television would be a great way to keep those stories going while the movies remain autonomous, but that's only viable if the story has anywhere left to go. I get the feeling that Rogue One will end up dovetailing right into ANH, and there may not be enough characters making it out alive to justify any sort of sequel.

 

I don't know that it will get a full-on "sequel." BUT, if the characters prove to be sufficiently popular (and some of them survive the film), then I could easily see Disney having those characters appear in some other SW projects moving forward.

I still think that them resurrected that Star Wars: Underworld TV show idea from a few years back, and sticking it on either Netflix or HBO, could be REALLY cool. Those seem like great fits for a show like that.

 

I feel like Rogue One will give us more appreciation for how important Leia's mission and later the Battle of Yavin is. After seeing how hard it was for the Rebels to aquire the Death Star plans, we'll be in more suspense when the X-Wings launch from Yavin IV.

 

First off, big props to @JediMasterRobert for the creation of this thread, and for maintaining a really friendly attitude throughout it. It's nice to see that sort of attitude on the internet. I disagree slightly with a couple things that he and some others have said, but keep in mind this is just my opinion and I'm saying this IN THE SPIRIT OF FRIENDSHIP AND DISCUSSION....Let me explain:

I think what we expect is that Rogue One will expand or change the movies around it the most (Ep IV, Ep III, etc.). This seems logical, given it's place in the timeline. However, I think we might be off-base in assuming this. I've seen the term "Episode 3.5" used a couple times on this site and in other places to describe Rouge One. I think that sums up the perspective a lot of us have, but we're probably wrong about that.

IMO, I think the movies that Rouge One will have the most affect on will NOT be Episodes 3 or 4, but rather the properties Disney itself owns - Episodes 7,8, and 9. The fact that it is set between 3 and 4 is misleading, perhaps somewhat intentionally, and is making a lot of us fan boys speculate about all the things Darth Vader could do, how that would tie in to Palpatine's actions, what's going on with Obi-Wan, Leia, etc. Messing with these storylines is VERY dangerous for Disney. If done right it could pay off for sure, but let's be real - we're all nerds here and nerds are pretty resistant to changes like that. Disney will likely face backlash if they play around with the classic Star Wars characters too much. However, they have ultimate creative freedom with 7 8 and 9 because they are Disney's movies entirely. Rogue One represents an opportunity to inject some continuity into the new episodes by setting up characters and events that happen after the OT with a story that fits in between the PT and OT. It's basically a chance to inject some glue into the universe that could tie ALL of the Star Wars movies together, not just show us more of what's going on right around ANH. If this is what they're doing, I think it's actually pretty clever.

Here are a few ways I think they'll do this:

- Lor San Tekka will likely be in the movie, and Mads Mikkelson (I think that's his name) will be playing him. It seems likely he's involved with the rebellion in some sort of important way, and his actions in the film will further explain the "This will begin to set things right" and "to me she's royalty" lines. This film could also establish why he has the map to Luke Skywalker, or why someone would trust him with that information at a later date.

- Darth Vader will be in the movie, but only in a smallish role. When the movie was first announced, they said there would be 'no force users' or something of the sort. Obviously this is not true now that Vader is rumored to be in the film, but I think they point they were making is that the Rebels will receive no help from the Jedi. Darth Vader will be an unstoppable foe that the Rebels are terrified of, and they will use this movie to show us why. This may mean Vader does some silly and over the top stunts or something, but hopefully he just kicks lots of ass with the force. I think Disney would be wise to not expand further on Vader / Anakin's motivations or feelings. He worked best when you knew very little bout him. I also see no reason why he'd be opposed to the creation of the Death Star - the dude's evil as F**K you guys!

- Snoke's backstory could be hinted at, or they could lay seeds for his backstory that we won't fully understand until EP 8 or 9. For instance, he could be a high ranking Imperial officer who has knowledge of Palpatine's long term plans. What if he's a minor character in R1, and then in ep 9 we get more information that makes us go "OHHHHH, he was THAT guy!!!"

- The real question I want answered is WHY is Palpatine building Death Stars? I mean, he's already the emporer of the galaxy, with a huge fleet of star destroyers, legions of stormtroopers, and he's corrupted the Chosen One into his personal attack dog. Does he REALLY need to be able to blow up planets on a whim? If his goal is to rule the galaxy with an iron fist, he's already doing that...The obvious answer is that the rebellion is stronger than he imagined it would be, but perhaps there's some sort of longer play here, and Snoke is continuing that in TFA and beyond. If the power to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the force, then why build a machine that is inferior to the power already possed by Palpz and Vader? I once read some speculation on this site that Death Stars 1 and 2, and Starkiller base are prototypes for some sort of bigger, force crystal powered weapon. I thought that was interesting. What if the end goal of these weapons is not just to harness the energy of the force crystals at their core into a beam, but to actually affect the nature of the force throughout the entire galaxy? Perhaps in TFA they can still only focus the energy into a destructive beam, but the goal of program is to emit this energy in a sort of shockwave that can either destroy any planet in the galaxy at once or destroy / control any force sensitive being that exists in the GFFA...Perhaps there's a limited amount of the force in the galaxy, and destroying other force sensitives would allow the dark lord to rise to the next level of power...Being the only person in the known universe that can control the force seems like a bigger trump card to hold than another giant laser that can be blown up by snub fighters.

In summation, perhaps we should view R1 more through the lens of "Episode 7.5" than "Episode 3.5"? I'd much prefer if they set us up for Ep 8 than tinkering with the OT, and I think doing that would be a pretty solid marketing move to build up hype for the next film. If R1 makes fans leave the theater itching to see Episode 8, that seems more profitable for Disney than to create a movie that makes them want to pop in the DVDs of movies they already own and love.

Edited for some spelling, etc.

 

I hope it does, the mission of stealing the death star plans was a big deal back then as the rebels needed a symbolic victory to prove the empire could be hurt & it worked.