

JOHN KNOLL STAR WARS MOVIE
And Kathy mentioned the other day that the Han Solo movie is going to be a bit more of a Western in terms of structure and tone. “Rogue One” was envisioned as sort of a spy thriller/war mission movie. Kathy us that these standalone movies can have a little more freedom to do genre and style experiments. This is a grittier, darker “Star Wars” movie than we’ve seen at least since “Empire.” How did you guys arrive at that tone? I think she feared the flood of employees rushing to her with: “Wait, I have a ‘Star Wars’ movie too!” But she humored me, and I got a meeting with her and Kiri Hart, who’s head of the story group.Īt the end of it, Kathy said, “Alright, I’m impressed, thank you.” And it kind of snowballed from there. I got such favorable responses that each time I told this pitch, it started to get a little more elaborate: What’s the arc? Who are these characters?Ī friend of mine here said, “You really have to pitch this to Kathy.” And I realized, “Boy, if I don’t I’ll always wonder what would have happened.” The news of this slate of new films was much discussed around the hallways here, so I’d be having lunch with a friend and I’d say, “Imagine SEAL Team Six in the Star Wars universe.” It wasn’t until Kathy came on board Lucasfilm and this new slate of “Star Wars” films were announced - including these standalone movies that aren’t necessarily connected to that main through-line - that it occurred to me that the stealing-the-Death-Star-plans idea could be a pretty good feature film on its own. I realized this idea had no place in that and I just dropped it.
JOHN KNOLL STAR WARS TV
Ī few days later, I chatted with Rick and he told me a little bit about the TV series, about what the themes were and the year it took place. I started thinking, “What kind of fun stories would you want to tell as episodes of a one-hour live-action show?” That was when I first thought, “What if we elaborated on what’s mentioned in the opening crawl of about the spy mission to steal the Death Star plans?” I thought it could be kind of a fun “Mission: Impossible”-style.

We spoke to Knoll earlier this month at the Lucasfilm headquarters in San Francisco about the initial seeds of “Rogue One,” how it creatively evolved and what Lucas thinks of the film.ĭuring the shooting of “Episode III” in Sydney, I was on set supervising the visual-effects plate shooting, and Jonathan Rinzler, who was the editor of LucasBooks at the time, mentioned George and Rick were developing this live-action “Star Wars” TV show. The film carries the same PG-13 rating as last year’s “The Force Awakens,” but you’d have to reach back to 1980’s “The Empire Strikes Back” to find a “Star Wars” movie this darkly hued. The story of a secret Rebel mission to steal the plans to the Empire’s Death Star, “Rogue One” is the first film in the franchise that truly leans into the “wars” in “Star Wars,” featuring a kind of visceral violence, un-glossy naturalism and moral complexity unlike anything ever seen before in Lucas’ space opera.

As the title suggests, it’s gone slightly rogue. The latest installment in the franchise, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” which hits theaters Dec. Speaking to The Times in 1977, shortly before the release of “A New Hope,” George Lucas said he thought of the film - which was initially rated G until its studio backers asked for a less kiddie-sounding PG - as “a movie Disney would have made when Walt Disney was alive,” sagely predicting, “If I make money, it will be from the toys.” For nearly 40 years, the “Star Wars” franchise has been targeted at all ages, from the youngest padawans to the most grizzled Jedi masters.
