5 ROGUE ANSWERS
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story hits DVD and Blu-ray Tuesday. Chris Knight takes a look at some of the bonus material.
1 Director Gareth Edwards is a real Star Wars fan
Interviewed by producer Kiri Hart for the job of directing Rogue One, Edwards’ first words to her were: “I’ve always wanted to join the Rebel Alliance.” We also see photos taken in 2005, when Edwards, for his 30th birthday, visited the Tunisia set that served as Luke Skywalker’s childhood home in the 1977 movie.
2
Alan Tudyk is a real cutup
Despite being born and raised in Texas, the actor who performs as a reprogrammed Imperial Droid (K-2SO) in Rogue One gave his character an English accent because “a lot of Empire guys are English.” He also messed up at least a few supposed Steadicam shots because the director was shaking too much with laughter. Among his ad libs was talking to passing stormtroopers as though he knew them: “Clive, nice to see you. Darren, hello, hello. Gail, looking good; you’ve lost a little.”
3
Ralph McQuarrie is a real inspiration
The designer of many of the iconic sets and costumes in the original Star Wars trilogy, McQuarrie died in 2012 at the age of 82. But the crew of Rogue One continued to reference his material, including unused sketches that influenced the look of K-2SO and the elite, black-clad stormtroopers seen in some scenes.
4
The budgets are really bigger
A New Hope was made for about $11 million — a fair bit of change in 1977, but dwarfed by the $20-million spent that year on Close Encounters of the Third Kind or even the $14 million on The Spy Who Loved Me. And the producers of Rogue One note that “nothing looks quite as good as you remember.”
5
There are really a lot of references to other Star Wars movies
In addition to cameos from directors and producers, there are a lot of nods to the other movies in the series. The death of a character referred to as Red Five reminds us that this would become Luke’s fighter-pilot call sign. And that grumpy pair of aliens that start an ill-advised bar fight with Luke and Obi-Wan in the original Star Wars movie are seen in this one, already looking for trouble. Some things never change.