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Gareth Edwards Reveals Meaning Of Star Wars Rogue One Title

‘Rogue One’ director Gareth Edwards has revealed the ‘multiple meanings’ behind the title of the first ‘Star Wars’ spin-off’ movie.

Speaking to Empire, the ‘Godzilla’ helmsman, Edwards said that it’s not just a reference to the ‘rogue squadron’, as featured in ‘The Empire Strikes Back’.

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“‘Rogue One’ is a military call sign to some extent,” he said. “[But] this is the first film that’s gone off-piste and is not part of the saga — or the Anakin story — so it’s the ‘rogue’ one, you know?

“It’s kind of describing [Felicity Jones’ character] as well in a similar way. It has [all] these split, multiple meanings that made it feel like the right choice.”

Whether he’s possibly also a bit of a ‘rogue’ choice – given his lack of blockbuster experience for such a huge project – he’s not so sure.

“I don’t know… I never see myself that way,” he said. “That’d be cool! We tried to do things different, for sure.”

Prior to ‘Rogue One’, the first in a series of ‘Star Wars’ spin-off movies for Lucasfilm, Edwards’ only big budget tentpole had been his well-received reboot of ‘Godzilla’.

It was his ambitious feature debut ‘Monsters’ which drew Warner Bros’ attention to him, made on a shoestring budget of £500,000.

Work on ‘Rogue One’ continues, with four weeks of re-shoots having taken place over the summer.

There have been rumours, from production insiders, that the principle photography has ‘fallen short’ of Disney and Lucasfilm’s expectations.

However, Disney has said: “The filmmaking team and the studio always anticipated additional shooting and second unit work to make the film the absolute best it can be, and the actors were aware there would be additional shooting.

“Coming off The Force Awakens, there’s an incredibly high bar for this movie and we have a responsibility to the franchise and to the fans to deliver the best possible movie we can.”

The movie, which stars Felicity Jones, Mads Mikkelsen, Ben Mendelsohn, Forest Whitaker and Diego Luna, tells the story of the spies who stole the plans for the Death Star, in a prequel to the first ‘Star Wars’ movie, ‘A New Hope’.

It’s due out in the UK on December 16.

Image credits: Getty/Disney