Nearly a decade after Rogue One: A Star Wars Story hit theaters, director Gareth Edwards reflects on his Star Wars legacy with a humorous callback to the prequel trilogy era. Speaking with GamesRadar+ to promote his upcoming film Jurassic World Rebirth, Edwards looked back on his time in the galaxy far, far away. He is very appreciative that Star Wars fans hold Rogue One in high regard, meaning he doesn’t have to worry about drawing their ire when he’s just going about his day. Edwards also discussed how a movie’s true test is seeing how it holds up several years after its initial release.
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“I mean, I’m just eternally relieved that I don’t walk across the street and people don’t shout that I ruined their childhood,” Edwards said. “It’s a bit like [Jurassic World Rebirth]. I hate the word ‘franchise,’ really, and ‘IP.’ It sort of diminishes … Like, to me, these movies were sort of semi-religious experiences as a kid, watching them, and so they mean a lot.”
He continued, “I’ve always felt – and I don’t hold any of my films in high regard like this – but I do think that, really, the test of a movie is how it’s viewed, 10, 20 years later. Obviously, there’s this anticipation with what everyone’s going to think when a film comes out … I look at a lot of my heroes, and they would tell stories, and it seems unbelievable, like I was reading the other day about John Carpenter and The Thing, and how it flopped, and how he couldn’t work for a while, and things like this. And you go, ‘What, after The Thing?’ Like, that’s a masterpiece.”
Though the reputation of the Star Wars prequel trilogy has improved over time, the films were very polarizing when they were initially released from 1999-2005. “George Lucas ruined my childhood” was a common sentiment expressed by older fans who had grown up on the original trilogy. Those viewers felt the prequels did not live up to the magic of the first three films.
A direct prequel to Star Wars: A New Hope, Rogue One was a bit of a risk as a spinoff film following an entirely new set of characters. However, many fans consider Rogue One to be the best Star Wars film of the Disney era. The movie’s reputation has only improved thanks to the success of Star Wars: Andor, which recently wrapped up its critically acclaimed two-season run on Disney+. Leading directly into Rogue One, Andor recontextualizes key aspects of the film and enhances them.
Much like the prequel trilogy, Disney’s Star Wars films have been divisive in their own way (J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson probably get some heckles when they’re crossing the street), so Edwards is extremely fortunate he escaped that fate. Rogue One easily could have gone sideways, especially since the film was reportedly subject to extensive rewrites and reshoots that tweaked everything from character development to action sequences. If Rogue One didn’t work, Star Wars fans would have been very upset, particularly because the film aims to retcon elements of A New Hope, revealing the origin of the Death Star’s infamous weakness. Adding to such a sacred text was a big risk, but Rogue One arguably makes A New Hope an even better film by highlighting the heroism and sacrifice of the Rebellion.
Hopefully, audiences will have similar feelings about Edwards’ Jurassic World Rebirth, which is looking to harken back to the sense of awe and wonder present in the original Jurassic Park. Early reactions to Rebirth have been mixed, but the film could still end up being an entertaining addition to the franchise thanks to the big-scale dinosaur action. And even if opinions on Jurassic World Rebirth are all over the place right now, it doesn’t mean it’ll always be that way. As Edwards says and as the Star Wars prequels have shown, it’s possible for a movie to be reassessed many years after its release.
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