If you are a Star Wars fan, things are pretty great right right now. Disney has successfully breathed new life into the franchise after the disappointment of the prequel trilogy, with The Force Awakens being very well received and absolutely crushing it at the box office. Next up for the studio is Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and it will be the very first spin off movie in the Star Wars universe. That being the case, it looks like it may be missing a very iconic element of the Star Wars franchise.
In the recent massive EW feature on Rogue One, many new details about the movie were revealed. One particular thing of note that came up in the report was that Rogue One may not feature the classic text crawl during the opening of the movie. Here is what Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy had to say about the prospect of a text crawl when asked about it.
"We talk about that all the time. It's something that we're right in the midst of discussing even now, so I don't want to say definitively what we're doing. The crawl and some of those elements live so specifically within the 'saga' films that we are having a lot of discussion about what will define the [stand-alone] Star Wars Stories separate and apart from the saga films. So we're right in the middle of talking about that."
Every one of the seven Star Wars movies that have been released have featured the classic text crawl, which helps to set up the story and typically leads into a big, action set piece. Rogue One will be the first non "saga" Star Wars movie, as Kennedy pointed out, and Disney needs to do a few things to make those movies stand out, as they have several of them planned for the future. The text crawl is one of the most distinct elements of a Star Wars movie though, so it would be a pretty bold movie for Disney to opt out of doing one for Rogue One.
The decision to do or to not do a text crawl for Rogue One will probably come a little bit later, as Kennedy and the studio currently have bigger fish to fry. Prior to the EW feature, there was a lot of concern over reshoots that are currently underway for the movie. Reports surfaced that as much as fifty-percent of the Gareth Edwards movie needed to be reshot, but during the course of the EW feature, Kennedy tried to downplay the severity of what is going on with the reshoots.
"There's nothing about the story that's changing, with a few things that we're picking up in additional photography. I think that's the most important thing, to reassure fans that it's the movie we intended to make."
Rogue One is taking place during the time period between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope and follows the story of a band of Rebels who are tasked with stealing the plans for the Death Star. The reshoots are currently underway, but with recent confirmation that Darth Vader is indeed going to be in the movie and lots more details courtesy of EW, people seem to be much more excited than they are worried. Rogue One will be a very different kind of Star Wars movie, and if they decide to not go with a text crawl, it will be very interesting to see how they open the movie. Rogue one: A Star Wars Story is set for December 16 release.