With Star Wars Celebration now over, it’s nice to look back at the behind-the-scenes Celebration Reel for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which was made in the exact same powerful nostalgic way as the Star Wars: The Force Awakens behind-the-scenes video that was released at Comic-Con last year. This new video is really quite stunning and as a lifelong Star Wars fan you get quite a buzz of excitement as it features some awesome new footage of the film’s sets and the ambitious cinematic scale of director Gareth Edward‘s production.
…I truly got goosebumps of excitement and just melted into bliss as I watched this Celebration Reel.
One of the more interesting thing to come out of Star Wars Celebration and Rogue One’s Celebration Reel was the new character details, a first look at Mads Mikkelsen’s Galen Erso, the new droid K-2S0 and some glimpses of the extra’s in the movie, as well as John Knoll, Chief Creative Officer/Senior Visual Effects Supervisor at ILM showing us some early Rogue One Concept Art of the main characters for the Rogue One film, which he originally came up with the idea for.
GALEN ERSO
Lucasfilm offered us a first look at Mads Mikkelsen as Galen Erso in the film.
Galen is the father of Felicity Jones’ Jyn Erso. The actor didn’t reveal too much more about his character, but there have been rumors in the past he will have direct ties to the Empire, and may even have had a hand in building the Death Star.
Mads Mikkelsen (Galen appears to be his name in the film) is kind of the key to the film in a way. He is a scientist that took over the Geonosian Death Star project. He solved several of the flaws the Empire could not and is sort of a revered person in the Empire for his contributions. However, Mikkelsen’s character is a Robert Oppenheimer-type character. Oppenheimer helped design the atomic bomb only to say, “Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” The guilt “Galen” feels for his contributions to the Empire became too much and he defects, attempting to make things right. In order to do this, he enlists the help of his only young daughter ‘Jyn Erso’ who we get a brief glimpse off in the Production Video.
K-2S0
One of the characters I’ve been most interested in learning about in Rogue One: The Star Wars Story is the droid character being played by Alan Tudyk. The seven feet tall droid called K-2SO, and thanks to Star Wars Celebration, we have some new revealing details about the character. Actor Diego Luna says that the droid is a friend of his rebel fighter character in the movie, Cassian Andor. We’ve seen a brief bit of footage of K-2S0 already in the first trailer that was released. When describing the character, Luna says:
“One of the most important members of this team is a droid, an Imperial droid that is programmed by the rebellion. His name is K-2SO. He’s probably the best friend Cassian has in the Rebellion, or the only one.”
We also got see a brief scene in which Jyn hands K-2SO her bag, and he doesn’t like the idea of carrying it because he’s not that kind of droid. This droid really has an attitude. Tudyk went on to talk about his character, explaining:
“That’s K-2 for you. Look, she gives him her pack and he doesn’t really grab it. That’s K-2: ‘Go get the bags, droid.’ ‘No, I’d rather not. That’s not my thing.’ Cassian reprogrammed him, and did like a data wipe. When he reprogrammed him, he’s not quite all there. He speaks his mind and says things, I don’t know, that can be unsettling. He’s very honest. If you know any old people, he’s like that; he just says whatever he thinks. It was great. It was really great to play him.”
K-2S0 Rogue One A Star Wars Story New Characters Hi-Res HD Image
What a fun character! I love that he has an attitude. Although he will be a full CGI character, Tudyk was on set wearing a motion capture suit. The actor went on to talk about a funny exchange of conversation he had with Anthony Daniels, who plays C-3PO.
“I met him at that party, at the opening night [for The Force Awakens]. I said, ‘I’m K-2SO. I’m going to be the next droid in the series of droids.’ He said, ‘Do you wear a suit or are you CGI?’ I said, ‘Oh, I’m CGI.’ And he said, ‘You shit.’ Lovely man. We’re pen pals. Pen pals to this day.”
3B6-RA-7
Great also to see 3B6-RA-7, nicknamed “Threebee,” who was originally seen in A New Hope aboard the Sandscrawler when R2-D2 and C-3PO got captured by the Jawa’s. According the Star Wars history, he was part of the Imperial Security Bureau, 3B6-RA-7 was programmed to work as a protocol and spy droid, It’ll be exciting to see if he follows those spy roots on Rogue One.
The Space Monkey
One of the new characters which fans really went bananas for was Rogue One’s Space Monkey, a cackling gunner aboard a helicopter-like vessel, this Space Monkey has certainly made a big impression on social media and even appeared live on stage.
UPDATE: His real name: Bistan. He’s the gunner on a new starship known as the U-Wing, a sort of gunship and troop transport. “It’s not necessarily a character that we get to know, but I think he has a very memorable, iconic look,” said Edwards. “[He’s] one of my favorites. I can’t give away what happens to him.”
The New Characters of Rogue One
Kathleen Kennedy said “We have this amazing opportunity to be able to tell stories inside this incredible universe, In the past, all the Star Wars movies have been made as prequels or sequels, and now we can have these standalone movies to explore different places, different characters and different experiences all around.”
You certainly can see they have certainly done that with all these great new characters below.
“Bigmouth,” whose real name is Pao, a soldier who serves as a kind of platoon leader, coordinating the charge into battle. “There was this great design of this creature that’s mouth would open really wide, and he looked like he was really good at giving orders and shouting at people during a battle,” Edwards said. “I was like, ‘We’ve got to give him that moment in the film,’ and so [Pao] was born out of that.”
The’d better give this Mon Calamari denizen an actual name, posthaste, or else “chubby, blue Admiral Ackbar” is going to stick.
This willowy creature calls to mind a friendly Wampa, although there may be no such thing. The fine white fur flounces as it runs, and a breathing device makes it a curious combination of beast and machine. It’s clearly sentient, carrying either a pack of weaponry or a communications array on its back.
The helmet of this character calls to mind a yellow version of the red, pellet-masked Guavian Death Gang thugs from The Force Awakens.
Edrio Two Tubes
Edrio Two Tubes is a mercenary pilot who flies alongside his eggmate, Benthic. The two share the nickname derived from the breathing apparatus that allows their Tognath physiology to process oxygen atmospheres. Edrio’s home world Yar Togna was conquered and occupied by the Empire, forcing him to flee as a refugee. Desiring to strike back at the Empire, Edrio and Benthic have allied with Saw Gerrera
The images are from Lucasfilm’s Pavilion at San Diego Comic-Con
Geek Carl 