Director Gareth Edwards Explains Origin Of Rogue One’s Title

When Rogue One: A Star Wars Story makes a beeline for theaters in December, it’ll mark the first of Disney’s planned Anthology films – standalone stories that will be positioned adjacent to the core, episodic series.

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are currently fleshing out their own Anthology flick, one that’ll chart the origins of everyone’s favorite galactic smuggler Han Solo, while there’s also chatter of a potential Star Wars spinoff focusing on Yoda. Big plans, then, and Rogue One director Gareth Edwards is well aware of the task at hand.

Speaking in the latest issue of Empire – check out the outlet’s multiple covers here – the Godzilla filmmaker discussed the thinking behind the film’s title, which can be interpreted in a number of different ways. It draws from military terminology, of course, but Edwards also noted the ways in which it connects to Felicity Jones’ hardened Rebel, Jyn Erso.

“I’d been thinking about it. What does it mean? ‘Rogue One’ is a military call sign to some extent, 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 her as well in a similar way,” says Edwards. “It has [all] these split, multiple meanings that made it feel like the right choice.”

Setting course for the Death Star, Jones’ heroine will be spearheading a daring mission that could prove instrumental in scuppering the Empire’s plans for intergalactic domination. Also on board are Mads Mikkelsen, Forest Whitaker, Jiang Wen, Riz Ahmed, Ben Mendelsohn, James Earl Jones and Genevieve O’Reilly as a young Mon Mothma.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story shoots for theaters on December 16th.