After Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi turned out to be perhaps the most controversial and divisive Star Wars movie yet and Solo: A Star Wars Story’s well-publicized behind-the-scenes issues only led to box office disappointment, Disney and Lucasfilm have scaled back their ambitious plans to release a new Star Wars movie every year, with the series set to go on a three-year hiatus following the release of The Rise of Skywalker in December.
The most exciting developments in the Star Wars saga are now happening on the small screen, making it easy to forget that the cinematic spinoffs actually got off to a great start with Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Another entry in the franchise that suffered from numerous production problems, Rogue One nonetheless went on to win two Academy Awards and earn over a billion dollars at the box office, and has now become a firm fan favorite among many Star Wars diehards. The entire plot of the movie came from the opening crawl of A New Hope, with the Death Star playing a pivotal role in Rogue One.
Ben Mendelsohn, who played the villainous Orson Krennic, may have not have been the greatest villain the franchise has ever seen, but in a recent interview, the actor revealed that he’s adamant that his character claims the credit for building one of the most iconic creations in sci-fi history.
“I have peddled the line and I will continue to peddle the line that he is the man that built the Death Star, even though there’s a very strong argument that Mads Mikkelsen’s character might have, but, you know, f**k it, right? You get the chance to claim you built the Death Star, I’m taking it. I’m running with it.”
One of the main criticisms of The Last Jedi was that it altered too much of the established mythology and angered a lot of fans in the process, but one of the major successes of Rogue One was how it added layers onto Star Wars history that fans are already familiar with without altering it entirely. People aren’t going to argue long into the night about who was the chief architect behind the Death Star, so it’s no wonder well-known Star Wars fan Ben Mendelsohn is going to take responsibility.
