Rogue One: A Star Wars Story got a lot right, and that’s certainly something that director Gareth Edwards and his team should be proud of. After all, many initially laughed at the idea of a spinoff based solely on a throwaway line taken from the opening crawl of the original Star Wars, doubting that such a thing could work. That, coupled with a tumultuous summer full of reshoots and studio meddling left fans fairly concerned about this first Anthology film, worrying that it’d be a disaster.
Well, here we are, several months after its release and it’s a bona fide hit. With $1 billion or so at the box office and glowing reviews across the board, Disney execs must be pretty happy with how everything turned out. Now, as we gear up for the spinoff’s Blu-ray release, a whole host of new goodies are hitting the web, giving us insight into some of the ideas that didn’t make it into the final cut, including alternate endings and different fates for various characters. Today, however, we’ve got something a bit more visual for you.
Released earlier was a brief but interesting clip that places the focus solely on Darth Vader. Taken from the Blu-ray – which drops April 4th – the short video teases The Empire, a featurette, which, as its name suggests, takes us up close and personal with the famous villain. In it, we get to hear Edwards and co. talk about working with such an iconic character and how they decided when and where to use him in the film. Again, it’s quite brief, but it’s enough to get us excited to check out the full thing next month.
As we mentioned above, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story got a lot of things right, and one of those was its use of Darth Vader. Re-introducing a character such as this one could have gone wrong in so many ways, but Edwards absolutely nailed it, giving audiences just enough and using the villain in an impactful way, one which only served to strengthen an already terrific film. Now the only question is, where will the Dark Lord of the Sith show up next in the Star Wars universe?