Cognition Dissemination: May the 4th Awaken, Rogue One

When Disney acquired the rights to Star Wars from creator George Lucas, the company knew they’d inherited a potential goldmine. Like any corporation worth its salt, they wanted to start making large swaths of money with their newfound property as soon as possible, which partly began with hatching the ostensibly bonkers plan of making annual installments.

Following the release of The Force Awakens later this year, the seventh episode in the franchise, new mainline episodes will hit theaters every two years. It’s a change from the three-year gap used with previous trilogies, which served as just enough space to prevent audiences from being burned out. Spinoff installments will release between each episode, essentially giving us one Star Wars movie a year. That’s a bit much. I can count the number of successful annual movie franchises on one hand, without using any fingers.

That info should make me feel super cynical about what lies ahead for Star Wars. But I don’t. In fact, I’m almost perfectly content with how Disney is handling the franchise on the surface, and recent previews have left me optimistic for its future. It’s a weird, but good, feeling.

The simple fact that we’re receiving new Star Wars movies not directed by Lucas is alone worth looking forward to. By now, it’s hardly a secret that Lucas is far from the best director, writer, or editor around, evinced by the quality of the Prequel Trilogy — especially Attack of the Clones. While JJ Abrams has his misfires, like with Star Trek: Into Darkness being a step back from the 2009 film, he seems much more capable than Lucas in the direction department. The Force Awakens looks faithful to the world established in previous films, as shown with the first two teasers released and various media. They’re not enough to 100% convince me it will be great, but they make it look like a fun time, and sometimes all you need.

My comments about Lucas’ “skills” in the previous paragraph aren’t discrediting the man’s qualities, though. I have no problem acknowledging his talent for concocting some of the best ideas of any filmmaker around, and it’s unfortunate that TFA will lack them. The positives, however, outweigh the negatives here.

That said, it’s not hard for teasers promise great things for a potentially disappointing the main course. As many have said, The Phantom Menace’s trailers made that film look fantastic, but the result was a subpar flick with a few genuinely enjoyable parts. There’s nothing wrong with being skeptical of anything, and TFA certainly warrants plenty, given the production team’s lack of experience with Star Wars. I’m still a little surprised they bothered to bring back some characters from the original trilogy, since a couple of them haven’t aged gracefully — some outside their control, admittedly. And I’m not even getting into the peculiarly-shaped Lightsaber shown in the first teaser, which assuredly has some kind of to-be-revealed practical use, right?

But I can’t get too down on it. I have a smirk on my face whenever more media is shown, including today’s reveal of supposed main villain Kylo Ren and semi-reveal of alien pirate Maz Kanata. TFA should be a worthy successor to the original trilogy, provided everything comes together.

Meanwhile, I’m actually looking forward to Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One a little more than TFA, thanks to how different its tone will be compared to the previous episodic films. Godzilla (2014) director Gareth Edwards is heading up what’s planned to be an outer space war movie, featuring a group of rebels intent on stealing the plans to the Death Star. As that short plot outline implies, it will take place between Episodes III and IV.

Some of my favorite Star Wars stories throughout its history are the (now non-canonical) side stories, and that’s the “feel” this movie should capture. Its concept is different enough that the franchise should avoid the pitfalls usually associated with annualizing installments, but the subject its eventual advertising campaign should focus on is explaining precisely what makes this different from the numbered movies. Considering this is being funded by the same company whose latest nerd-related film had 42 different TV spots, this should be no concern.

I wish there was more to share about Rogue One visually other than a piece of bootleg concept art (and not the Star Wars: The Old Republic concept art many sites confused for Rogue One assets), but the movie won’t start filming until an unspecified time this summer. Advertising won’t start until after TFA hits theaters in December at least, so we have a while to wait.

Star Wars has a promising future, with the titles described in this post, 2017’s Episode VIII (coming six months after Rogue One hits theaters), and today’s nigh-confirmation that the second Anthology will be a Boba Fett origin story. I’d like to think every piece of entertainment media involving the franchise from here on will be good (including the three games EA has in development), but I’m aware of how entertainment works enough to realize there’s no way that can happen. But it sure would be nice, wouldn’t it?