The long-rumoured standalone Star Wars film has finally been made real via press release this afternoon. Entitled “Rogue One”, the film will be directed by Gareth Edwards, the man behind the most recent Godzilla outing, as well as the incredible indie Monsters. Very little is known about the plot, though certainly the word rogue is heavily important to the Star Wars universe (Rogue Squadron). The only star officially tied to the project is Academy Award nominee Felicity Jones (Theory of Everything).

Whether the film will fall within the new continuity or whether it will be a prequel of sort, we will have to wait and see. What is clear in this announcement, however, is that Disney has big plans for Star Wars in an expanded universe capacity. I think it is rather obvious that the process that seems to be working so well for the House of Mouse with Marvel is going to be applied to the Star Wars property. This will no doubt make many people happy, however I can’t help but fear some of the magic and soul of what made those first three films work will be diluted by an over-abundance of content (akin to how I have been feeling about the Marvel Cinematic Universe as of late). Time will tell.

You can check out the story on Variety here.

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