It’s not impossible for planet Lah’mu to have Bantha milk, or for Ponda Baba and Dr. But a lot of the “Look, this is totally Star Wars!” touches to me just made the galaxy smaller and pettier. Personally, I’m not a fan of the endless callbacks - the planetary rings in the opening shot is a clever way for Edwards to respect the originals while doing his own thing, and it’s nice that we have some X-Wing squad-leader continuity, since many of those pilots should be the same people who turn up in Star Wars: A New Hope. But he has to ride the line of acknowledging Star Wars while picking his own tone and directorial style as much as possible. I’m assuming he skips the wipes and the opening crawl because those are so tied to Lucas’ conception of the Star Wars franchise as a kitschy old-school pop serial, and Edwards wants to be a lot more serious. It’s like he’s trying to earn his Star Wars nerd cred in every other shot.

Tasha: The film is full of touches like that, where director Gareth Edwards acknowledges Star Wars history - look, here’s some blue milk, here are the cantina jerks from A New Hope hanging out on Jedha for some reason, here’s Darth Vader’s egg-crate-like resting capsule - but generally makes them look slightly different this time around. So how does the movie survive the hype, the expectations, and the prequel problem? In Question Club, we attempt to find the answers. A lot is riding on how fans react to the film, which is meant to kick off a Marvel Cinematic Universe-style era of Star Wars moviemaking. It’s another prequel - a word with loaded connotations for a lot of old-school Star Wars fans - and it’s essentially a launch for Disney’s ambitious new plan to have some kind of Star Wars spinoff in theaters every year for as long as viewers will cooperate.

Virtually all the characters are original to the movie, apart from a few old friends making minor appearances. It’s the first big-screen “side story” to take its own direction and its own narrative cues.

This is the first Star Wars-related film that isn’t specifically part of the nine-episode franchise George Lucas pioneered back in 1977. Ever since Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was first announced, fan expectations for the film have been high, but emotions have been complicated.

George lucas rogue one