Rogue One: the latest news about the new Star Wars movie – The Verge

Rogue One will be available on Netflix in July

2017-06-21T11:31:18-04:00

Way back in 2012, Disney and Netflix signed an exclusivity agreement: starting in 2016, Netflix had the right to start streaming Disney films, including those from Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm, in the same window when they would begin hitting television networks. Netflix has announced that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will begin streaming on Netflix in July 2017.

This is the first time US viewers will be able to catch a proper Star Wars film on Netflix. (Canadian viewers had access to The Force Awakens in 2016.) But the Star Wars franchise isn't a stranger to Netflix by any stretch of the imagination: episodes of the Clone Wars series have …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is getting a digital release on March 24th

2017-02-22T15:36:29-05:00

With Rogue One: A Star Wars Story's run in theaters soon coming to an end, Disney announced that the film will soon be available as a home release. The film will first be released in Digital HD on March 24th, with the DVD, Blu-ray, and on-demand options following on April 4th.

The home releases will include a variety of special features. There's several character featurettes, the film's actors talking about Jyn, Cassian, K-2SO, Baze & Chirrut, and Bodhi & Saw. There are also several behind-the-scenes features that look at the creation of Rogue One, the future of the franchise, and how the film connects to the larger Star Wars universe. What …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Can we talk about that final Darth Vader scene in Rogue One?

2016-12-21T14:00:35-05:00

Spoilers ahead.

Regardless of how he's marketed, Darth Vader is supposed to be a frightening character. The trouble is, unless you've dug deeper into Star Wars lore than the average fan, you've probably never seen why Vader is such a heart-stopping terror. Even when he's Force choking Imperial peons or fighting his son, he's holding something back. Which is why I'm still trying to pick my jaw off the floor after seeing a truly demonic Vader cut down Rebel fighters in Rogue One.

This was way more intense than the fight on Bespin

I mean, did you see that scene? Vader ignites his red lightsaber in a pitch black hallway, and calmly tears throug …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Rogue One is good because it ends

2016-12-20T11:00:01-05:00

Rogue One, it seems, is a success. The Star Wars prequel opened to a massive $155 million opening weekend, the second-largest in December (only behind the nostalgia-fueled juggernaut that was 2015's The Force Awakens). There's going to be tons more to say about Rogue One, both as a standalone movie and as part of the overall Star Wars movie franchise going forward, but there's one thing that makes it stand out among 2016's biggest hits: it has an actual ending.

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ROGUE ONE, BATMAN V. SUPERMAN, FANTASTIC BEASTS, AND OTHER 2016 FILMS FOLLOW

Consider any major genre film from 2016, and almost all of them share the same inabil …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Question Club: We throw down over Rogue One’s CGI characters, choppy first act, and that damn blue milk

2016-12-19T12:48:16-05:00

Ever since Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was first announced, fan expectations for the film have been high, but emotions have been complicated. This is the first Star Wars-related film that isn't specifically part of the nine-episode franchise George Lucas pioneered back in 1977. It's the first big-screen "side story" to take its own direction and its own narrative cues. Virtually all the characters are original to the movie, apart from a few old friends making minor appearances. 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 …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The Darth Vader choke fetish meme is now canon

2016-12-19T12:31:51-05:00

I'm going to hit you with spoilers right off the bat, so stop here if you haven't seen Rogue One - but man, did that Vader / Krennic choking scene seem weirdly sexual to anyone? Or at least, like it was playing into an existing meme that has been relentlessly sexualized by the internet? And maybe like the writers were aware that it was doing so? And in being aware, like they were perhaps co-opting it into officially endorsed canon?

I should probably start from the beginning.

"Harder daddy"

The Vader choking meme spawned from a scene in Episode IV: A New Hope: a military council meeting descends into a standoff between Vader and Admiral Mott …

Read the full story at The Verge.

No spoilers: what you need to know before watching Rogue One

2016-12-16T11:01:07-05:00

Rogue One is an unusual film to come from a massive film studio in 2016. While the rest of Hollywood is aping the Marvel method - creating movies that exist, in part, to establish spinoffs and sequels in never-ending fictional universes - Rogue One is shamelessly standalone. There won't be a sequel.

Technically, Rogue One isn't even part of the core Star Wars series. Disney is calling it a "Star Wars Story," referring to a long-term plan to tell one-off stories set in the same galaxy as the traditional Star Wars films.

Star Wars stories may feature familiar characters (the next film is an origin story for Han Solo) or they may turn a parag …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Can Darth Vader really be both kid-friendly and frightening?

2016-12-16T09:08:26-05:00

Darth Vader isn't the supervillain he once was. There was a time when he symbolized evil of nightmarish, galactic proportions. With jet black armor and a fiery red lightsaber, he killed without remorse and stood by as an entire planet was annihilated. But these days, Vader is softened, more relatable. You might even call him safe. Cartoonist Jeffrey Brown has won awards for his books depicting the Sith Lord as a put-upon dad, and for certain young fans, he might be better known for his dance moves than for being the fist of the Empire.

As the steward of the Star Wars mythos, Walt Disney Studios has embraced Darth Vader's cuddlier side, but …

Read the full story at The Verge.

How dedicated Star Wars fans built Rogue One costumes before they saw the film

2016-12-15T15:49:31-05:00

The sun had long since set when I pulled into a sleepy town at the edge of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. I had driven an hour through dense forests. Trees drooped from the first snow of the season over small homes and trailers that sparkled with bright Christmas lights. It was an unlikely place to pick up a replica helmet from a Star Wars movie I hadn't even seen.

In the parking lot of the local supermarket, I met Jason. Tall, wearing a thick, hooded sweatshirt, and blond beard, he could have easily passed for a member of a local bike gang. But online, he's gained a reputation among hardcore Star Wars fans and cosplay enthusiasts for his hig …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Rogue One: our spoiler-free Star Wars review

2016-12-13T12:00:01-05:00

When Disney bought Lucasfilm back in 2012, the studio made it clear that it wanted to get the most out of the $4.05 billion it was paying. Not only would there be a new trilogy of Star Wars films, but the studio also wanted a series of spinoffs: films that took place inside George Lucas' galaxy far, far away, but didn't necessarily track the ongoing domestic squabbles of the Skywalker family. Essentially, the move was to Marvel-ize Star Wars, expanding one of the richest and most beloved properties in history to tell a never-ending stream of stories across all genres and forms of media.

Last year, J.J. Abrams' The Force Awakens did its job, …

Read the full story at The Verge.