George Lucas Saw Rogue One and Liked It

We are less than two weeks away from the release of a brand new Star Wars movie, the second since George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012 for more than $4 billion. The creator of a galaxy far far away didn’t necessarily love what J.J. Abrams did with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which borrowed heavily from Star Wars: A New Hope. So what does he think of the upcoming Rogue One? Simply put, he liked it.

Disney is in full-blown public awareness mode for Star Wars: Rogue One right now, so they recently held a pretty big press conference for the movie. Director Gareth Edwards revealed that George Lucas has seen the movie and based on what he said, it seems as though the response was quite positive. That, as you would imagine, made Gareth Edwards very happy. Here is what he had to say.

“Two days ago we got to show George the movie, and we all had a phone call and I got to speak with him yesterday, and I don’t want to put words into his mouth, but I can honestly say that I can die happy now. He really liked the movie. It meant a lot. To be honest, and no offense to anyone here, it was the most important review to me. You know, you guys are important too, but he’s kind of god… I will take that conversation to my grave. His opinion means the world to me.”

Getting the approval from George Lucas would mean a lot to any director working on a Star Wars movie, but it also leads us to believe that Star Wars: Rogue One will be a bit more of an original story told within the Star Wars universe. It will have familiar elements like the Death Star, Jimmy Smits as Bail Organa and most importantly, Darth Vader, but we have been promised something less familiar. It will be more of a war story and it is the first ever Star Wars movie taking place outside of the main Skywalker saga. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will be finally explaining how the Rebels got their hands on the plans for the Death Star, which was teased in the opening crawl of the original Star Wars back in 1977.

We are still waiting to hear what critics and audiences think of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as a whole, but having the approval of George Lucas should be encouraging. We reported a few weeks ago that Gareth Edwards took the opinion of George Lucas into account while making the movie, as he put things into Rogue One that Lucas seemed to like during his set visit. So he will at least have some of his DNA on this new movie. After Disney purchased the rights to make new Star Wars movies, George Lucas submitted a script for Star Wars: The Force Awakens that Disney rejected. The resulting movie wasn’t something George Lucas personally loved, but he acknowledged that fans would love it, which they did. Here is what he had to say about it in an interview with Charlie Rose.

“They wanted to do a retro movie. I don’t like that. Every movie I work very hard to make them completely different, with different planets, with different spaceships, make it new.”

Most Star Wars fans really enjoyed Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but the prospect of something a little more fresh feeling is certainly exciting. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story stars Felicity Jones, Mads Mikkelsen, Riz Ahmed, Ben Mendelsohn, Alan Tudyk, Diego Luna, Jiang Wen, Donnie Yen, Wen Jiang and Forest Whitaker, in addition to featuring Darth Vader, who is once again being voiced by James Earl Jones. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story hits theaters on December 16 and if the opinion of George lucas means anything to you, it looks like it is going to be good.