Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is the newest entry in the long-running franchise. However, it's also a completely unique movie in many regards. This means that many elements that fans might expect to see in Rogue One could be left behind. As the first film that is not part of the traditional "Star Wars saga", but the first of many separate stories, Lucasfilm is currently trying to decide which elements that fans think of as being part of the franchise should be unique to the story of the Skywalker family. This means that some elements, like the iconic text crawl that opens the films, could be left out of Rogue One.
Every Star Wars film has opened in the same way. The theme music by John Williams begins while the words Star Wars appear on the screen. As they fade into the background, the Episode title begins to crawl up the screen along with some text that gives us a brief description of where the story will begin. However, according to a new story from Time, it's possible that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is going to give us a very different opening. Lucasfilm's Kathleen Kennedy says the studio is, right now, trying to figure out which elements of the Star Wars formula should belong strictly to the saga movies, and which should be part of the overall story.
The crawl and some of those elements live so specifically within the 'saga' films that we are having a lot of discussion about what will define the [stand-alone] Star Wars Stories separate and apart from the saga films. So we're right in the middle of talking about that.
It's clear that Lucasfilm wants to draw a line between the films that tell the story of the Skywalker family, what they call the saga films, and this new group of stand-alone stories that will not directly deal with those. It's an important decision to make right now because there are more films like this one on the way. Following Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, we will see a film focused on the life of a young Han Solo, and then a rumored movie about bounty hunter Boba Fett.
Up until now, every Star Wars movie was also a saga movie, so there was no need to decide which elements were truly part of which aspect of the franchise. It sounds like they're leaning toward taking the opening crawl out, feeling that particular element is more associated with the saga side of things, though it's difficult to see how they are making the distinction. Why exactly is the text crawl anymore associated with the saga than anything else?
What do you think? Which elements of the Star Wars formula do you think should be reserved for the episodes as opposed to everything else? Should Rogue One: A Star Wars Story get an all-new opening sequence as a way to help separate from the rest of the films?
