Star Wars: Rogue One - 10 Crazy Rumours You Should Definitely Believe

There's no way they won't have a Vader cameo.

By Alex Leadbeater /

When Yoda said "Always in motion is the future", he sure wasn't wrong. It feels like every week brings with it a the announcement of a new key piece of Star Wars information, ready to send fans (read: everyone) crazy. So far, much of the focus has been on J.J. Abrams The Force Awakens, but this week Disney dropped some major news about the films that will follow it. Episode VIII, written and directed by Rian Johnson, has been moved from the predicted December 2017 date to May of that year and the first spin-off film, directed by Gareth Edwards and starring Felicity Jones, is going to be called Rogue One. There's not much to say about Episode VIII (the film it's sequelising isn't out until December), but the naming of Rogue One has opened up a massive discussion. That title is a pretty loaded term in the wider Star Wars canon; Rogue Squadron featured prominently at the Battles of Hoth and Endor, and subsequently became a staple of the mid-nineties resurgence, gifted their own book run that detailed their post-Return Of The Jedi adventures. Of course, with the Expanded Universe (and thus all those stories) now considered non-canon, all bets are off. So, in the face of that, just what will Edwards' film entail? Information is thin on the ground, but thanks to hints dropped in interviews (and a good dose of rampant speculation), we can take a good guess. Here are ten crazy, but totally believable, theories for Rogue One.

Honourable Mention - There'll Be No Lightsabers

Advertisement
With the title alluding to the famed X-Wing team, it seems like Rogue One may be the Star Wars movie that most embraces the idea of wars against the stars since, well, Star Wars. This has led some hopefuls to suggest that the film will be totally devoid of lightsabers. That's a nice idea (they were overused in the prequel), but, really, there's just no way a Star Wars movie would ditch its most marketable accessory. This has been a long-standing problem in the franchise that looks unlikely to go away. Having characters wield lightsabers and the Force is just too much of an allure for a storyteller to resist; if you were a protagonist in some Expanded Universe material who didn't have any Force ability when you started out, you could bet you'd eventually develop some.