20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Wars: Rogue One
10. Galen Erso Was Inspired By J. Robert Oppenheimer, The Father Of The Atomic Bomb
One of Rogue One's most important characters is Jyn's father Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), a research scientist who reluctantly aided in the creation of the Death Star, and who of course built the infamous exhaust port flaw into it as a failsafe.
Galen was in fact modeled after J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist who became the father of the Atomic Bomb.
Much like Erso, Oppenheimer expressed considerable guilt over his part in helping build a weapon of mass destruction.
Given that Rogue One is heavily inspired by real-life warfare - namely the Vietnam War - it's fitting that one of its central characters would be loosely based on an instrumental historical figure.
Curiously, Christopher Nolan is imminently due to start shooting a biopic of Oppenheimer's life, set to release sometime next year.