Star Wars: Rogue One - 10 Major Reveals From The Celebration Europe Panel

10. The Idea's Been Around For Longer Than We Thought

It's long been known that the original idea for Rogue One came from ILM's John Knoll wanting to explore the ideas teased in the opening crawl. What wasn't know was how long, nor how developed, that early concept was.

Revealed on the stage, Knoll said he first came up with the idea in the Lucas days, but mentally shelved it when it didn't fit into the then-current direction of the franchise. However, he couldn't shake it, informally pitching it to colleagues at ILM and expanding it from "what if we showed that first victory?" to a fully fleshed-out plot populated by developed characters.

When Disney brought up Lucasfilm and introduced the Story enterprise, Knoll was pushed by his friends to pitch the idea properly to Kathleen Kennedy. And things just snowballed from there.