Disney's smash-hit sci-fi thriller features one of the studio's best casts, and the movie fully deserved its massive $1 billion box office haul. Disney has been pumping out blockbuster tent poles for decades, accumulating franchises and other major studios along the way. From the Marvel Cinematic Universe to James Cameron's Avatar, Disney controls some of the biggest brands in science fiction and fantasy, including, of course, Lucasfilm and Star Wars.
While not everything Disney has done since acquiring Star Wars in 2012 has been equally financially or critically successful — the Star Wars sequel trilogy was somehow even more divisive than George Lucas' prequels, and The Mandalorian and Grogu is currently lagging in theaters — one of the few titles the entire Star Wars fandom and the wider audience seem to be able to agree on is Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Before its 2016 premiere, Rogue One was an undeniable gamble. It was the first anthology Star Wars movie ever made, an initiative that soon collapsed after the middling performance of Solo: A Star Wars Story. It was a prequel to one of the most popular and iconic movies of all time. Rogue One underwent significant reshoots and rewrites before the final cut was sent to theaters. Did this Star Wars story really need to be told? What would it actually add to the timeline?
Gareth Edwards' movie also featured very few recognizable Star Wars faces or characters, save for a terrifyingly CGI'd Grand Moff Tarkin, brief shots of Princess Leia, Bail Organa, and Mon Mothma, Saw Gerrera, who, at that point, would really only have been meaningful to Star Wars: The Clone Wars fans, and some crowd-pleasing moments for Darth Vader. Given the hype after the release ofthe nostalgia-fueled Star Wars: The Force Awakens, there was no way to know how audiences would react to an entirely new crew.
Strangely, though, the lack of a familiar Star Wars character roster is one of the movie's greatest strengths. This was a story in which the heroes were destined to succeed but also to die. Each Rogue One cast member, from Diego Luna's hardened Rebel Cassian Andor and Felicity Jones' begrudging leader Jyn Erso to Donnie Yen's optimistic Chirrut Îmwe, Wen Jiang's loyal Baze Malbus, and Riz Ahmed's brave Bodhi Rook, offered the story a sense of urgency, courage, and, above all, hope. Somehow, this disparate group of nobodies saved the entire galaxy, and the actors made everyone believe that they could, even when the odds were stacked against them.
A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away · Eight Questions How Well Do You Know Star Wars? “The Force will be with you. Always.”
🗡️Jedi OrderLight-side guardians
⚡The SithRule of two
⚙️The RebellionA new hope
🪓Bounty HuntersThis is the way
👑The EmpireOrder 66
01
The original Star Wars film — later retitled Episode IV: A New Hope — opened in just 32 American theatres and proceeded to become the highest-grossing film of its era, redefining what summer blockbusters could be. In which year did it premiere?
✓ Correct! 1977 — specifically May 25. 20th Century Fox had so little faith in the project they only opened it in 32 theatres at first; queues quickly stretched around the block, and the film expanded to over 1,000 screens within months. It earned $307 million in its initial domestic run, won six Academy Awards (with another four nominations) and inverted Hollywood’s economics for the next 50 years.
✗ Wrong. The answer is 1977. 1975 is when the script was being shopped around. 1979 is when Star Trek: The Motion Picture released as a Star Wars-shaped countermove. 1980 is The Empire Strikes Back. The original Star Wars is May 25, 1977.
02
A New Hope’s writer-director was a then-32-year-old American Graffiti veteran who’d struggled to get the project greenlit and famously took back-end profit and merchandising rights in lieu of a higher salary — the deal that would build a billion-dollar company. He returned to direct the prequels but stepped away from the original-trilogy sequels. Name him.
✓ Correct! George Lucas. The merchandising rights he kept (because Fox didn’t value them) became the financial bedrock of Lucasfilm and the basis of the modern toys-and-licensing megabusiness. After A New Hope, Lucas produced but didn’t direct Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner) or Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand), then directed all three prequels (1999–2005). He sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012 and stepped away from creative control of the sequels.
✗ Wrong. The answer is George Lucas. Steven Spielberg was Lucas’s close friend (and the godfather of his post-A-New-Hope career) but never directed a Star Wars film. Coppola was Lucas’s mentor at USC and at American Zoetrope. Irvin Kershner directed Empire Strikes Back. The original is Lucas’s.
03
In 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader delivers cinema’s most-misquoted line at the climax of his Cloud City duel with Luke Skywalker. Vader severs Luke’s hand and reveals their relationship. The exact line is — for the record — “No, I am your father.” What relationship does it confirm?
✓ Correct! Vader is Anakin Skywalker, Luke’s father. The reveal was so jealously guarded that Mark Hamill was only told the real line on set the day they shot it (the script said “Obi-Wan killed your father”), and even James Earl Jones recorded the dub without knowing the full plot context. The line — commonly misquoted as “Luke, I am your father” — rewrote what trilogies could pull off and is broadly considered cinema’s most famous twist.
✗ Wrong. The answer is that Vader is Luke’s father, Anakin Skywalker. The whole foundation of the Skywalker saga collapses to this single twist: Anakin (the Jedi prodigy of the prequels) becomes Vader after his fall. Luke and Leia are revealed in Return of the Jedi to be his twin children, separated at birth.
04
Yoda — the green, ear-twitching Jedi Master — was puppeted and voiced from his Empire Strikes Back debut through the prequels and the sequels by a single Muppet-show-veteran performer who also voices Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear. Name him.
✓ Correct! Frank Oz — longtime Jim Henson collaborator and voice/puppet work on Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Sam Eagle and Grover. Oz puppeted Yoda directly through The Phantom Menace before CGI took over for Attack of the Clones onward, but he’s continued to voice the character through the sequels and animated series. Yoda’s syntax was developed jointly by Lucas and Oz to feel old, foreign and hard-won.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Frank Oz. Jim Henson was Oz’s mentor and collaborator (he created the Muppets) but didn’t voice Yoda. Steve Whitmire took over Kermit after Henson’s 1990 death. Brian Henson is Jim’s son and runs the Henson company today. Yoda is Frank Oz’s.
05
In a deal that reshaped Hollywood, Disney acquired Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion in cash and stock — bringing Star Wars, Indiana Jones, ILM and Skywalker Sound under the Disney umbrella. The deal also kicked off the sequel trilogy production. In what year did Disney close the acquisition?
✓ Correct! 2012 — specifically October 30. The deal was announced with simultaneous reveal that a Star Wars Episode VII was being developed for a 2015 release. Lucas had been quietly preparing his exit from Lucasfilm for years; Kathleen Kennedy had been brought in as co-chair months earlier specifically to take over. The Force Awakens came out three years later, in December 2015, kicking off the modern era.
✗ Wrong. The answer is 2012. 2009 is when Disney acquired Marvel ($4 billion). 2010 is the year before Lucas began signalling exit plans. 2014 is when production proper began on The Force Awakens. Lucasfilm joined Disney on October 30, 2012.
06
The Mandalorian launched as Disney+’s flagship original on November 12, 2019 — the day the streaming service itself launched. Created by Jon Favreau and run by Dave Filoni, the show centres on a helmeted bounty hunter who reluctantly becomes a foster father to “The Child” (Grogu). What is the Mandalorian’s real name?
✓ Correct! Din Djarin — played by Pedro Pascal under the helmet (with body double Brendan Wayne handling much of the physical work). The Mandalorian is widely credited with reviving Star Wars on TV, popularising the StageCraft LED-volume virtual production technology now used across Hollywood, and turning baby Yoda — Grogu — into the meme-economy phenomenon of late 2019. Three seasons have aired with a feature film, The Mandalorian & Grogu, set for May 2026.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Din Djarin. Boba Fett is the famous bounty hunter from the original trilogy, with his own Disney+ spinoff (The Book of Boba Fett, 2021). Cobb Vanth is the Tatooine marshal played by Timothy Olyphant. Bo-Katan Kryze is the Mandalorian princess played by Katee Sackhoff. The Mandalorian himself is Din Djarin.
07
Order 66 — the secret directive that turns the Republic’s clone troopers against their Jedi commanders and effectively ends the Jedi Order — is dramatised in the climactic third act of which prequel film?
✓ Correct! Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). Palpatine’s “Execute Order 66” comm to the clone armies leads to the methodical, planet-by-planet liquidation of the Jedi Order — one of the saga’s most operatic sequences, scored to John Williams’ “Anakin’s Betrayal” cue. The same film features Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side, the Mustafar duel with Obi-Wan, and his rebirth as Darth Vader in the suit. Widely re-evaluated as the best of the prequels.
✗ Wrong. The answer is Revenge of the Sith. Phantom Menace ends with Qui-Gon’s death and the unveiling of Darth Maul. Attack of the Clones ends with the Clone Wars beginning. Rogue One is set just before A New Hope, after Order 66 has long since happened. The Order 66 sequence is the climax of Episode III.
08
Andor (2022–25) is widely regarded as the most adult, politically literate Star Wars project ever made — a slow-burn prequel to Rogue One charting Cassian Andor’s radicalisation against the Empire. The series was created and showrun by a writer/director best known for the original Bourne trilogy and Michael Clayton. Name him.
✓ Correct! Tony Gilroy. He’d previously been brought in for extensive Rogue One reshoots in 2016, and Lucasfilm gave him near-total creative independence on Andor. Season 1 (12 episodes, 2022) is widely regarded as Star Wars’ finest dramatic writing ever; Season 2 (also 12 episodes, in four three-episode jumps across 2025) closes the gap to Rogue One’s opening scene. Gilroy’s prior credits: Bourne Identity / Supremacy / Ultimatum / Legacy, plus directing Michael Clayton (2007).
✗ Wrong. The answer is Tony Gilroy. Rian Johnson directed The Last Jedi (2017). Jon Favreau created The Mandalorian and is Lucasfilm’s Disney+-era animation/live-action lieutenant. Dave Filoni runs the Filoniverse (Clone Wars, Rebels, Ahsoka, the upcoming Heir to the Empire film). Andor is Tony Gilroy’s.
The Force Has Spoken · Final Tally Your Galactic Standing
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Jedi Master — or moisture farmer on Tatooine?
Combine that with an incredible supporting cast, both on the Rebel side and the Empire's side, and Rogue One was complete. Forest Whitaker made the role of Saw Gerrera completely his own, his raspy voice haunting the movie even after his character's death. Mads Mikkelsen was a genuinely dedicated, dependable, and loving father figure. Ben Mendelsohn was exceptional as the sniveling Imperial warmonger, and Alan Tudyk's performance as the reprogrammed security droid K2-SO stole the show. It's hard to imagine the next time a Star Wars cast will come together so brilliantly and unexpectedly.
Rogue One Is Disney's Biggest Star Wars Success Story
One way to measure a film's success is through its box office. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story raked in over $1 billion worldwide, an incredible feat for a movie that had nothing to do with the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Of course, this isn't close to the $2 billion earned by The Force Awakens, and both Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker earned more (though The Rise of Skywalker only earned $20 million more overall). In a franchise like Star Wars, though, one could argue that the best way to measure a story's success is how it influences the wider narrative moving forward.
Rogue One's financial achievement undoubtedly contributed to the creation of Disney+ and Tony Gilroy's Andor. Once again, though, Star Wars was taking a risk. Disney+ was still finding its footing, and what could a prequel to a prequel possibly have to offer the wider Star Wars saga? As it turned out, everything. Andor is, without question, one of the best things Star Wars — and even Disney as a whole — has ever produced.
Andor somehow encompasses everything that Star Wars is while elevating it to a whole new level, all without ever involving the Jedi or the Sith. This is the Rebellion at its most raw and real, and Luna's Cassian Andor is a shining beacon of hope in a story that the audience already knows will end in tragedy.
The beauty of both Rogue One and Andor, beyond their fascinating stories, compelling characters, and incredible casts, is that they represent a part of Star Wars that is accessible to anyone. These stories are Star Wars stories, yes, but they also reflect the wider world and the importance of hope in the face of oppression and adversity. Viewers don't need an advanced degree in the galaxy's lore to understand them. They connect wonderfully, too, but either can be watched as a standalone. In a franchise that's becoming increasingly interconnected, that is an undeniable advantage.
Overall, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story changed what a Star Wars movie and story could be, and for that, it will always remain one of the franchise's most important projects.
Release Date
December 16, 2016
Runtime
133 Minutes
Director
Gareth Edwards
Writers
Chris Weitz, Tony Gilroy
Producers
Kathleen Kennedy, Simon Emanuel, Tony To, Allison Shearmur
