By Rogue One opens next week. Can you believe it? I’m legitimately getting more excited for this movie as the release draws near. Over the weekend, two new clips for the film surfaced, as well as some indication that Rogue One will tie into Rian Johnson’s Episode VIII.
Before dipping into the Episode VIII stuff, first let’s check out the clips. This first clip was part of a special 60-minute Q&A/panel in San Francisco. (For a moment I thought it was the 28-minute preview at Skywalker Ranch, which we noted when discussing the 30-minute Q&A with Gareth Edwards and the Rogue One cast.)
Another short clip has a brief appearance by Jimmy Smits as Bail Organa.
Okay, onto the speculation about Rogue One and Episode VIII.
Over at Entertainment Weekly, they ran the following graphic in a video about the continuity of the Star Wars films and its canon:
Notice the red lines from Rogue One.
There’s no explanation of how Rogue One connects to Episode VIII or The Empire Strikes Back in the Entertainment Weekly video, mind you. Maybe they know something we don’t. It would make sense that the movie released this year (which is basically Star Wars Episode 3.5: Rogue One) would help set up some events or reveals in Episode VIII, which comes out December next year.
I’ll go into a few theories in bit. Keep in mind they are just unconfirmed speculation.
Feel free to stop reading now if you don’t want to see any of the theories that could be ****POTENTIAL SPOILERS****.
There’s been some suggestion among online Star Wars fans that Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) might be the mother of Rey (Daisy Ridley) from The Force Awakens, or perhaps related to Rey in some capacity. Another theory suggests that the Rebel Alliance strike force of Rogue One might have some connection to the Knights of Ren, the mysterious dark side group of which Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is a member. An outlier theory is that Jyn becomes Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie), which i don’t really buy.
The Knights of Ren theory seems most intriguing to me. There are five members of the Rogue One strike force, and in concept art for The Force Awakens, there are five members of the Knights of Ren (apart from Kylo Ren). Each of these five Knights of Ren seem to correspond to a character type from the rebel strike force. There’s a detailed explanation of this Knights of Ren/Rogue One connection at The Cancrizans.
Makes me wonder if something awful happens to our heroes in Rogue One.
We won’t have to wait much longer to find out what the connection is. Well… I guess we probably will since Episode VIII isn’t out for another year. Oh well. Speculate away in the comments.
[via /Film]