2/10/2024 0 Comments X wing cockpit interior![]() I understand they were made from foam core, and then the CGI was built up around it? Tell us about the one-off cockpit shots in the film. The first image released of the cast from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. I didn’t hear anything for a few days, and at that point I was like, “well, I did it, at least now I don’t have to wonder.” A week later I got a call from Kiri, and she goes, “Kathy and I have been discussing your story a lot, and I think we want to proceed with this.” I was so elated, and one of the crazy things was that the first spinoff was supposed to be Solo, but Larry Kasdan got pulled into the development of The Force Awakens, and out of all of the spinoffs that they were tinkering with, Rogue One got slotted up to take its place in the queue. They listened very politely to the whole thing, Kathy told me she was impressed with the story, and that was basically it. ![]() When the day came, I brought my treatment, sat down with Kathy and Kiri, and just dove into the pitch and the characters. I spent those six weeks writing up a really detailed treatment with all of the character descriptions. So I called up Kathy and made an appointment, and I think it took maybe six weeks to find a time to meet with her and Kiri Hart from the Lucasfilm Story Group. Kind of as a mental exercise, I asked myself, “well, if I were serious about this, who are the main characters? What are their arcs? What is the plot structure? How does this start, and how does this end?” I remember a specific moment where I was at this annual charity trivia game that we do, and I was on a team with a couple of friends, and we had about an hour over dinner while we were waiting for it to begin, and Kim Libreri said “tell me about this Star Wars story idea you have?” So I pitched him the half-hour version of it, with every detail, and at the end he goes, “you have got to go pitch this to Kathy.” At that point I realized I had to do this, because if I didn’t I would always wonder what could have been. So I started having this conversation with a number of people, and every time I pitched it, I would start to add more detail, and it would get bigger and bigger. Early concept art from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. What about that?” People would go “oh… actually, that sounds pretty cool…”. As a bit of a joke, I started pitching an updated version of my story that went, “picture a SEAL Team Six in the Star Wars universe, and they’re going on this desperate, high-stakes mission to break into the most secure facility in the Galactic Empire to steal the plans for the Death Star. The first one we announced internally was Solo, and I got so excited about where these spinoff films could go, because the possibilities were endless. What we also announced then that I was really intrigued by were the spinoff films. Well, flash-forward to 2012 after Lucasfilm’s acquisition by The Walt Disney Company, where George selected Kathleen Kennedy to lead Lucasfilm, and our announcement of the continuation of the Skywalker Saga. John Knoll works on a miniature of Sheev Palpatine’s private viewing box in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. ![]() I started thinking about all of the interesting tales you could tell in a show like that, and one of the first things that popped into my head was, “what about a Mission: Impossible-style operation to break into the most secure facility that the Galactic Empire had to steal the plans for the Death Star?” I started toying with that idea, along with a few others, and I approached Rick again to learn more about the time period they wanted to set the show in, and I realized that none of my ideas would apply to that period, so I shelved it. ![]() I started chatting to Rick McCallum who was producing the film, and he mentioned that he and George Lucas were developing a Star Wars live-action TV series, and that they were working on scripts. I was on set when we were shooting in Sydney, and I think we were waiting for some set-up to happen. I started thinking about this all the way back on Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. How long back had you been thinking of this idea before it was greenlit? John, the whole idea of Rogue One started with you. John Knoll, Executive Creative Director at ILM, and the Senior Visual Effects Supervisor on Rogue One: A Story Wars Story sits down with ILM.com to discuss the film’s five-year anniversary. John Knoll in the cockpit of a crashed Partisan X-wing fighter on Jedha from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
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