Hello, Star Wars fans! Welcome back to another edition of SpoiledBlueMilk. You know, I’m still reeling from the news that a Clone Wars character, Saw Gerrera, will be in Rogue One! This realization opened up a lot of possibilities in terms of what other characters will be in Rogue One. I want to take a moment and contemplate a few recent revelations about characters that may show up in Rogue One and further connect this movie to Star Wars TV and movies. Potential spoilers below, so proceed with caution.
Before I begin, I want to say something about “too many connections” in Star Wars. Yeah, I’ve heard it before. Not everyone needs to be related or connected and this is a big galaxy. However, for the examples I am giving, there is a strong plausible connection between these characters and the story that we know will happen in Rogue One. Therefore, I think this isn’t totally off base. Connections like these, in my mind, help for connective tissue that binds the saga together. Rogue One has the potential to be a sort of “nexus” connecting the original trilogy to the Clone Wars and Rebels, and beyond. It could play a critical role bringing forth the new Star Wars canon. We’ve already talked about Vader being in Rogue One, now let’s talk about some of the others.
The Onderonian Lasat
We know that Saw Gerrera, played by Forrest Whitaker, was first introduced in Clone Wars. What is perhaps surprising is that this character has also been mentioned in the novel Bloodline, as well as mentioned in Star Wars Rebels. We’ve already talked about the quote from Bloodline mentioning “the campaigns of Saw Gerrera’s Partisans.” You may have missed this scene Rebels from with Agent Kallus and Zeb. here is the clip (Thanks to Darth_Lesser for pointing it out):
The thing that stood out to me is the mention of another Lasat. Apparently, on Onderon, Saw Gerrera has a fellow Rebel Lasat that is quite fierce. He is described as part of the Rebellion, and a “Lasat Mercenary”. There is in fact no indication that this Lasat is dead, and in fact, Agent Kallus says that the Lasat “Let him live”. So it therefore stands to reason that this Lasat is still alive during the events of Rogue One. We have speculated that the tropical shots for Rogue One will be on Onderon, and since we know we’ll see Saw Gerrera in Rogue One, it stands as a decent possibility that we’ll see this Lasat, if only for a brief shot. Would be a nice touch, and I’m not sure how a live action Lasat would look, but I would presume it would have to be CGI. Would be even cooler to see him in action like the way Kallus describes.
Boba Fett and other Bounty Hunters
The timing certainly works out to see Boba Fett in this one. One of the first rumors we heard about Rogue One is that it will feature bounty hunters from Empire Strikes Back. Even more intriguing to me, is if we’ll see all the Bounty Hunters from Empire, plus Cad Bane and Aurra Sing. In one shot, we could see bounty hunters spanning the OT, the Clone Wars, and going back to TPM if we consider that is where Aurra made her first appearance. We know Boba Fett pretty much connects them all, with the exception of Cad Bane. But Bane is such a cool bounty hunter, you’d think he’d be included in the mix.
Tarkin
There is a long-standing rumor that some sort of CGI Tarkin will be in Rogue One. The most recent episode of Now, This is Podcasting released yesterday talked about some rumors that there was an actor standing in for Tarkin, who would later be altered with CGI or some sort of super-imposed rendering of Peter Cushing. The rumor was that the other actors didn’t always know that it was Tarkin, because the stand-in looked different. Again, the timing is right for Tarkin to be included, as well as the setting, being related to the creation of the Death Star. We’ve already seen Tarkin in both The Clone Wars and Rebels, in addition to ANH, so it is clear that Lucasfilm wants to connect him to the saga.
Leia
We’ve speculated about Leia showing up in Rogue One before. There are reports that the ending of Rogue One will take place 10 minutes before the beginning of ANH, so it is entirely plausible that Leia will be relevant. Vader talked about the “several transmissions beamed to this ship by Rebel spies!” So it raises the question, will we see Leia receive those transmissions from our heroes from Rogue One? Even better, could Leia get the same rumored treatment that Tarkin could get? Or is there old unused footage from ANH with Leia that they could splice in? I think fans would love it if both the original Tarkin and Leia were in this one. They new characters would draw the new fans, but amazing new CGI technology that brings characters long gone into a movie alone would draw a crowd, and an even bigger crowd if those characters are much loved characters from the OT.
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