Rogue One Planet Details Revealed by Gareth Edwards

Director Gareth Edwards (via Entertainment Weekly) has revealed details about the planet Jedha, which will play a crucial part in the plot of Walt Disney Pictures and Lucasfilm‘s prequel/spin-off Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Learn more about this intriguing new Rogue One planet below!

“The Force is basically in Star Wars like a religion, and they’re losing their faith in the period that we start the movie,” said Edwards of the film which takes place just before the events of 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope. “We were trying to find a physical location we could go to that would speak to the themes of losing your faith and the choice between letting the Empire win, or evil win, and good prevailing. It got embodied in this place we called Jedha. It’s a place where people who believe in the Force would go on a pilgrimage. It was essentially taken over by the Empire. It’s an occupied territory… for reasons we probably can’t reveal. There’s something very important in Jedha that serves both the Jedi and the Empire. It felt very much like something we could relate to in the real world.”

The Middle Eastern oil conflicts immediately jump to mind, although in the world of Star Wars the precious resource in question is heavily rumored to be Kyber crystals, the precious gems used to create lightsabers for both the Jedi and Sith in years past, which may be harnessed as en energy source for the Death Star’s destructive beams.

“Within Jedha, even though there’s the oppressive foot of the Empire hanging over them, there’s a resistance that won’t give up and our characters have to go and meet people there to try and secure a person from this group,” Edwards added. “In a wider level, there must be loads of people who just believe in the Jedi and believe in the Force and have been affected by it. If it’s a really ancient religion, as Obi-Wan Kenobi said, it’s got to exist in thousands or millions of people in the galaxy.”

Rogue One tells the story of resistance fighters who have united to steal plans to the dreaded Death Star. Felicity Jones leads the cast as Jyn Erso alongside Mads Mikklesen who plays her father, Galen Erso. Diego Luna (Milk) stars as Captain Cassian Andor with Donnie Yen (Ip Man, Blade II) as the blind spiritual warrior Chirrut Imwe, Jiang Wen (Let the Bullets Fly, Devils on the Doorstep) as his heavily armored best friend Baze Malbus,, Alan Tudyk (Firefly) as the droid K-2SO, Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler, Four Lions) as the Rebel pilot Bodhi Rook, plus Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) as Saw Gerrera, a character first introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Ben Mendelsohn (Bloodline, Mississippi Grind) as the film’s main antagonist, Director Orson Krennic.