'Rogue One' release date, news: film to have a prologue instead of an opening crawl

"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" is going to premiere two weeks from now, and Lucasfilm is sparing no expense at promoting the film. The trailers may allow fans a look at what the film has to offer, but they do not reveal much. Fortunately, director Gareth Edwards is willing to share some interesting details.

In an interview with French website My TFI (via Star Wars News Net), Edwards confirmed that fans wouldn't be seeing the traditional opening crawl. In its place, a prologue would be shown.

"There is no opening crawl. But there is a prologue at the beginning of the film that takes place 15 years before the action of the film and that is how the action is exposed. Our film comes from the text of Episode IV if we give the text, it would be endless. We really had to differentiate Rogue One from the rest of the saga."

It is possible fans may have already seen parts of the prologue in one of the trailers. There was a scene showing a young Jyn spying on her father, Galen (Mads Mikkelsen), while he interacted with Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn). And there's also a preview showing Jyn's mother, Lyra (Valene Kane), giving her a crystal necklace.

Meanwhile, Edwards confirmed that fans would not be seeing Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), but he refused to give a straight answer when he was asked if Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and R2D2 (Kenny Baker) would appear. Could those two iconic "Star Wars" characters appear in "Rogue One"?

Meanwhile, there's talk that filmmaker Tony Gilroy actually made more than five million dollars to rewrite the script and do some reshoots. Which begs the question: just how much of the original cut did he change? That's a huge sum. It is said that the reshoots were done to fix some issues in the film, and that includes the ending.

"Rogue One" is scheduled to premiere on Dec. 16.