Entertainment Weekly Introduces Us to the (Overwhelmingly Male) Characters of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Now that people are no longer fixating on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story‘s reshoots, the media hype train has moved on to more exciting news: character descriptions! Entertainment Weekly has released a ton of new information on the people and droids we can expect to fall in love with come December.
First, of course, there’s Felicity Jones’ character, Jyn Erso. EW reveals that Jyn has been fending for herself since age 15, and that the Rebellion is giving her a chance to atone for her past bad behavior. According to Kathleen Kennedy, Jyn has “a checkered past. She has been detained [by the Rebellion] and is being given an opportunity to be useful. And by being useful, it may commute her sentence… She’s a real survivor. She becomes a kind of Joan of Arc in the story.” Hopefully her story has a happier ending than Joan of Arc’s!
Diego Luna plays Captain Cassian Andor, a Rebel officer who’s a stickler for the rules and is brought in to “steady” Jyn. He and Jyn are featured on EW’s cover:
Donnie Yen plays Chirrut Imwe, a warrior monk who’s also blind. Imwe’s not a Jedi, but he believes strongly in the power of the Force. Jiang Wen plays Baze Malbus, Yen’s bosom buddy. Baze is deeply devoted to his best friend Chirrut, and EW describes the pair as “the galactic version of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza” from Don Quixote.
The awesome Riz Ahmed is Bodhi Rook, the Rebel’s lead pilot. He’s a hotshot with a quick temper—a real maverick. And this is Alan Tudyk:
Tudyk plays security droid K2-S0, described by director Gareth Edwards as “a little bit like Chewbacca’s personality in a droid’s body. He doesn’t give a s— about what you think. He doesn’t fully check himself before he says things and does things. He just speaks the truth.” Got it. Kaytoo cannot check himself before he wrecks himself.
Ben Mendelsohn’s cape-wearing villain is Director Orson Krennic, and EW’s write-up on him all but confirms Darth Vader will have a role in the film, saying Vader serves as Krennic’s “enforcer.” However, Krennic is ultimately more interested in furthering his own career than being loyal to Vader.
Finally, there’s Forest Whitaker as a character you might recognize from previous Star Wars media: Saw Gerrera. Saw has previously been seen in The Clone Wars, leading an attack on droid Separatists. Kathleen Kennedy told EW that Saw’s years of fighting have taken his toll on him, to the extent that the other Rebels consider him a little too radical: ““He’s on the fringe of the Rebel Alliance. Even [they] are a little concerned about him.”
Looking at all of these characters together is a reminder that Rogue One appears to have a bit of Smurfette syndrome going on. Jyn sounds incredible, and it’s awesome that she’s clearly the driving force of the film, but it would also be great to have more prominent female characters in the cast. Entertainment Weekly mentions that Lucasfilm doesn’t want to reveal more details about Jyn’s family yet (aside from that Mads Mikkelsen plays her space dad, Galen Erso)—given that, maybe there are other significant characters that we haven’t heard about yet, for fear of spoilers. Maybe some of those characters will be female!
Regardless, learning more about this band of rogues definitely has me excited. You can see more images of the new characters over on EW.
(via io9 and Entertainment Weekly)
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