The next Star Wars movie is coming Christmas 2023, and it was recently announced to be Rogue Squadron, directed by Patty Jenkins!
There’s a long history of Rogue Squadron in Star Wars, which has fans extremely curious as to what this film is about. In a recent interview with IGN, Jenkins said, “we’re doing something original with great influence from the games and the books. There’s a lot of things being acknowledged and understood about the greatness of all of those things, but yes, it’s an original story and I’m so psyched to do it.”
For those curious, the old games and books that followed Rogue Squadron focused on Luke Skywalker and Wedge Antilles and the rest of their Squadron going on a number of different missions for the Rebellion and fighting against the Empire.
In canon, the Squadron was founded by Luke Skywalker and named in honor of the Rogue One strike team that stole the Death Star plans, which was the reason why there was no “Rogue One” designation in the Squadron. They flew in the Battle of Hoth, after which Wedge Antilles was promoted to Squadron commander in Skywalker’s absence. The Squadron continued to fly in a number of missions, including into the era of the New Republic.
For obvious reasons, I highly doubt this movie will include Luke Skywalker. But it also sounds like it might not focus on the Rogue Squadron of the Galactic Civil War era, either. According to Lucasfilm’s description of the film, “The story will introduce a new generation of starfighter pilots as they earn their wings and risk their lives in a boundary-pushing, high-speed thrill-ride, and move the saga into the future era of the galaxy.” My guess, then, would be that this film is set in the future from the Skywalker saga, maybe post-The Rise of Skywalker, since it’s described as introducing new pilots and moving into a future era (though it’s also possible that “future era” simply refers to our world and means a “new era we haven’t seen”).
If that is the case, it seems like a perfect way to honor the original stories of Rogue Squadron while telling a new story, since this would be in a new era. But we also know that Wedge Antilles survived the events of TROS, and so it could be really cool to have one of the founding members and former commanders of Rogue Squadron instructing the next generation of pilots who will form the Squadron. That would be pretty cool.
Whatever happens, though, this will be a new story rather than an adaptation, and I think that’s definitely for the best. I’m really excited for this film!
Star Wars Thoughts 