Asked which game he thinks would make the best movie adaptation and whether he’d be willing to write the script, Whitta replied affirmatively, “Control.” A short while later, Remedy communications director Thomas Puha responded to Whitta; “Let’s talk.” Whitta then invited Puha into his DMs for further discussion.

CONTROL. And yes. https://t.co/bY78qxZmt3January 21, 2020

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Gary Whitta’s passion for video games isn’t anything new, having previously worked as a games journalist and editor-in-chief of our sister publication, PC Gamer. Earlier this month (opens in new tab), he pitched an idea to Twitter for an animated Star Fox movie based on fan art by God of War art director Raf Grassetti.

Of course, a casual Twitter exchange falls short of an official deal, but it’s exciting that Remedy publicly expressed interest in the idea. Control tells a wonderfully bizarre story in a gorgeous, interdimensional, shape-shifting setting. There’s no doubt a live-action adaptation would be a spectacle, at the very least.

GamesRadar+ placed Control in the top spot in our list of the 25 best games of 2019 (opens in new tab). In the wake of its awards season success, we were able to reflect on the game’s impact (opens in new tab) with director Mikael Kasurinen. The following quote from Kasurinen should tell you everything you need to know about how Control defied expectations: “There’s a purity to the experience. A sense of no compromises being made. We had an idea of what we wanted to achieve and just went for it, putting all unnecessary hesitations aside.”

If you’re just getting into Control, it can be a lot take in. Check out these essential Control tips (opens in new tab) to find your groove in the mayhem.

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Should he get the part, Mendelsohn would likely play a leader or distinct member of the Skrulls, a shapeshifting alien race that have been around since some of Marvel’s earliest Fantastic Four comics. If you’re wondering how Marvel can use something from the Fantastic Four while 20th Century Fox owns the movie rights, here’s the breakdown: while the rights to some specific Skrull characters belong to Fox, the Skrull race as a whole is available to Marvel and Fox.

Regardless of who he plays, I’m pretty confident Mendelsohn will be an exemplary bad guy. He’s played or will play antagonists in movies like Robin Hood (The Sheriff of Nottingham), The Dark Knight (Daggett), Ready Player One (Nolan Sorrento), and the aforementioned Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Director Krennic). He does well with those sorts of roles, and I’m down for watching him chew scenery as a straight-up supervillain.

Most of the details regarding the Captain Marvel movie are still under wraps, but we know that Brie Larson will star as the titular heroine, and that it takes place during the ’90s. Oh, and recently MCU boss Kevin Feige confirmed that Captain Marvel will have a role to play in the as-of-yet untitled Avengers 4 (opens in new tab).

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“One of the thing things we really want to do at Lucasfilm is create a universe and not keep relying on old legacy characters,” Whitta said. “We’ve got Rey and Finn and Kylo Ren, they’ve already introduced a new generation of characters. Whatever kind of Star Wars films they’re making 10 or 20 years from now, I don’t think they’re going to be relying on the same legacy story elements as we have in the past.”

Whitta added that he’s “speaking purely as a fan” here since he did his part for Rogue One and isn’t further involved in Star Wars (in any capacity he can publicly admit, anyway). But it “makes sense to [him] that you don’t want to keep telling the same story over and over again. You want to tell new stories”.

Rogue One’s story was already “90 percent” of the way there, given its emphasis on all-new characters and worlds, Whitta noted. The next film after that will be Star Wars: The Last Jedi (opens in new tab) in December 2017, which will presumably spend quite a bit of time with Luke Skywalker. Then it’s the Han Solo movie (opens in new tab) in May 2018, which will show a new side of old characters like Han and Lando. By the time Star Wars 9 rolls around in 2019, will the series be ready to fully step out of the original trilogy’s shadow? We’ll have to wait and see.

Directed by Rian Johnson and starring Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Laura Dern, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Gwendoline Christie, and Benicio del Toro, Star Wars: The Last Jedi will open on December 15, 2017.

Image: Lucasfilm

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Speaking at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas, Edwards revealed that the planet of Scarif – you remember, the beach-themed planet that serves as the setting for Rogue One’s climactic battle – got its name from an incident in which someone screwed up his name during a coffee order. “I must have said, ‘It’s Gareth,’ and they wrote ‘Scarif,'” he explained to the laughing crowd (via THR). Must be pretty cool to be that particular barista and know you’re responsible for a contribution to the Star Wars universe, eh? I’d be bragging to my friends about that for the rest of my life.

Side note: if you’re interested in learning about the names of Star Wars planets, be sure to check out StarWars.com. They have more backstory there than anywhere else in this or any other galaxy.

Directed by Gareth Edwards and starring Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Mads Mikkelsen, and more, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story arrives on Blu-ray and home video on April 4, 2017.

Image: Lucasfilm

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We know one version of the movie had Cassian and Jyn survive their mission (opens in new tab), but in an interview with /Film (opens in new tab), Edwards addressed the reason why so many moments from the trailers of our heroes running across the beach on Scarif didn’t make it into the finished movie. “I think the main thing that changed at the end… what used to happen, and you can get a sense of this in the early trailers, the transmission tower for the plans was separate from the main base on Scarif. To transmit the plans, they had to escape and run along the beach and go up the tower. In cutting the film, it just felt too long.” He says the third act was already running long in the first place, so they had to come up with ways to trim the whole run time. “And one real, fast, brutal solution was to put the tower in the base, so they don’t have to run across the beach and do all of that stuff to get there. That became a decision that eliminated the shots you see in the trailer of the back of Cassian and Jyn and the AT-ATs. That was some of the reinvention that happened. It was all to do with compression.”

That’s a shame, because some of those cool-looking moments from the trailers contained shots I was really looking forward to seeing in the context of the movie. But at least we got to see Darth Vader slicing his way through Rebel soldiers in that hallway, right? Turns out we’re lucky to have seen that scene at all, because it was added at the last minute only a few months before the film debuted.

Edwards told Fandango (opens in new tab) the idea for that sequence, which he calls the “Walk of Death,” actually came from editor Jabez Olssen during the post-production process. “And then Jabez was like, ‘I think we need to get Darth on that ship,’ and I thought, yeah, that’s a brilliant idea and would love to do it, but there’s no way they’re going to let us do it. It’s a big number and we had, what, like 3 or 4 months before release. Kathy [Kennedy] came in and Jabez thought, f*ck it, and pitched her this idea, and she loved it. Suddenly within a week or two we were at Pinewood shooting that scene.” And while his crew members pitched all manner of crazy ways for Vader to display his power, cooler heads prevailed and Edwards ended up sticking with what we’d seen the character do on screen before. “It really is just the greatest hits of Darth; that corridor. And we really didn’t want to do anything you haven’t seen him do so it didn’t throw people off. We kept it to what had been established.”

I’m glad Edwards ended up sticking with ‘classic’ abilities there, because as cool as it might have been to see Vader use some jaw-dropping new Force power, it would have made us retroactively question why he didn’t repeat that skill at any point during the original trilogy. Smart decision.

In any case, I think I speak for all of us when I say: thank you, Mr. Olssen. The movie wouldn’t have worked nearly as well without that corridor moment, and the Star Wars franchise as a whole has gained a new iconic sequence because of your idea.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story arrives on Blu-ray and home video on April 4, 2017.

Images: Lucasfilm

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If it seems weird to you guys that there’s already a brand new Star Wars movie, know this: you’re not alone! This week on the podcast we search our feelings for what we know to be true about Rogue One, the first Star Wars spin-off since 1985’s Ewoks: Battle for Endor. (Forgot about that one, didn’t you. Too bad. It happened.) After that we dig into the biggest announcements at PSX, including an extended discussion about The Last of Us Part 2.

Hosts:

Anthony John Agnello (@ajohnagnello (opens in new tab))
David Roberts (@davidrobots (opens in new tab))
Susan Arendt (@susanarendt (opens in new tab))

Intro: “Inspiration (opens in new tab)” by BoxCat Games, used under CC 3.0 (opens in new tab)

Outro: “Forever Believe (opens in new tab)” by Jason Shaw, used under CC 3.0 (opens in new tab)

Listen on iTunes (opens in new tab)

Direct link (right click to download) (opens in new tab)

RSS Feed (opens in new tab)

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Last of Us Pt. 2 appeared first on Game News.

That means we get some early reactions to the first spin-off movie in the Star Wars universe. These are all spoiler-free but so far people seem to be extremely happy with the movie. There’s plenty of praise for its action, emotion, relationships, plus its authenticity to the originals and war movie feel. 

And if Wil Wheaton says it’s good. It’s good. 

The last time I loved a Star Wars movie as much as I loved #RogueOne, it was 1977.December 11, 2016

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#RogueOne is FANTASTIC. Incredible action, both planetary and interstellar, and looks GORGEOUS. Most importantly, it feels like Star Wars.December 11, 2016

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Star Wars Rogue One is AWESOME!!!December 11, 2016

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So… #RogueOne? It’s freaking great! So many crowd-pleasing moments! It’s emotional, exciting and incredibly satisfying. Loved it!December 11, 2016

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Holy craps @starwars #RogueOne was absolutely incredible. See it as soon as you can!!! Gareth Edwards I LOVE YOU. https://t.co/84ap5m3rwbDecember 11, 2016

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People worried about #RogueOne not being a gritty war film need not worry. It’s intense, relentless. You can practically taste the grit.December 11, 2016

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I expected it to be funny. I didn’t expect to be choked up. Moments of true bravery, and some speeches we need right now. #RogueOneDecember 11, 2016

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My thoughts on #rogueone This is the movie you were looking for. Great way to bind the galaxy together. #StarWarsDecember 11, 2016

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My new #StarWars rankings:1) Empire2) A New Hope3) #RogueOneDecember 11, 2016

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It’s so AMAZING how #StarWars #RogueOne ties into #ANewHope!! GREAT SURPRISES & many “HOW’D THEY DO THAT?” moments!! 100% FUN! Great ACTION!December 11, 2016

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Directed by Gareth Edwards and starring Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Forest Whitaker, and Mads Mikkelsen, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is released in the UK on December 15 and the US on December 16.

Images: Lucasfilm/ILM

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“To the point where when they were designing all the weapons and the guns, one of the first faux pas I committed is they would show me ideas for guns for Deathtroopers,” he continues. “They’d have all these different designs and you’d say, this one feels too antiquated, this one feels like something they’d have in World War 2. They’d say that’s exactly the Stormtrooper weapon from A New Hope. [Back then] they were just grabbing real world guns and costume, and just doing a little thing to it that made it feel like Star Wars – if you go too far it’s Flash Gordon, or it’s Star Trek.”

And those pleasing matching shapes of the Star Wars universe? They’re no accident. Everything is carefully designed to bring that specific feel to the world. “If you look at the [original designers] Ralph McQuarrie and Joe Johnston and everyone else, they have a certain aesthetic that they can’t shake off, and it’s really great,” Edwards explains. “You see a lot of repetitive shapes and ideas. An obvious one is that the Death Star looks very similar to the top of R2-D2’s head. It’s got all the same proportions, and you see these shapes recurring throughout, so the trick was to try and look at those shapes and subconsciously copy them and put them into designs.”

Rogue One also has its own new line up of ships to add to the Star Wars universe – hello, U-Wing – and Edwards took the time to made sure that each one was perfect and fit into the world we already know so well. “It’s like a dream situation to be trying to come up with the ship you didn’t see in the original trilogy that feels like it might exist,” he confirms. “That took ages, about six months. There were literally thousands of designs – we didn’t go, ‘Okay, let’s design a U-Wing’ It’s let’s do whatever looks good and then we’ll pick a letter of the alphabet that it most looks like!”

Read the full interview with Gareth Edwards in the brand new issue of SFX magazine out now. Alternatively, subscribe to future issues here (opens in new tab). 

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If you’re just stowing away on the hype train now it should give you a pretty good idea of where the movie is going. Or even if you’ve already watched each trailer a dozen times and extracted every detail, it’s nifty to see the footage spliced together and given new context.

Directed by Gareth Edwards and starring Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Riz Ahmed, Ben Mendelsohn, Forest Whitaker, Mads Mikkelsen and Alan Tudyk, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is scheduled to open in UK and US cinemas on December 16, 2016.

Seen something newsworthy? Tell us!

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That wasn’t all we got, though. Oh no. The panel – which was hosted by Gwendoline Christie – featured director Gareth Edwards and the cast of the upcoming standalone Star Wars movie who revealed various details about Rogue One (opens in new tab). Not wanting you to miss out, below is everything I learnt from the hour-long panel and discussion, including what will be the very first SWRO toy (opens in new tab), why K-2SO isn’t like other Star Wars droids, and where the idea for that London underground scene came from. 

1. The new planet which features heavily in Rogue One is called Scarif

Every Star Wars movie features different planets, cities, and locations – it’s a big universe after all. Some of them are familiar to fans, others we’ve just heard of, and a few are completely new. Rogue One is continuing this trend and announced during the panel that the planet where the Death Star is being constructed is called Scarif (opens in new tab). Given that our heroes are trying to get the Death Star plans (and it’s featured on the new poster and in the new trailer) it’s safe to say that a fair amount of the movie happens on this tropical, paradise-like planet. Also, interesting side note, Gareth Edwards reveals that the scenes were shot on location in the Maldives and the Stormtroopers were played by the Maldivian army. Scarif will also feature as the fourth piece of DLC (opens in new tab) for the Star Wars Battlefront game.

2. Gareth Edwards met Luke Skywalker on set and freaked out

If you thought Star Wars directors don’t get starstruck like the rest of us, you were wrong. During the panel, Rogue One director Gareth Edwards recounts a fanboy moment he had on set when Mark Hamill turned up to say ‘hi’ and he finally got to meet Luke Skywalker. “You know when you go up to someone and you’re so much in awe of them? I don’t know what I said to him. I was trying to be articulate and intelligent and I don’t know what came out. And he was being really sweet and complimentary, and all I was thinking [was]… ‘please lord someone be taking a photograph of this!’” Don’t get too excited though – pretty sure Mark Hamill was just visiting the set and not cameoing in the movie.

3. The first Rogue One toy to be released will be the Jyn Erso figure

After fans had to wait AGES to get their hands on a Rey figure from The Force Awakens (opens in new tab) toy-line thanks to her spoilerific accessories, Hasbro is making sure it doesn’t have a riot on its hands when it comes to Rogue One. During the panel it is announced that the very first Rogue One toy to become available will be the Jyn Erso figure (some time in Autumn) and Felicity Jones looks pretty damn pleased about. Take a closer look at the Jyn Erso figure here (opens in new tab). 

4. Jyn is different to most Star Wars heroes because…

I know what you’re thinking. Oh sure, Disney says ‘Jyn is different’. The House of Mouse is trying to convince us that our lives won’t be complete until we see Rogue One (as if we weren’t already there), but I’m actually convinced by Felicity Jones’ argument. During the panel the actress explains: “She’s not a character who’s asking, ‘Who am I and where have I come from?’ We know that about her, we know where she’s come from. And that fact is what propels the story, and is the beginning of Jyn’s journey to find out what her reason is and her cause.” Unlike other Star Wars heroes Rey and Luke, whose parentage is shrouded in mystery, Jyn has actually led a very full life before joining the Rebellion. 

5. The Rogue One team isn’t all happy families

Given that the members of the Rogue One team are on the same side and risking their lives together, you’d think they’d be pretty close. Or at least, that they would become something like a family after everything they go through. But Diego Luna, who plays Captain Cassian Andor, reveals during the panel that this might not be the case. “The team starts being just the two of them – Jyn and Cassian”, he says. “But as the story continues, it grows and like any team there’s friction, there’s issues, and it’s Cassian who has to keep them together.” So, who’s going to be causing problems then? My money’s on the droid and you’re about to find out why…

6. Droid K-2SO is “not quite all there”

We discover a lot about Alan Tudyk’s droid (opens in new tab) during the panel, including the fact that he’s an Imperial droid reprogrammed by the Rebellion, “the most important member” of the team, and probably the “best friend Cassian has in the rebellion”. There’s been a few side effects to the reprogramming though as we see footage of K-2SO dropping Jyn’s bag and generally not following orders. “Cassian reprogrammed him and he did a data wipe and… he’s not quite all there,” says Alan Tudyk. “He speaks his mind and says things that can be unsettling. He’s very honest. If you know any old people, it’s like that. He says whatever he thinks.” Yeah, I think I know what you’re getting at Alan.

7. Jedha is the Mecca of the Star Wars universe 

We also learn a little more about Jedha and the place the Jedi, or lack thereof, have in the Rogue One story. “Obviously, our film takes place in a time when there are allegedly no Jedi remaining,” explains Gareth Edwards. “People still believe in the Force and they have that spiritually, and essentially Jedha is like the Mecca of Star Wars in that people go on pilgrimages and the problem is… it’s an occupied territory.” Jedha is also where we meet two very important members of of Jyn’s team – the very spiritual Chirrut Îmwe and his not so spiritual friend Baze Malbus. More about them later.

8. Forest Whitaker’s Rebels are extreme

While the Rebels are definitely the good guys, that doesn’t mean they’re all saints, and during Forest Whitaker’s talk about his character, Saw Gerrera, he reveals that his Rebels maybe aren’t what we’re used to. “Saw Gerrera is a Rebel fighter.” He says. “He’s been fighting for years against the Imperial occupation. He’s a guerrilla fighter. He has been controlling a group of Rebels that are out to the extreme. We’re talking about a series of different Rebel groups coming together as an alliance and all of these people are different parts of that. I’m leading my group… which by any means necessary, he’ll do what he needs to do in order to save the world.” Strong words. 

9. Bodhi Rook actually works for the Empire!

If you thought everyone who was a part of the Rogue One team was a Rebel, you’re wrong because it’s also revealed during the panel that Bodhi Rook, played by Riz Ahmed, actually works for the bad guys. “Bodhi is a pilot, and he works for the Empire to earn a living. People work for big organisations, they don’t believe in everything they do. You don’t have to be judge-y,” says Ahmed. “He’s kind of questioning things. The city he is from is actually [on] an occupied planet, and it’s the action of the Empire and the stuff he’s forced to be involved with on there that kind of makes him question his career counsellor.”

10. Gareth Edwards got the idea for that London underground scene years ago

You know the one I’m talking about. When the first Rogue One trailer (opens in new tab) was released, there was one scene in particular where Jyn and her team are running away from Stormtroopers down a long grey corridor and some people rightly identified it as being filmed at a particular station on the London underground. During the panel Gareth Edwards says: “My first job ever in television was just around the corner from where we are right now, and we used to pass it every day and… think this is like something from the future, it’s like a sci-fi movie. If I ever get to do a sci-fi film in my life I’m going to film it here. 

“And then I parked that thought and then one day we were trying to figure out how to do these really long shots, involved a lot of grey, building big massive sets and we were trying to be clever about it, and I was like, ‘Let’s just film it at the Docklands – that looks futuristic.’ And everyone was like, ‘Haha, very funny. Anyway how are we really going do this?’” Well, the joke was on them because after a few imaginative ideas from the art department they filmed those scenes at the Canary Wharf station in the four hours it was closed overnight. 

11. Darth Vader is going to say “POWER” a lot

One of the best moments of the new trailer (opens in new tab) is Darth Vader’s cameo and one of the best moments of the Rogue One panel is listening to Gareth Edwards talk about doing James Earl Jones’ voiceover. “I can’t tell you what role he plays in the film because I don’t want to give that away,” joked the director, but he did tell us a bit about one of Vader’s lines in the movie. “The way that ADR [Automatic Dialog Replacement] works is obviously they’ve got their back to you while they’re watching the screen doing the lines, and then they turn round and ask if that was ok. So every time he’d do a line… I don’t want to give anything away, but there was… this one line where he says, ‘POWER!’ And we just both looked at each other and had this nerdgasm, [we were] reduced to 3-year-olds, and then suddenly he turns back and we go, ’That was great James, one more like that.’” I’ve no idea how many times this line is in Rogue One one, but if Edwards’ cracking impression was anything to go by, it’s going to give you chills.

Finally, there is one more thing I learned at the Rogue One panel but it’s a HUGE SPOILER so you may not want to know. If you do though, carry on. 

SPOILERS!

12. Chirrut dies and it will change Baze

When it Donnie Yen and Wen Jiang talk about their characters Chirrut and Baze, the Beijing actor Jiang – while talking about the relationship between the friends – accidentally drops a major plot point. We already knew that Chirrut, although not a Jedi, is very spiritual, and that Baze isn’t at all and prefers his “big guns”, but Jiang seemed to imply that this would change at some point in the movie when his friend Chirrut dies. It isn’t completely clear what Jiang says – English isn’t his first language and the acoustics in the hall aren’t great – but to me, it sounds like Chirrut will die. Sorry. 

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