Lucasfilm president on whether Rogue One will have an opening crawl or not

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

When the first STAR WARS spin-off hits theaters later this year, there's a question of whether it will include the iconic opening crawl which has opened the previous seven STAR WARS films. Seeing "a long time ago in a galaxy far far away" appear on the screen followed by an eruption of John Williams' fantastic fanfare announcing a sea of yellow text immediately gets you in the STAR WARS mood, but if Disney is hoping to keep these spin-off's separate from the main saga, we may be in for something different. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy spoke with Entertainment Weekly during their ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY coverage to say that they're still trying to figure if the crawl will open the film or not.

We talk about that all the time. It’s something that we’re right in the midst of discussing even now, so I don’t want to say definitively what we’re doing. The crawl and some of those elements live so specifically within the ‘saga’ films that we are having a lot of discussion about what will define the [stand-alone] Star Wars Stories separate and apart from the saga films. So we’re right in the middle of talking about that.

While movie buffs have no problem realizing that ROGUE ONE is a spin-off, the general public may wonder why the film isn't following up on the adventures of staring contest champion Luke Skywalker. Ditching the opening crawl for something else may be a way to immediately clue those folks in that they're in for something different and to keep these stand-alone films separate. There's still several months until ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY hit theaters on December 16, 2016, which leaves Lucasfilm ample time to figure it out.

Sound off below, should ROGUE ONE include a text crawl or something different?