Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is a 2016 American epic space opera film directed by Gareth Edwards, the first standalone Star Wars film outside of the episodic Skywalker saga. Set immediately before the events of the original 1977 Star Wars, the film follows Jyn Erso, played by Felicity Jones, who leads a ragtag group of Rebel fighters on a desperate mission to steal the plans for the Death Star — the planet-destroying superweapon whose design flaw, secretly embedded by Jyn's father Galen Erso, will ultimately enable Luke Skywalker to destroy it. The ensemble cast includes Diego Luna, Donnie Yen, Wen Jiang, Riz Ahmed, and Alan Tudyk as the droid K-2SO.

Rogue One represented a significant creative gamble for Lucasfilm, testing whether Star Wars could sustain films outside its core saga. The production underwent substantial reshoots overseen by Tony Gilroy, who rewrote and restructured significant portions of the film's second half, leading to widespread speculation about the extent of the changes. The final product was notably darker in tone than any previous Star Wars film, culminating in a climactic battle sequence on the tropical planet Scarif and a hallway massacre by Darth Vader that became one of the most celebrated sequences in the franchise.

Rogue One's willingness to kill all of its main characters — unprecedented in Star Wars — gave the film genuine dramatic weight. The film earned $1.06 billion worldwide and demonstrated that the Star Wars universe could support diverse storytelling approaches beyond the Skywalker family drama.