Director Patty Jenkins has ample room to tell the story she wants to tell in her upcoming entry into the Star Wars franchise, Star Wars: Rogue SquadronRogue Squadron's planned release in 2023 will mark the longest hiatus between feature-length Star Wars films since the release of 2015's Star Wars: The Force AwakensEver since the tepid response to the conclusion of the sequel trilogy, Lucasfilm has primarily focused on releasing serialized content through Disney+ through shows like The Mandalorian and Star Wars: The Bad Batch. Now, with Rogue Squadron's script nearing completion, Jenkins has been more open to talking about her creative process with the film.

Ever since Disney's acquisition of the Star Wars IP, Lucasfilm has promised fans that all subsequent Star Wars projects, no matter the medium, would be part of one shared canon. This task is no doubt a difficult one to oversee, necessitating the oversight of the Lucasfilm Story Group: a group of executive creatives at Lucasfilm that try to ensure that new Star Wars stories abide by previously established materials. While this type of oversight may initially seem creatively stifling, Jenkins still seems to feel that she is able to conceive the story she wants to tell.

Related: Everything We Know About Rogue Squadron

In an interview with THR, Jenkins revealed that she is "fairly free to do the story [she wants] to do." However, she does admit that the learning curve is a bit steeper working on a Star Wars project compared to her previous ones, saying that "it’s a whole other way of working that [she's] getting up to speed on." You can read her collaborative process with Lucasfilm below:

It’s an entirely different way of working. I’m on the phone with all of them and doing Zoom meetings with everybody involved in Star Wars all the time. I’m fairly free to do the story that we want to do, but you really need to know who’s done what, who’s doing what, where it goes and how it works, and what designs have been done before. It’s a whole other way of working that I’m getting up to speed on.

X-Wing Rogue Squadron

Creative freedom is always a tricky balance to strike in any film, even more so in long-running franchises like Star Wars. Most recently, Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi received backlash from fans who felt that it pushed the envelope too far, particularly in its portrayal of Luke Skywalker. However, Jenkins' quote seems to indicate that she is in close contact with the continuity overseers at Lucasfilm, which may alleviate some fans' concerns.

Although Jenkins is evidently still in close correspondence with the Story Group, it's encouraging to hear that she still feels that she wields creative control over her project. Long-running franchises like Star Wars can easily grow stale if the formula remains unchanged for extended periods of time. Jenkins also previously revealed that the film would honor her father, who served as a fighter pilot. Despite the mixed reactions to her last film Wonder Woman 1984, Jenkins' intimate connection to the material may prove to be the secret ingredient in making Rogue Squadron her best film yet.

More: Sebastian Stan’s Luke Skywalker Should Appear In Rogue Squadron, Not Mandalorian

Source: THR

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