‘Rogue One’ Director Gareth Edwards Says There’s a 4K Restoration of ‘A New Hope’
The first stand-alone film in the “Star Wars” franchise “Rogue One,” about the daughter (Felicity Jones) of the unwilling designer (Mads Mikkelsen) of the Death Star and her mission to retrieve his plans for destroying it, has been in theaters for a week and has already grossed over $388 million. The film is a direct prequel to the events of the original 1977 film “Star Wars,” or “A New Hope,” a film that still remains in the cultural imagination. Now in a lengthy interview with Little White Lies, “Rogue One” director Gareth Edwards (“Godzilla”) says that Lucasfilm has finished a 4K restoration of “A New Hope.”
“On day one, we were in Lucasfilm in San Francisco with Industrial Light and Magic,” says Edwards, “and John Knowles, our supervisor, he said that they’ve got a brand new 4K restoration print of ‘A New Hope’ – it had literally just been finished. He suggested we sit and watch it.”
The purpose of watching it was to take notes to generate ideas for the new film. “I’ll add that I’ve seen ‘A New Hope’ hundreds of times,” Edwards continues. “So I sat there, ready to take notes and really delve under the surface of the film…Next thing we knew it had ended, and we looked around to one another and just thought – shit, we didn’t take any notes. You can’t watch it without getting carried away.”
READ MORE: Are the Special Effects in ‘Rogue One’ Unethical? — IndieWire Critics Survey
There’s no word about if or when the 4K restoration will see the light of day, or if the restoration is of the original theatrical cut or the Special Edition version.
“Rogue One” is currently in theaters now.
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