Via Cbr.com:
Industrial Light & Magic’s visual effects supervisor John Knoll has been telling stories in the “Star Wars” universe for many years, though typically in segments and pieces, providing some of the prequel saga’s most lavish and eye-popping FX. But the tale of “Rogue One” was, from the outset, entirely his brainchild.
Beyond his “Star Wars” bonafides, Knoll has the unique distinction of co-creating Photoshop with his brother Thomas and has garnered multiple Academy Awards nominations for his work on some of the biggest FX-driven film franchises of the past quarter century, including the “Star Wars” prequel trilogy, “Avatar,” “Star Trek: First Contact,” “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol,” “Pacific Rim” and his Oscar-winning work on “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.”
But George Lucas’ galaxy far, far away has always held a special place in his heart, ever since his youth. So when a possible plot for a new series of standalone films set in the rich universe kept percolating in Knoll’s head, he found himself suddenly driven lending his creative vision to the beginning, middle and end of a “Star Wars” story, as he related to CBR during a visit to ILM’s San Francisco headquarters to promote the Blu-ray release of “Rogue One.”
CBR: When did the very first glimmers of the idea for the story for “Rogue One” start formulating in your brain, and how quickly did it go from daydream concept to a full-fledged notion to you crossing over from your FX work and saying “I’m a storyteller, and have to get the story told somehow.”
John Knoll: It’s longer than you might think — it was nine years. The first inklings of trying to tell that story happened in Summer 2003 when we were shooting on “Episode III” in Sydney. I had heard that Lucasfilm was developing stories for a potential live action TV series, and they were active in story development at the time. That was kind of intriguing, and I started thinking about, “What would be a fun thing to do as a one-hour episode as a live action ‘Star Wars’ TV show?”
One thought was, “What about a ‘Mission Impossible’-style break-in into the most secure facility in the Empire to steal the Death Star plans? There could be a lot of tension of potentially being discovered and overcoming security measures. That could be a lot of fun!” I started tinkering with this idea internally. Then a day or two later, I asked Rick [McCallum], I heard you were developing this TV show. He started telling me about the era that it takes place in, and the themes of the show. As soon as he started going into that, I realized, actually, that idea has no place in that show, so I just dropped it completely.
It wasn’t until Kathy [Kennedy] announced this new slate of “Star Wars” films that, in addition to “VII,” “VIII” and “IX” that would be continuing the saga, that she also wanted to do these standalone adventure stories: stories that took place in the “Star Wars” universe but weren’t necessarily connected to that through-line. A lot of us were really intrigued by it. “That sounds like fun.” I thought that idea of the mission to steal the Death Star plans, telling that story could make a pretty good standalone feature as well.
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