Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. One of the more exciting aspects of Rogue One going back to the very early days of production was the casting of Forest Whitaker. The idea of Ghost Dog in Star Wars is an exciting one, but it got even more exciting today.
EW has announced that he'll be playing a character named Saw Gerrera. That name might ring a bell for Star Wars fans and for good reason.
Gerrera appeared for the first time in The Clone Wars, a guerilla fighter at war against the Seperatist droid armies who ended up working along side Anakin, Ahsoka and Obi-Wan. Lucasfilm's resident SW expert Pablo Hidalgo says that Gerrera was originally created for the unproduced Star Wars TV show, but was too good to sit on a shelf indefinitely, so was folded into The Clone Wars.
For the first time a character from one of the canon Star Wars cartoons plays a major role in one of the films. This is huge. There was a reason when the EU was cut out of official SW canon that Lucasfilm went out of their way to say that both The Clone Wars and Rebels were still canon. Looks like that's starting to impact the films.
What this does is blow open the door for characters crossing over from the 'toons into the real deal films. Appearing in a Star Wars Story spin-off movie might not be as game-changing as showing up in one of the Episodes, but now anything seems to be fair game.
As someone whose love of Star Wars was tested by the prequels and re-ignited by the Clone Wars and Rebels, this is a very exciting development for me.
What do you folks think?
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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