The phenomenal success of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" last year was not enough for fans who were loudly clamoring to immediately see the sequel in 2016. Their wishes were denied but not in vain.
Lucasfilms will show a "Star Wars" story that will take place within the universe of the film -- a first of its kind -- that will be shown in theaters this year: "Star Wars: Rogue One."
The hype for the latest Rebels versus the Empire film is now here again and Lucasfilm and toy maker Hasbro are doing something creative to stoke the excitement even better.
The two companies have recently joined forces and sponsored a contest among "Star Wars" fans to create a series of short films using stop-motion technology centered on the world of "Star Wars Rogue One."
The selected fans wrote the screenplay and directed the scenes entirely on their own and uploaded them on Youtube. The series has been called: "Star Wars Go Rogue."
Each short episode used the toy versions of the main cast of "Rogue One."
The quality of the episode-driven short films was well made and given an official thumbs-up by Lucasfilm, suggesting that fans of the series will not be disappointed.
Disney through its ownership of Lucasfilm came up with the idea to build up expectation and hype for the next "Star Wars" film this coming December.
According to Polygon, the fans who participated were also animators and filmmakers but not part of the production team who created "Star Wars: Rogue One."
Disney hopes that the animated shorts will excite fans for what is to come in December without divulging too much details that could spoil the film before they could even see it.
Disney did not comment on whether the fan-made "Go Rogue" series were previews of actual events in the coming film. However, hardcore fans in the "Star Wars" community discovered many Easter Eggs, past and future movie references, that possibly may relate to the plot of Rogue One.
Comicbook.com revealed that one of these Easter Eggs is the number sequence "1138". The mysterious number actually pertains to George Lucas, the creator of "Star Wars," and the title of his very first film "THX 1138." Lucas has left the number in many of his "Star Wars" films to pay homage for his directorial debut.
The fan series so far has had two episodes, with the latest third episode just recently been released online.
In the third installment, fans once again follow Imperial rebels Jyn Erso, Captain Cassian Andor and their crew as they make a daring attempt to steal top secret Imperial Weapons blueprints, even possibly the Death Star. An army of clumsy Stormtroopers try in vain to stop their efforts.
"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" opens in theaters on Dec. 16. The film is directed by Gareth Edwards and the film's main cast involve Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, and Riz Ahmed.
