'Star Wars' Superfan Stephen Colbert: Shouldn't We Have to Wait for 'Rogue One'?
On last night’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the host and Star Wars superfan — for evidence, see this, and also this, and while you’re at it, this — reacted to the just-released trailer for Rogue One: Star Wars.
While he had positive things to say about it — “It’s got everything: stormtroopers, Imperial walkers, that droid that’s just a box with legs…” — he also raised an important question: “The movie comes out in December, and I cannot wait. My only issue is: Shouldn’t I have to wait?“
Related: Our ‘Rogue One’ Trailer Breakdown: Who Is Jyn? And Where Is Vader?
This may sound like a typical complaint from a person of middle-age who can still remember watching commercials during TV broadcasts because there was no fast-forwarding option back in the day. (I’m with you, Stephen Colbert!) But it’s also the thing that makes some Star Wars fans most skeptical about the let’s-replicate-Marvel path that it and other franchises are trying to forge. Part of what used to make Star Wars and other event movies special was the fact that we had to wait for them. They came in quantities described by a word we rarely use anymore — limited — which made us anticipate and appreciate them all the more once they arrived.
Rogue One — which hits theaters on Dec. 17 — looks promising based on that trailer, and our excitement may still be at peak Rey and Finn when Episode VIII rolls into theaters in 2017. But by the time we’ve cycled through multiple sequels and spinoffs and arrived at the film that Colbert cheekily refers to as Rogue One 2: Episode III, one wonders if the unspeakable will happen: We’ll finally get sick of Star Wars.
Nah, won’t happen. Right? Riiight?
