'Rogue One' Gets a Beastie Boys Makeover
A Star Wars throwback, the upcoming Rogue One harkens back to events immediately preceding 1977’s Episode IV: A New Hope. So it’s more than fitting that a new fan edit of the upcoming film’s trailers sets its rebel action to the sounds of a 22-year-old hip-hop hit.
In a new video created and posted to YouTube by user Matthew Longua, the first Rogue One promos have been re-edited into one 1:43-long clip scored to the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage.” That song’s call for destructive disruption is in keeping with the spirit of director Gareth Edwards’ series installment, which concerns a motley crew of rebels — led by Felicity Jones’ Jyn Erso — tasked with stealing the plans for the plans for the first Death Star. Longua cuts his material, and his sound cues, to seamlessly integrate with the Beastie Boys’ hit, and the effect is to give Edwards’ early footage an added amount of go-for-broke energy.
“Sabotage” actually has a funny history in both the Star Wars and Star Trek universe. A Beastie Boys fan, director J.J. Abrams used the song in his 2009 Star Trek reboot (it also played a key plot point in this summer’s Star Trek Beyond, which he produced.) In addition, Abrams slipped a nifty Beastie Boys reference into last year’s The Force Awakens. We seriously doubt any Boys’ songs will get actual play in Rogue One. But we’ll see if any of that scrappy, anarchic energy is there when the movie blasts its way into theaters on Dec. 16.
