SAN FRANCISCO — Rogue One director Gareth Edwards is promising Star Wars fans one thing: Darth Vader won’t disappoint.

“They can expect to see Darth Vader in as true a way of how we perceived him to be in the original movies,” Edwards tells Sun Media in a Canadian exclusive.

So he'll be dark and villainous, but there are some surprises.

“There are things in there that are probably the highlight of my career that I got to do. I can’t talk about them as it ruins things,” he says with a pause. “But the whole point of doing them was to give people a reaction when at the cinema when they (see him).”

Star Wars creator George Lucas is a fan – both of this incarnation of Darth and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. “We got to show George the movie,” Edwards said following a special preview screening at Skywalker Ranch. “I don't want to put words into his mouth, but I can honestly say that I can die happy now.”

The first in a series of standalone Star Wars films, Rogue One centres around Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), who is recruited by the Rebel Alliance to work with a team that includes Captain Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) to steal blueprints to the Death Star, the Empire’s super weapon. The same plans Princess Leia hides in R2-D2 at the beginning of Episode IV – A New Hope.

Vader’s appearance in Rogue One, which is a prequel to A New Hope, was rumoured, but wasn’t confirmed until the first trailer.

“I remember thinking, ‘I wonder if they’ll keep Darth Vader as a surprise?’ But you can’t... It’s too much to conceal him.”

After teasing his new incarnation of Vader, Edwards told us why Rogue One needed reshoots, shared his favourite Star Wars moment and revealed why his film doesn’t need a sequel.

From some of the footage we’ve seen, Rogue One looks to be a grittier, more realistic Star Wars film. What can fans expect?

If you did a DNA test on Rogue One, I hope that you discover that the true parent is A New Hope. That was the film we were influenced by. In the timeline, we’re very connected to that movie, so from a design point of view, costumes, vehicles, space ships — it had to feel like it flowed straight into the beginning of Star Wars. So we were making a period film in a lot of ways. We told the props department and the graphics department, ‘Don’t do anything they couldn’t have done in 1977.’ For instance, even the graphics on the space ships, sometimes when they came through, the animation was too clever and I’d have to say, ‘No, no, no. Back in 1977, they could only do it this way.’ It had to feel like it belonged in the ‘70s... I just want everything to look right and the (set designers) were great... They knew exactly how the doorframe should look so it mirrors the one in Luke (Skywalker’s) home, or exactly how this button should be so it’s the same as the one you see in the (Mos Eisley) Cantina... It’s worth the extra mile because it won’t go unnoticed.

Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy said there will be no sequel. Why not?

I didn’t want to do a sequel. I wouldn’t get into any story thinking about the story after it. It’s like getting married and thinking about who you might marry next. It doesn’t work like that. So this was it, this was the one, let’s go for broke. There was never any part of me that wanted to do a sequel to this. It was like, ‘Do it in this movie. Everything you want to do, do it in this movie.’ And that’s exciting. It’s exciting because it means you don’t have to do things that you have to do in other movies, where you have to set up franchises. We already have the franchise and we’re just connecting to it. It was a liberating, unique situation to be in as a filmmaker because I think any other situation, especially with this much potential and so much riding on it, the studio definitely would have had questions like, ‘We should think about the future, we should think about what’s next?’ Because of A New Hope, we never had that question. It was just, ‘Make it great and don’t worry about anything else.’

So the standalone films and the saga films should have a different voice each time?

Someone should be allowed to come in and do whatever they think will fit.

A lot was made over the fact that Rogue One underwent reshoots. What changes did you make?

It was finessing what was there. Sometimes you have three scenes and you have to make them two or one, but you’re going to lose lots of important information, so you have to cherry pick what you need. We also showed the film to Disney and they were very excited. They basically gave us more so it could be the best it could be. Our visual shot count went from 600 shots to 1,600. So suddenly we were like crazy busy designing new stuff and figuring it all out. It’s hard to break it apart; it was a little of everything throughout. Normally, you haven’t got the resources to do much. It’s a luxury to be given this open chequebook to do whatever you need to do to make the best film possible, so we did… Films are an organic process. You see the movie and it speaks to you and tells you what it wants to be. It’s like a child. You can try and force it to be a lawyer, but if the kid wants to be an astronaut, you should listen and try and help it be the best astronaut in the world.

What’s your favourite Star Wars moment?

When Luke watches the sunset on Tatooine. That’s just before he goes off on his adventure and you can see that he’s dreaming and aspiring to do something significant with his life... I think it’s one of the best moments in cinema.

Twitter: @markhdaniell

MDaniell@postmedia.com