Star Wars viewers are praising a certain prequel villain performance, with some calling it “perfect” casting.
Ben Mendelsohn played Director Orson Krennic in Star Wars: Rogue One (2016), the prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy that detailed the Rebel Alliance’s theft of the Death Star plans.
Many viewers praised Mendelsohn’s power hungry portrayal of the character as one of the highlights of the film, so much so that the character was brought back for Andor Season 2, itself a prequel to Rogue One.
Krennic has proven to be a popular character over the years as a result of these appearances. Outside of his two live-action appearances, Krennic also featured in a prequel novel, Catalyst, and was also played by Mendelsohn in animated form in an episode of Star Wars: The Bad Batch.
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The character also appears in several video games, most notably as a playable character in Rogue One-themed DLCs for Star Wars Battlefront and LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga.
“Casting Ben Mendelsohn as Orson Krennic was brilliant. He is absolutely perfect for the role,” reads one post on the Star Wars Reddit page.
“His performance is the reason why Krennic is my favourite villain along with Tarkin. He played a middle management diva who thinks he's a big shot perfectly,” reads a comment underneath the post.
“For anyone who likes Krennic as a character, I would highly suggest the novel Catalyst,” another comment recommends. “Leads up to Rogue One but dives into the backstory of Krennic and Galen and the early days of planning/building the Death Star.”
“He really was the most perfect villain for that movie!” a third comment reads. “Not a supervillain who changes the whole galaxy and who can destroy whole planets with a word, but the kind of horrible hateful middle manage we've all had to deal with in real life, given the power of life and death to abuse.
“No superpowers, a villain on the par with heroes who had no special powers, but who was so well-written and so well played that the audience could hate him as much as they hate the super-powered villains.”
Given the character’s death at the end of Rogue One, it’s difficult for Lucasfilm to bring Mendelsohn back for future Star Wars projects unless it was set prior to the events of the movie. So it’s possible we may not see Krennic again, but never say never.
Topics: Star Wars, Disney, Lucasfilm, TV And Film