Orson Callan Krennic is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise, portrayed by Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn in the 2016 filmRogue One as the main antagonist. Krennic is the Director of Advanced Weapons Research for the Galactic Empire. The character was introduced in the 2016 prequel novel by James Luceno.
Character
Origins
, credited for the story of Rogue One, told Vanity Fair in 2016 that he conceived the plot of the film while working as a visual effects supervisor on the 2005 film . Hearing about the development of a live-action Star Warstelevision series, he conceived a story, inspired by a plot point mentioned in the opening crawl of the original 1977 filmStar Wars, which would eventually become Rogue One. In Knoll's original story draft of the film, Krennic was a double agent on Jyn Erso's team reporting to the Imperial Security Bureau, however this was changed when Gary Whitta came aboard to write the script. Earlier planned endings for the film featured Krennic surviving the events on Scarif before being killed by Darth Vader for not preventing the theft of the plans to the Death Star. The scene was cut as writers had trouble justifying why Krennic would have survived the explosion the Death Star caused.
Casting
In March 2015, it was announced that Ben Mendelsohn had been cast in a lead role in Rogue One. Mendelsohn said in an interview he learned about his casting while filming Bloodline, having dinner in a restaurant with director Gareth Edwards, "He told me about the story and he told me about the character and then he said, 'I want you to do it.'" Mendelsohn noted his response was immediate.
Description
In an interview with Collider, Mendelsohn spoke of his character, saying "He's an outsider, essentially. He's an outsider in so far as he's not a born officer class guy, he's a guy that worked his way up and regards a lot of the officer class as just not really worth their salt." Mendelsohn also noted "He is a guy that as it were has come up through stuff, so he has a great force of will, he also very much believes in the empire’s agenda, he's very onboard with it. He's risen his way up to become the head of military intelligence and operations and he's going to build this Death Star."
Appearances
''Catalyst''
Krennic first appears in the 2016 prequel novel ' by James Luceno. An officer in the Republic Special Weapons group, he rescues his old friend Galen Erso, a scientist who has been kidnapped with his family by Separatist agents. Following the formation of the Empire, Krennic manipulates Galen to work on the Death Star project. The novel also explains how Krennic's interrogation of Poggle the Lesser, a character introduced in ', kickstarted the Empire's Death Star Project.
''Rogue One''
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was released in December 2016, featuring Ben Mendelsohn in the role of Orson Krennic. In the film, Krennic is the Imperial weapons developer overseeing the construction of the Death Star, a space station with the capability to destroy an entire planet. Once he has proven the station's power, the imperious Grand Moff Tarkin uses a recent security leak as a pretext to wrest control of the weapon away from Krennic. A furious Krennic travels to Eadu to confront Galen Erso and his team of scientists, whom he believes may be responsible for the leak. After Galen confesses, he is mortally wounded during a Rebel attack and Krennic flees. He later meets with Darth Vader, seeking an audience with Palpatine, but is dismissed to ensure there are no further security breaches related to the Death Star project. Krennic goes to Scarif as the Rebels are infiltrating the base there to steal the Death Star's schematics. Krennic shoots and wounds Cassian Andor, and later tries to kill Jyn Erso, but Andor recovers and shoots Krennic, incapacitating him. Krennic was killed when Tarkin fires the superlaser from the Death Star and destroys the Imperial base.
Related works and merchandising
Krennic appears in the film novelization of Rogue One by Alexander Freed. Krennic is a playable character in the 2015 actionshooter video gameStar Wars Battlefront, as part of the 2016 downloadable contentRogue One: Scarif expansion pack. He also appears as a playable character in the mobileturn-based role-playing game', classified as an Empire support who inflicts various debuffs and works well with a Death Trooper. He is also a Dark Side squad leader in the 2017 MOBA' who provides a small energy boost and also possesses a rapid-fire attack ability. Krennic is mentioned a few times in the final season of Star Wars Rebels, but did not appear in the series due to a creative decision by Dave Filoni. He was written into one of the earlier drafts of the episode "A Fool's Hope", but the scene was cut early on. Annual #2 features an appearance by Krennic which depicts his first encounter with Vader and his feud with Tarkin. Krennic appears in Timothy Zahn's 2019 novel Star Wars: Thrawn: Treason. Set against the backdrop of the last episodes of Star Wars Rebels, the novel includes an encounter between Krennic and Thrawn.
Reception
In Sight & Sound otherwise critical review of the film, Tim Hayes wrote, "Apart from Ben Mendelsohn's weaselly Orson Krennic... and perhaps Donnie Yen as a blind samurai... the faces are unmemorable and the characters unexceptional". Joshua Starnes wrote that Krennic's failures against the Rebels and pursuit of praise do not make him "a particularly sinister or effective villain", and the film "continually weakens him as a threatening presence".
