Gareth Edwards Is Tired Of Your Manny Bothans Jokes

"Many Bothans died to bring us this information." - Mon Mothma

When it was announced that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story would be about a ragtag group of heroes stealing the plans to the Death Star a joke rose up across the land: "Which of these characters is Manny Bothans, and how does he die?"

Very funny, except that many Bothans died to bring the Rebellion information about the second Death Star, and Mon Mothma's line is in Return of the Jedi. Rogue One, which is set right before A New Hope, has nothing to do with that. At all. But that doesn't stop people from making jokes and comments about it, and director Gareth Edwards kind of hopes it would.

While chatting with Edwards at Star Wars Celebration Europe I had to ask him if he - a huge enough Star Wars fan that he spent his 30th birthday sleeping at the Tunisian hotel that was the filming location for the Lars homestead in A New Hope - was aggravated when people made that joke.

"I don’t even want to start on that because this comes up all the time and you’re like 'No, no…'" he said with an exasperated laugh.

But does he want to correct people when they make that joke?

"I don’t even have to because for every person who says that there’s someone on the forum just below them that goes 'You idiot!'"

So listen, idiots, stop with the Manny Bothans joke. And to all of you people "Umm, actually"ing those Bothan jokers... Gareth Edwards appreciates you. Although this sounds like he subscribes to the philosophy espoused in his Godzilla: "Let them fight!"