So here it is then. Two months prior to its December 16th release date, the last trailer for Star Wars prequel ‘Rogue One’ has dropped, and it’s nothing short of amazing.
Absolutely crammed full of action shots and character close-ups, it maps out everything that the fans can expect from the first live-action prequel material to be conceived and filmed since ‘Revenge Of The Sith’ landed in cinemas 11 long years ago.
It’s gritty. It’s tense. And it looks every bit as impressive as we’d been hoping, particularly with those foreboding rumors about clashes between Gareth Edwards and Disney, and those infamous re-shoots. But what does it all mean?
The movie will explain how the plans to the Empire’s legendary WMD came to be secured inside R2D2 at the start of ‘A New Hope’, and will follow a ‘Dirty Dozen’ of Rebel Warriors as they steal the information from under the noses of the seemingly unstoppable Imperial Forces. Though not without a healthy number of impossible odds to overcome, it would seem.
Key to this operation is a fiery Rebel soldier, Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones). The trailer reveals via a flashback that she is the daughter of scientist Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), who was taken from when she was young by Imperial Officer Orson Krennic. The angry Galen ends up joining a Rebel group headed up by legendary fighter Saw Gerrera (Forest Whittaker), who first appeared in animated series ‘The Clone Wars’. Since that debut, Gerrera now looks a little worse for wear, being heavily augmented by cybernetic limb replacements.
The trailer then cuts forward to a planet named Jedha, which is now under Imperial control, complete with rampaging AT-ST walkers and mobs of expendable storm troopers. This has resulted in Erso being captured and imprisoned, until freed by Rebel forces eager to use her relationship with her father to assist in the theft of the Death Star plans. Also on Jedha are blind warrior-monk Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen) and blaster-toting mercenary Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang), who will form the core of the band of soldiers allocated to the mission, led by officer Cassian Andor (Diego Luna).
Also glimpsed in the trailer are the team’s token droid, K-2SD (Alan Tudyk) and mechanic/pilot Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed). It’s from Rook that we finally learn why the film is titled ‘Rogue One’. It’s nothing to do with the famous fighter squadron lead by Wedge Antilles, as previously suspected, but is in fact a call sign allocated to the team by themselves as they embark on their mission.
Leaving Jedha (which from viewing the previous trailer is unfortunately likely to become the Death Star’s first victim), the action then cuts forward to a planet named Scarif, where the space station was being constructed. There are shots of Krennic’s personal guard, the black-armoured ‘Death Troopers’, and the trailer is inter-cut with a number of large-scale fight scenes between the Rebel soldiers and Imperial forces on Scarif, complete with AT-AT versus U-Wing action, as the heist plays out.
Check out the trailer below, and let us know your thoughts. Frankly, we’re so excited we need to go for a long lie-down in a darkened room… Well, after we’ve watched it another 99 times:
In a time of conflict, a group of unlikely heroes band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction. This key event in the Star Wars timeline brings together ordinary people who choose to do extraordinary things, and in doing so, become part of something greater than themselves.
Rogue One hits theaters December 16th.