For those of you who felt a disturbance in the force this morning, that will be because a new trailer for the hotly anticipated Rogue One: A Star Wars Story dropped, and features a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ shot of the back of Vader’s head.
Set just before Episode IV – A New Hope, Rogue One sees Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), seemingly a criminal captured by the Rebels, recruited for a mission to find a way to destroy the Empire’s new super weapon… That of course, being the Death Star.
What’s so wonderful about this setting is it lets director Gareth Edwards play with all those classic Star Wars elements, such as AT-AT’s, and classic Stormtroopers, but use them in different ways. We’ve already seen shots of Stormtroopers wading through the surf, but this shows more of the AT-ATs in a forest setting. You also get new takes on classic elements, with the introduction of ships like the U-Wing, which has never appeared in the franchise before.
I was extremely excited to see (and hear) Alan Tudyk’s K-2SO, an Imperial droid, who’s protocols are somewhat different to what we’ve come to see before… “The Captain says you are a friend, I will not kill you” he helpfully tells Jyn.
We also see more of Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker), who is a character from the Clone Wars cartoons, who has been folded into the live-action for the first time. Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) makes a return, and we meet the ‘freelance assassin’ Baze Malbum (Jiang Wen) who is helping Jyn with her mission.
So many good things in this trailer, and so much to look forward to. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story arrives in UK cinemas, 16th December 2016, and frankly, that can’t come soon enough!
For those of you looking for a new desktop background picture, I stitched together that panning shot of the Imperial Star Destroyer looming over (i think) Jedha. Just click to open the larger version, then right-click to download.
Login to Geektown