We’re just over a month out from the opening of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the first of the Star Wars movie that is aimed to operate as a standalone feature. Of course, no Star Wars movie should be considered a gamble, but this is the first time in eight movies that a Star Wars film won’t have a Jedi front and center wielding a lightsaber. The other aspect of Rogue One that’s a gamble is the fact that this film is, regardless of how you want to categorize it, a prequel — taking place moments before the events of A New Hope, and we all have those terrible memories of the prequels.
Today brings us the latest trailer for Rogue One, and this trailer provides more story details than we’ve previously encountered in advertising for Gareth Edwards‘ film. This latest trailer teases the youth of Felicity Jones‘ Gyn Erso and the complicated role her father (Mads Mikkelsen) plays in the creation of the Death Star. The story, though, is rather simple: Gyn joins a crew of rebels (including Diego Luna, Donnie Yen, and Riz Ahmed) in order to steal the Death Star plans from the hands of the Empire, led by the menacing Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn). Lurking in the shadows the Empire is Darth Vader, who makes a very brief cameo in this trailer with a remarkably effective shot.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story opens in theaters on December 16th, 2016, almost a year to the day following the release of The Force Awakens. Reshoots or no, Rogue One will easily start raking in all the money as the appetite for Star Wars seems to be something that can never be sated.
The official synopsis for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story:
From Lucasfilm comes the first of the Star Wars standalone films, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” an all-new epic adventure. 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.