New Rogue One trailer ticks all the right boxes for Star Wars fans

13 Oct 2016

Death Star seen in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Image: LucasFilm

With Disney at the helm, Star Wars will be a year-on-year blockbuster with its latest effort, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, getting fans excited for the return of some famous characters.

This is the second Rogue One trailer to be released ahead of its debut on 16 December, and with it comes the appearance of some familiar faces, or masks in some cases.

The last time a hubbub was raised about the film was back in April, following the first trailer that revealed actor Felicity Jones as the film’s lead character, with some other famous faces like Academy Award winner Forrest Whitaker.

Set before the antics of Luke Skywalker and co in the first George Lucas trilogy, Jones will be playing the role of Jyn Erso who leads a group of unlikely heroes to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction.

Based on what we’ve seen so far, Rogue One appears to be darker than its bigger sibling – Star Wars: The Force Awakens – with an emphasis on some action-packed battles both on planets and in space.

What is particularly interesting in the build-up to this film is that Disney and its CEO Bob Iger have admitted the release of this film is something of an experiment, to see whether it can replicate at least some of the success of the previous films.

Rogue One poster

Image: LucasFilm

As is the case with movie franchises these days, the next decade of Star Wars films have been scheduled in advance. These include some other stand-alone films on characters like Han Solo – set for release in 2018 – and another film sometime in 2020.

Prior to the release of this latest trailer, fans were able to see the official poster for the film. Hidden in the background is Darth Vader, with James Earl Jones set to return as the character’s voice.

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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