The first trailer for the first cinematic Star Wars side-story, Rogue One, arrived early today, introducing us to the rebellious, “aggressive and undisciplined” heroine Jyn Erso, whose rap sheet includes possession of stolen goods, aggravated assault and resisting arrest. Were she the star quarterback of a major college, she’d be suspended for an entire quarter of a game for such a criminal record. But she’s a Star Wars character, so instead she gets recruited by Mon Mothma’s signature haircut and slender neck to steal Death Star plans. From the looks of things, this is the original Death Star, not the second, half-built yet still fully operational Death Star II from Return of the Jedi, so we presumably won’t see very many Bothans die in this movie.
What we will see is a stacked cast that includes Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Forrest Whitaker and Mads Mikkelsen–whose real name would work as the fictional name of a wildcard space pirate–working under the direction of Godzilla’s Gareth Edwards. This trailer features a only a hint of Gareth’s favored “ground level views of larger-than-life action and chaos” style, which worked very well in Monsters, but was half successful and half frustrating in the aforementioned Godzilla. I expect he’ll have to place the action on the center stage much more in Rogue One than he has in his previous films.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story comes to theaters in December of 2016.
