It’s
here! It’s here! The final trailer is here! This morning on Good Morning
America the good folks over at Disney and LucasFilm dropped the third and final
trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
(a title I’m still not on board with (I supported Star Wars Anthologies) but
either way). As with any Star Wars trailer the hype is always at a fever pitch
and no less so in this case when we had the news of it surprisingly dropped on us
yesterday.
For
those who don’t know, Rogue One: A Star
Wars Story is the first Star Wars spin-off film. It tells the story of the
rebel infiltrators who steal the plans for the first Death Star to beam to
Princess Leia which kick start the events of Star
Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. This film is directed by Gareth Edwards and
stars Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Alan Tudyk, Donnie Yen, Wen Jiang, Riz Ahmed,
Ben Mendelsohn, Mads Mikkelsen, and Forest Whitaker. Check out the new trailer
below.
This
was the third really strong trailer for Rogue
One: A Star Wars Story and definitely provided answers to a lot of story
speculation abound in the Star Wars fan community. If you do not want to know
any plot points for this film, do not read on. The trailer was really strong.
That should be enough. If you want to brave the waters, come with me.
This
is the first trailer where we get a deeper and more clear sense of what is
going on in this film. We knew from the outset the main mission but we didn’t
know from the earlier trailers (outside of speculation and some statements
actors have made elsewhere). This trailer lays out parts of the story to
capture audience. Right from the opening of the trailer we hear Galen Erso
(Mikkelsen) speak for the first time and we see a young Jyn, played by a young actress,
as yet uncredited, confirming that this is the first Star Wars film to have a
genuine flashback, or possibly flash-forward. We also see our likely
character introduction to Jyn (Jones) as she is being liberated by a group of
rebels from an imperial prison. In this trailer, like an earlier international
trailer, we hear Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) ask Jyn about her father,
setting him up as a McGuffin (person or item used to push the plot forward) for the broader plot. We also get to hear Director
Orson Krennic (Mendelsohn) speak, seemingly to Darth Vader (although we don’t
get any James Earl Jones in this). On the note of Darth Vader, there are a
couple shots of him being intimidating and looming over this story. We also got
to see some intense fighting, some great dog fights in space (something we
haven’t seen since Star Wars: Episode III
– Revenge of the Sith), and just an overall level of intensity that is
engrossing to see in a Star Wars movie.
From
all signs for me they seem to be doing this right. I felt like they did a
really good job establishing the team of Jyn, Cassian Andor (Luna), Chirrut Imwe
(Yen), Baze Malbus (Jiang), Bodhi Rook (Ahmed), and K-2SO (Tudyk) and giving us
some sense of who they are as characters. I get the sense we’re going to be
deeply embedded in their team and I’m very excited to get to know them all
better over the course of the film. Edwards seems to also be living up to his
promise of a war film via these trailers. There is a lot of aggressive action
in this latest trailer and it demonstrated both a great sense of guerilla and
aerial warfare. This was my biggest fear throughout the course of the news of
reshoots to add levity so I’m happy that the trailers at least are readying the
audience for a different kind of story.
One
thing I was kind of surprised about with respect to this trailer was its use of
Darth Vader. This is the most we’ve seen from him in any of the marketing so it
is clear that Disney and LucasFilm want him to get people to the theaters, yet
there has been a surprising degree of restraint with him. We still haven’t
heard him speak and we certainly haven’t seen him in combat as some expected to
see in this trailer. Reading the tea-leaves with this is tricky. They may be
holding back because he is very minimally involved in the story or they may be
holding back because he isn’t and something he does is deeply spoiler-filled. I’m
hoping the latter as a fan myself but it is interesting to see the approach
being taken. I suspect he’ll show up in a TV spot or two over the next couple
months so we’ll see if we get more then.
This
trailer also had a couple interesting moments that beg a lot of questions for
Star Wars super nerds. We get the genesis of Rogue One as a call sign but it is
unclear who that call sign is for. We see Saw Guerrera (Whitaker) being
connected with the notion of hope and spelling out a very different viewpoint
than in the first teaser for this film (“save the rebellion, save the dream”
versus “if you continue to fight, what will you become?”) which opens up a lot
of questions about where he stands on all this and what his role will be in the
film. We still aren’t seeing that many classic Star Wars ships outside of
X-Wings, TIE Fighters, and Star Destroyers in action which makes me wonder if
we will in the film (after the let down in variety that Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens provided in that area).
The last thing I wanted to mention in this trailer was the
music. This was probably just temp music cut for the purposes of the trailer
but it was really strong and engaging and I hope mirrors whatever brilliance
Michael Giacchino is coming up with. I thought it set the mood extremely well
and was engaging. There was definitely some worry after Alexandre Desplat left
but I think we’re in very good hands here.
Overall I thought this was yet another very strong trailer
and makes me even more excited to see this film (which is exactly the job of a
trailer). I think we got the right amount of answers, some good fan service,
and some alleviating of specific concerns people have had surrounding this
movie over the past few weeks. Rogue One:
A Star Wars Story opens in theaters in the United States on December 16 (we
found out Europe is getting it earlier again, congratulations if you live there!).
Go check it out, I know one person who will definitely be there!
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