Hours, hours ago, in a galaxy that is this one, a new Star Wars trailer emerged to the hungry, space-starved masses. Fans still drunk off the successful revival of the franchise in Star Wars: The Force Awakens will have to wait until the end of 2017 to see the next chronological installment in the venerable space opera, but there’s another Star Wars film coming to the theaters this winter. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is set for release this December, and the first teaser trailer was just released online. It centers, as so much of Star Wars does, around a Death Star.
Technically a prequel, Rogue One is set shortly before the events of 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope, which launched the series on its wildly successful course. Much of A New Hope focuses on escaping and then destroying the Death Star. Rogue One, instead, is about finding out exactly what secret weapon the Galactic Empire is building. Our protagonist is Jyn Erso, a rogue one played by Felicity Jones and recruited by the Rebel Alliance. Here she meets with the roguishly handsome Diego Luna, a rebel pilot rumored to be playing Biggs Darklighter, Luke Skywalker’s childhood friend from Tatooine. They’re briefed by a rebel commander in all white, who appears to be Rebel Alliance leader Mon Mothma, last seen on screen in Return of the Jedi.
Why all the rogues? Star Wars may be defined by the overarching conflict between the light and dark side of the Force, but that world is only real thanks to the lovable scummy misfits that flesh out the story, from Han Solo to Lando Calrissian to, uhh, Han Solo. (There was also a popular series of novels set in the Star Wars universe called Rogue Squadron, about the X-Wing unit of the same name).
It isn’t all giant doomsday weapons, hotshot pilots, and space planes. The Rogue One trailer features some exciting combat on the ground, with some smaller but still-deadly weapons. Fan favorite AT-AT walkers, first seen in The Empire Strikes Back slogging through the ice of Hoth, here terrorize a tropical beach like it’s Iwo Jima.
There’s also a mysterious admiral in white robes, whose name has not yet been released. And there are Imperial troopers in black armor, perhaps the elite Shadow Stormtroopers seen in novels and comics and videogames but not yet on film.
There are 252 days until Rogue One‘s release date, plenty of time for Disney to answer more of our very, very important questions about fictional space war. Watch the trailer below:
