LOS ANGELES: The final trailer for the hotly-anticipated “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” dropped Thursday, giving fans more insight into the beginnings of the saga’s rebel alliance two months ahead of the movie’s release.
The first standalone “Star Wars” story, “Rogue One” is set just before “A New Hope” — the original film in the blockbuster series — and stars Felicity Jones as rebel Jyn Erso alongside Mads Mikkelsen and Forest Whitaker.
Following a grand “Star Wars” tradition, the trailer teases a film preoccupied with the themes of family loyalty and the conflicts of parenthood — with the usual weird aliens, light sabers and stormtroopers thrown in for good measure.
“Jyn, whatever I do, I do it to protect you,” Mikkelsen’s Galen Erso tells his little girl at the opening of the 157-second spot, which premiered during ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
In a big reveal, Galen is shown to be instrumental to the Empire in building their weapon of mass destruction, the Death Star.
The strained father-daughter relationship appears to spur on Jyn — a delinquent with a string of convictions for forgery, assault and theft — as she embarks on a mission to destroy the planet-sized weapon.
The first full-length trailer released in August gave fans their first glimpse of Darth Vader since 2005’s “Revenge of the Sith.”
Viewers are again treated to a split second cameo by the Dark Lord of the Sith, this time from the front as he listens to the Empire’s Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) boasting about the awesome power of his new toy.
It has not been revealed which actor has been hired for Vader’s latest big screen outing, due to hit theaters in the United States on December 16.
The character was voiced in the original trilogy by James Earl Jones, now 85, while 81-year-old David Prowse donned the iconic cape and helmet.
Last year’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” made more than $2 billion worldwide, and analysts have backed “Rogue One” to dominate this year’s box office.
