Trailer Talk Thursday! Featuring : Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Hello all!
Just when I thought I had nothing more from Star Wars to talk about, Disney drops the trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Here are my thoughts from this freakin' awesome preview from this year's film from the world of Star Wars. Here's the link to the fantastic new trailer!



In case you didn't know what this film is about, and you couldn't quite understand it from the trailer, I'll explain. This movie takes place a few years before the start of Episode IV: A New Hope. In the opening scroll of A New Hope it explains how the rebels stole the plans to the Death Star. This film details of how that exactly happened.

I love the idea of this film, because my one problem with the Star Wars films in general, is how the writers used the opening scroll as a way to get the stuff they don't want to write out of the way. Such as between Episodes V and VI, we do not see how Luke goes from being hardly proficient with a lightsaber, to being a Jedi Knight. I'm glad that these spin-offs may explore the stories that have been glossed over.

Before I talk about the trailer itself, I want to discuss the cast. 

This cast has names you have heard before, but they aren't like huge actors. Felicity Jones, our new leading lady, is a British actress, who I have only seen from 2014's outstanding The Theory of Everything. She has been in other films, but this is will be the second time I will be watching her. Donnie Yen is an interesting name to see here. He is an Asian and Martial-Arts film actor, and is very popular among Asian film fans. I have seen some of his action sequences, and dear lord, they are incredibly choreographed. I sincerely hope that he is not underutilized, like the actors from The Raid were in TFA. Mads Mikkelsen, who many know from the TV show Hannibal, is also here. He was brilliant in Casino Royale, and I'm interested to see what he can do here. Forrest Whitaker completes the leading cast, and he's probably the biggest name here. It's nice to have some seasoned actors along with young ones, to make a balanced cast. There is also a Spanish actor named Diego Luna, who I have never heard of. It's nice to see a diverse cast that is not diverse for the sake of diversity, but also has talented actors.

Onto the actual trailer. It was announced yesterday that the trailer was coming out today, and it's Thursday, so I got really excited that I get to talk about it instantly.

As the trailer opens, we already hear the familiar sounds of John Williams, which is what makes Star Wars so much more incredible. Similarly, to the TFA trailer, we get introduced to our hero right at the start, Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso. From police reports, we hear that Jyn is a rebel who has lived without her parents since she was a child (just like everyone in this universe), and is fighting for the rebellion. Immediately we get some action with her fighting Storm Troopers, which was awesome, considering this actress has never done any action films. Also the quote "This is a rebellion, isn't it? I rebel." is already super cool and meaningful. All this stuff and we are still thirty seconds in!

When this is shown in screening and stuff, the audience won't know the plot of the film, so it kind of just explains it that Jyn is ordered to stop the creation of the Death Star. We then hear the nostalgic sounds of the alarm from Episode IV, which plays throughout the rest of the trailer. It's nice to hear and see things from the older movies, combined with a modern feel, which is what TFA did so well.

We then see some mysterious character walking, which I don't really know what its all about, but leave that to the speculation theorists. We then see Donnie Yen in action as a freakin' space samurai, with a voice-over from Forest Whitaker, questioning Jyn what she will do if she gets caught, and completed with a final shot of Felicity Jones in her full rebel costume. And of course, AT-AT walkers!

This is just a teaser, so there is not much revealed, but it's job is to tease, and it did it well. Thanks for reading, and I will see (kinda) you tomorrow!