Let’s begin with today’s round up of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story goodies, shall we? We have some new TV spots featuring a lot of new footage, including our first look at a very concerned Bail Organa (Mr. Jimmy Smits reprising his Prequel Trilogy role).
There’s some new Death Star action, as well as the usual trailer-friendly AT-AT smashing and blind Jedi-fan Donnie Yen beating up the Imperial’s finest.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story TV Spots
Yesterday also saw the release of another behind the scenes featurette from the set of Rogue One. Creature Effects Supervisor Neal Scanlan talks us through the various new beasts we’ll see in Gareth Edwards’ film, and like the Star Wars Celebration reel the sense of a lifetime’s dream being fulfilled envelopes the atmosphere.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Creature Featurette
If you watch the clip closely (perhaps too closely) at the twenty-one second mark you’ll see this…
That’s 7 foot+ actor Ian Whyte (who is known to Game of Thrones fans as Wun-Wun, the last giant) who appears as the cuddly assassin Moroff.
What’s sparked off this latest round of consternation is the masked mannequin just to his left, and the two pieces of concept art pinned to the wall.
Moving in closer we see that it’s either a limbless Bane, or there’s another mysterious figure in a mask with no limbs set to make an appearance. The hive minds on the r/starwarsleaks (the author’s personal favourite) subreddit have done some sterling work on proving this, and they make for a convincing argument. Quite how we’ll get to see Vader in this state is a mystery at the moment. All will be revealed in just over a week.
If you want to go further into the rabbit hole then click here to go to the Reddit post where there’s plenty of dissection of all the image based evidence ‘proving’ that Vader will appear in this form during Rogue One. There’s also a heavy contingent who believe that it is indeed Vader in this shot from the trailer.
Not the figure who kneels, but that the Dark Lord of the Sith is in what appears to be a huge Bacta Tank – perhaps as part of his rehabilitation. Edwards and Co. have gone to great pains to remind eager fans that we shouldn’t expect too much of Darth Vader in Rogue One, that it is a story about (mostly) all new characters.
That hasn’t stopped Vader’s visage appearing on a load of the promotional material, including his own TV spot…
Time will tell exactly how much of Vader, Tarkin, Bail Organa (and maybe, just maybe a certain Alderreanian Princess) we’ll see in Rogue One. We’re hoping it’s able to stand on its own, and give us a firm foundation on which to build future, non-Skywalker, Star Wars stories.
