The Blockade Runner

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The Best New Shots/Reveals in the Rogue One International Trailer(s)

Two new Rogue One “international” trailers dropped over the past few days, and though they’re largely the same and also very similar to the final U.S. trailer, there are some super-cool new shots and fun moments in both. I screen-grabbed my favorites and add some commentary below!x-wings

# 1: X-Wings Diving Toward a Satellite (Or Something)

We’ve only seen a few brief shots of Rogue One’s space battle(s?), but the footage we’ve seen has been beautiful! I suppose we’ve seen space battles take place a few miles up from a Star Wars planet before in the Battle of Coruscant, but something about the images of X-Wings battling above a blue planet feels super fresh!

# 2: “Trust the Force”

Jyn’s mother, Lyra Erso, places a crystal attached to a necklace around her daughter’s neck  early in the first of the two new international trailers, telling Jyn to “trust the Force” as she does so. While I’m not expecting the Erso’s or many other Rogue One characters to be particularly Force-sensitive, I love seeing more ties to the Force being threaded through the film and its characters. If the rebels of Rogue One view the Force as something powerful but unknowable, that’ll only add to the mystic of the mythology surrounding it. Hope and faith seem to be major themes for the movie, and a rebel crew that revere the Force and put their faith into even though they don’t have the ability to master it sounds perfect to me!

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#3: Death Star Eclipse and Downward Blast

Shots of the Death Star looming large over planets in a way it never did in the original trilogy have been part of Rogue One‘s marketing from the beginning, but this shot of the space station blocking out the son and sending a focused blast straight down at what I assume to be Jedha’s surface is the most direct example we’ve had of seeing it in action yet. I think we’ve been seeing the damage from this blast in all the previous trailers, but seeing it in action to this degree is all new. I’m personally hoping this is an indicator that the Death Star, while operational to a degree, won’t be fully-functional. The test on Alderaan in A New Hope needs to be the first time that technological terror wields its full power, but devastating attacks like this will do nicely in the meantime.

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#4: “You Almost Shot Me”

Let’s be real: Chirrut and Baze are going to be major highlights in Rogue One, and every glimpse of them we’ve seen in Rogue One‘s footage so far has been fantastic. Donnie Yen’s “you almost shot me” in response to Baze’s helping him finish off a crew of stormtroopers is hilarious, yet understated in a very Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi sort of way. If you’re worried Rogue One may be missing some of Star Wars’s customary heart and soul, look no further than these two characters.

#5: Baze’s Bazooka Blast

Speaking of Baze, I believe we’ve heard that his character has a very big gun, and seeing it in action single-handedly dealing out massive damage to this massive AT-ACT just plain rules.

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#6: U-Wings in Hyperspace

U-wings are cool, u-wings in battle are really cool, but u-wings in hyperspace are an altogether different kind of cool. It may be the editing, pacing, and music of the trailer as much as the actual images of this ship blasting through hyperspace that are so exciting, but I love how this moment seems to offer another taste of how visually appealing Rogue One is set to be.

vader

#7: Another Shot of Vader

We’ve only caught a few glimpses of The Dark Lord of the Sith in Rogue One‘s trailers, and honestly that’s probably for the best. Word from Lucasfilm itself is that Vader’s screen time in the film is minor, so it’d be a bit disingenuous to show him off too much in the marketing. That being said, even these brief glimpses are driving fans wild with excitement, and this shot is no different. I’m not sure what he’s up to here (is he frustrated? gesturing to use the Force for nefarious means?), but his body language is classic Vader and leads me to believe that the actor(s) suiting up for Rogue One is going to bring Vader back to the silver screen in an authentic way.