Star Wars: What We Need to See in the New ‘Rogue One’ Trailer

Jyn Erso, Star Wars, Rogue One teaser, Rogue One trailer

Felicity Jones stars as Jyn Erso in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. (Disney/Twitter video)

Four months after the first Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was released, and weeks after rumors of reshoots and another director stepping in to help Gareth Edwards, a second trailer will be released to the general public on Thursday night during the Rio Olympics. NBC‘s primetime coverage of the Olympics starts at 8 p.m. ET and continued until midnight. The trailer could be shown at any point during that four-hour window and should be online moments after it airs. We’re here to break down what should be in the trailer before we see it.


Jyn Erso’s Past Should Be Referenced

Technically, this will be the third trailer of Rogue One, since a reel was shown to attendees at Star Wars Celebration Europe in London in July. Disney and Lucasfilm never released that trailer online, but they did post the behind-the-scenes reel that was shown.

However, Star Wars fans are an ingenious lot, so we do have a LEGO version of the Celebration teaser:

It does look like different footage is going to be used in the new trailer though. None of the teasers for the trailer (which is a thing in Hollywood now) have included any of the footage from the Celebration trailer. Based on these, we can expect to see more action from the Rebel Alliance side, as we see the U-Wing – a troop carrier – in use. Still, it would be nice for the trailer to reference some of Jyn Erso‘s past, like the Celebration one does.


A Darth Vader Image Would Be Great, Thank You

The Celebration trailer does show Darth Vader, which certainly excited the crowd. Hopefully, we’ll see more of Vader in the new trailer. We do know that Vader is in the film.

Here’s the first trailer teaser:

Another one was posted on Twitter:


We Need a Hint That This Isn’t Going to Be a Mess

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was directed by Godzilla‘s Gareth Edwards, who had hoped to make a Dirty Dozen-esque war movie set in the Star Wars universe. It takes place before the events of Star Wars: A New Hope (therefore, it is not Episode VIII) and follows a group of rebels who steal the plans to the Death Star.

Since there have been reports that Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton) did extensive work on the film as a writer and editor, the new trailer might provide insight into what has changed. Hopefully, the trailer reveals that there is some of Edwards’ original vision still in there. At the very least, we need a hint that the film can still be good, even with multiple cooks in the kitchen.

For more on what to expect from Rogue One itself, here’s the full Celebration panel:

Rogue One opens on December 16 and stars Forest Whitaker, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Wen Jiang, Donnie Yen, Felicity Jones, Riz Ahmed, Diego Luna and Ben Mendelsohn.

Here’s the trailer that came out Thursday night: