【2005 Archives】

If you sense a disturbance in the Force this week005 Archives it's probably because the advance publicity machine for Rogue One: A Star Wars Storyhas cranked itself up to Ludicrous Speed.

With a couple of new videos and more than a dozen exclusive photos dropping over the past few days, Star Wars fans wanting to piece together everything we know about the new movie have a wealth of material to catch up on.

But who has the time, right? Herewith, a guide to the key Rogue Onerevelations you may have missed:

First off, here's a TV spot Lucasfilm released Monday, focusing on the first two members of the Rogue One crew: Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) and veteral Rebel spy Captain Cassian Andor (Diego Luna):

What's new here?Note those ludicrously large Imperial uniforms in the video still, with Jyn almost looking like Dark Helmet from the Mel Brooks parody Spaceballs.

It seems we're in for a comedy heist sequence inside an Imperial base -- a callback to Han and Luke's attempt to dress up as Stormtroopers and blast their way into the Death Star, right down to the surprisingly tall nonhuman. Here, the role of Chewbacca is being played by former Imperial droid K-2SO (Alan Tudyk).

Sunday saw the premiere of a new TV spot titled 'Dream':

What's new here: Quite a few new shots, most notably the X-Wing attack on a circular space station. This isn't the Death Star; rather, Lucasfilm has revealed, it's something called the Shield Gate.

The Shield Gate guards the force field around the planet Scarif, which is the tropical paradise where you may have seen Stormtroopers wading through the waters in other trailers and the first official movie poster.

If everything goes according to the usual Star Wars playbook, the X-Wings will point their proton torpedos at the Shield Gate during the film's climactic battle -- allowing our heroes entry to the world where the Death Star plans are very likely kept.

Scarif is also where we'll see those large Imperial walkers, called AT-ACTs in this movie. (Remember not to buy your kids any outdated AT-AT merchandise by mistake!)

Photo roundup

Entertainment Weeklydropped 15 new exclusive stills from the film Monday. What did we learn from them? Planets and their inhabitants, mostly, if not their likely order of appearance in the film.

Lah'mu is the cold green world where Jyn's parents, Galen and Lyra Erso, retreat at the end of the Rogue Oneprequel novel Catalyst. That's where their old friend and Imperial honcho Orson Krennic catches up with them, and a very young Jyn, in the flashback sequence that is likely to arrive early in the movie.

Eadu is a "storm-stricken" world where our heroes will likely pick up their first batch of Death Star plans. Jyn departs Eadu on a shuttle with Jedi-esque blind warrior monk Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen) and machine gun-happy Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen).

Jedha, we already knew, is a world where the dwindling numbers of believers in the Force go on pilgrimage. This is where we meet blind Chirrut Imwe, battling a batallion of Stormtroopers without breaking a sweat. We now know it's also the homeworld of neurotic Rogue One pilot Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed).

Thanks to the Japanese Rogue Onetrailer released November 10, we also know Jedha is going to fall victim to the Death Star -- which, even if it's not capable of wiping out entire planets just yet, is apparently capable of destroying large chunks of them.

Rogue Onereleases in the U.S. on December 16, with advance tickets almost certain to go on sale post-Thanksgiving.