We’ve met Felicity Jones’ Jyn Erso and her rebel squadron, the villain Orson Krennic (Ben Mendolsohn), and the return of Darth Vader. Now it’s time to meet some of the characters, planets, and ships spotted in the background in the trailers for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
As part of EW’s latest issue, a batch of 15 new photos have been released. Among them are Senators Jebel (Jonathan Aris), Vaspar (Fares Fares), and Pamlo (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) gathered in a briefing room to discuss the rebels’ next move. (Pamlo is the one we hear in the trailers saying, “If the Empire has this kind of power, what chance to we have?”)
We also meet a character named Tivik (Daniel Mays). Captain Cassian Andor (Gabriel Luna) is a veteran spy for the Rebellion, and Tivik is one of his contacts on the Force-sacred moon of Jedha who helps lead him to Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) and his insurgent group.
As for planets, we can put a name to the grassy realm where we see Jyn as a child: Lah’mu. It’s there were she hides as Orson takes her father, Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), prisoner when he tried to flee the Empire, knowing they’d force him to work on the Death Star. Another intriguing tidbit is Galen’s area of expertise: kyber crystals. Shots and locations spotted in the trailers thus far have suggested these precious objects, which are used in the making of lightsabers, to play a part somehow. We know that Jedha is under Empire control for some sort of material it houses, and perhaps the crystals are it.
Riz Ahmed’s Bodhi Rook is another character that gets more fleshed out. The actor likened him to Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now and Dustin Hoffman in Papillon, as he’s a pilot from Jedha who joined the Rebellion after the Imperials enlisted him. His backstory was expanded when the cast went back for reshoots on the film.
Elsewhere, the images reveal new looks at the Space Gate, the floating wheel we see in the trailers. The Empire built an energy field around the entire planet of Scarif, a tropical planet that’s used as one of the Imperials’ central military bases. The photos preview an X-wing battle around the gate, the only visible entrance to the planet.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is directed by Gareth Edwards and opens in theaters on December 16th. See the rest of the images below, including new looks at Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen) and Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen) after a tussle on the planet Eadu, and a U-wing that’s similar in style to the X-wing but, you know, with a U design.
