Dork Side of the Force
Fansided

What Did The New Rogue One Trailer Tell Us About The Film’s Plot?

By Elaine Tveit

facebooktwitterreddit

The second full-length trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is here. What new details about the standalone film’s plot did it tell us?

Rogue One has a pretty straightforward plot: a group of rebels races to steal the plans for the Death Star so the Rebel Alliance can discover its weakness and destroy it. The new trailer for the standalone Star Wars film, which aired last night during the Olympics on NBC, added a couple of supplementary details to that description.

First, we discovered Jyn Erso is far more dangerous, at least in the eyes of the Rebel Alliance, than we first imagined. A high-ranking Alliance officer asks her in the Yavin IV base battle room, “Can you be trusted without your shackles?” That line implies Jyn is either prone to physical violence or deception, or both. It may lend credence to our theory that Jyn is a double agent.

Next, we learned Captain Cassian Andor, an intelligence officer for the Alliance, is not assigned but rather volunteers to accompany Jyn on her mission. Amid the crowd of people on the Yavin IV base, Andor takes Jyn aside and says, “If you’re really doing this, I want to help.”

More from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

I had previously assumed Andor was assigned to Jyn by the Alliance leadership to make sure she does her job and doesn’t do anything rash, sort of like a babysitter. It may still be the case that Mon Mothma wants Andor to keep an eye on her, just without Jyn realizing that is his purpose in joining her. But if Andor is volunteering of his own free will, without prompting, it means him going on that mission has not been sanctioned by higher authority, which implies a duplicitous side to Jyn’s scheme. Perhaps she is planning to complete Mothma’s mission for her, but in her own way and on her own terms, and by taking up with her, Andor is going against Mothma’s explicit orders. Whatever the case, there is a hint of rebellion even in Jyn following orders.

via Giphy

Next, we discovered the Death Star will not be staying near Scarif, the world which serves as the space station’s construction site, for the duration of the film. At some point, it will hover over Jedha, a frozen desert planet occupied by the Empire for the purpose of mining its store of kyber crystals for the Death Star’s laser.

via YouTube

And it looks like, sometime during the film, the Death Star undergoes a weapons test. One sequence from the new trailer showed a desert-like planet in the throes of storms and destruction, as if it is in the process of being blown apart.

This could be the “major weapons test” Mon Mothma spoke of. Experiencing it firsthand is a fascinating way to throwback to the destruction of Alderaan in A New Hope; it’s the same process, only slower and from a fresh perspective. Seeing the planet crumble around them will also make Jyn and Andor more desperate to stop the Death Star from becoming a galactic threat.

The only other major thing we learned from the trailer, regarding the plot, is Jyn appears to be the leader of the Death Star mission. When all the members of her crew are assembled, she asks, “Are you with me?” and Andor responds, “All the way.”

The trailer told us less in the way of explicit plot points and more of how gorgeous and complex Rogue One is going to be. Some of the shots, like the one above of the Death Star over Jedha, are simply stunning. Meanwhile, the main characters appear nuanced and well-rounded from what tiny glimpses of them we received. If this trailer doesn’t have you convinced to go see Rogue One as soon as it hits a theater near you, I don’t know what will.

Next: Rogue One: A GIF Breakdown Of The New Trailer Shown During The Olympics

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story premieres in theaters December 16th.

Home/Rogue One: A Star Wars Story