Via NYtimes.com:
“We have hope. Rebellions are built on hope.”
With one line in the new trailer for “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” which debuted Thursday morning, Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) practically sums up the entire “Star Wars” franchise. That’s fitting, since the new movie is a stand-alone story bridging the gap between the third and fourth chapters of the saga. Or, counting by production order, the sixth and the first.
“Rogue One” tells the story of a group of rebels who try to steal the plans for that sci-fi weapon of mass destruction, the Death Star. So it’s obviously rooted in that larger space opera, and the trailer establishes that in some superficial ways. The musical motifs of John Williams’s score are instantly recognizable. Plus, there’s a small spacecraft gliding across the sky, and it takes less than 30 seconds before a stormtrooper shows up.
The reminders go deeper than that, too. Early in the trailer, Jyn’s father, played by the Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, tells his daughter that everything he does is for her protection. As it turns out, one of those things might be building the Death Star. And with that information, “Rogue One” is positioned as the story of a father and a child, much like the seven movies before it. The formula here appears to be slightly tweaked: younger characters in past films have always been sons (Luke Skywalker, Kylo Ren) or surrogate sons (Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi), not daughters. Centering the film on Jyn would seem to put the movie in line with the last entry in the canon, “The Force Awakens,” which flipped the “Star Wars” script by putting a female character at its center.
Beyond that, the trailer offers many hints at the movie’s scale. There are numerous explosions and blaster battles, a cast of characters mixing the familiar and unfamiliar, and, going by appearances, a few planets in the background. As the action picks up and the music rises, the trailer makes everything about the film feel epic.
But then again, what “Star Wars” movie doesn’t?
