With the new Rogue One trailer dropping Thursday night, Entertainment Weekly has been posting a week of new stories about the upcoming stand-alone Star Wars film. Here’s part five.

It was a meeting at dawn in hushed restaurant when Felicity Jones found herself recruited for a covert mission.

Director Gareth Edwards (previously best known for Godzilla) had recently signed on to make Rogue One, the first Star Wars stand-alone film about the Rebel soldiers who steal the original Death Star blueprints, and he was considering her as the big sister to lead this band of brothers.

“We were both working at the time and we met at something like 5:30 a.m. in a hotel restaurant,” Jones recalls. “Most of the meeting was conducted in whispers as he explained the story and the character. My first introduction was definitely one shrouded in secrecy and being very careful no one overheard what we were talking about.”

With the movie opening Dec. 16, she’s finally at the stage when she can talk about it. But The Theory of Everything Oscar-nominee has a lot more to discuss, too. She’s in three other movies opening this year: the action-thriller Collide (Aug. 19), the bittersweet supernatural tale A Monster Calls (Oct. 21), and the third Da Vinci Code film Inferno (Oct. 28.)

Darth Vader is more menacing than ever before when he finally makes an appearance in the brand new Rogue One: A Star Wars Story trailer.

An extended preview airing during NBC’s Rio Olympic Games coverage on Thursday (August 11) held off its very brief glimpse of the Sith Lord until its final seconds.

A silhouette of Darth Vader is sure to send shivers down every Star Wars fan’s spine when it’s shown for one single second – as the unmistakeable sound of his heavy breathing is heard.

Lucasfilm finally revealed in June that the legendary James Earl Jones is once again voicing Vader in the pseudo-prequel to A New Hope – although he apparently only wields his lightsaber in key scenes.

“He will be in the movie sparingly,” Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has teased. “But at a key, strategic moment, he’s going to loom large.”

The Star Wars franchise’s first spinoff will take place at a time somewhere between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope and will explore character backstories and all their history in a galaxy far, far away.

Billed as a heist flick – but in space – the film is set to follow “a wayward band of Rebel fighters” led by Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) as they come together to fight the forces of evil and steal plans for the Death Star before it’s too late.

“There isn’t much time,” Jyn warns her fellow rebels in the new trailer. “Everyday they grow stronger.”

Featuring appearances from a younger Darth Vader and a recently-confirmed cameo by Princess Leia’s adopted father Senator Bail Organa, there’s a lot to get excited about.

Our own world is no stranger to battles over sacred land.

The ancient history that stands atop such places is often swept aside for invaders to claim the resources that lie beneath. In Rogue One, an entire planet becomes this kind of combat zone – Jedha, a holy land for those who follow the Force.

“The Force is basically in Star Wars like a religion, and they’re losing their faith in the period that we start the movie,” says Gareth Edwards, director of the story that’s set just prior to the events of 1977’s original Star Wars.

“We were trying to find a physical location we could go to that would speak to the themes of losing your faith and the choice between letting the Empire win, or evil win, and good prevailing,” he says. “It got embodied in this place we called Jedha.”

With its narrow market alleyways, desert sands, and Ottoman-inspired architecture, Jedha has obvious Middle Eastern influences, but it could be any place where far-flung followers would gather to pray, reflect, or meditate – Mecca, Jerusalem, Canterbury, Bodh Gaya…

“It’s a place where people who believe in the Force would go on a pilgrimage,” Edwards says. “It was essentially taken over by the Empire. It’s an occupied territory… for reasons we probably can’t reveal.”

Jyn Erso is coming for the Rio Olympics. As revealed in a new commercial, the next trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will air Thursday during the Summer Games, coverage of which airs on NBC.

The announcement spot, featuring footage from the previous trailer, was caught by a Twitter user and posted online, after which Lucasfilm confirmed the trailer debut in a tweet. It’s unclear exactly what we’ll see, but the film’s panel hosted by Gwendoline Christie during Star Wars Celebration Europe screened footage that, among other things, revealed Darth Vader’s big-screen return.

Rogue One, directed by Godzilla’s Gareth Edwards, stars Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso, enlisted by the Rebels to steal the plans for the Death Star that would later be used in the original Star Wars trilogy to take it down.

Also featured are Diego Luna as Captain Cassian Andor, Alan Tudyk as droid K-2SO, Mads Mikkelsen as Galen Erso, Ben Mendelsohn as Director Orson Krennic, and Forest Whitaker as Star Wars: The Clone Wars character Saw Gerera. Learn more about the characters here.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will debut in theaters on Dec. 16.

Source: EW

With all the hysteria over Episode VIII, you may have forgotten that there is actually another Star Wars film coming this year. We’re here to give you the lowdown on just what to expect from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, with dates, spoilers (sorry) and quotes a-plenty.

Where does Rogue One come in relation to the Star Wars canon?
Rogue One is the first Star Wars feature film to take place outside the original canon created by George Lucas, and tells the story of a group of Rebel fighters attempting to steal the plans for the iconic Death Star. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film “takes place just before A New Hope and leads up to the 10 minutes before that classic film begins.”

Producer Kathleen Kennedy also made it clear that Rogue One is meant to be kept separate from the main canon, saying “There is no attempt being made to carry characters (from the stand-alone films) in and out of the saga episodes.”

Who’s directing Rogue One?
Star Wars fans can sleep safe in the knowledge that the special effects are in good hands, with Gareth Edwards, director of the recent Godzilla movie and creator of independent classic Monsters taking the helm for Rogue One. Edwards’ background is largely in digital effects, but he has received much praise for his directorial exploits, and has proved already that he can handle a large franchise with the impressive Godzilla.

Speaking to Flicks And The City in 2005, Edwards warned fans to “expect the unexpected, because it’s not gonna be like the saga movie.” More recently, however, it was announced that Disney had ordered weeks of reshoots on the film, sparking rumours that Lucasfilm were unhappy with the direction that Edwards had taken the franchise.

Source: NME