Rogue One Bits: Meet K-2SO, A New Batch Of Aliens And Droids, And How You Build A Darth Vader Costume

In this edition of Rogue One Bits:

When I watched a half hour of footage from Rogue One, I noted that Alan Tudyk's K-2SO felt like an early favorite, stealing virtually every scene he was in right out from under his fleshy human co-stars. Then our own Peter Sciretta saw the completed film and while he can't fully review it yet, he did tweet that this former Imperial security droid was a standout. And that brings us to this new featurette, which offers a look at the newest Star Wars droid, complete with plenty of footage of Tudyk on set in his motion capture suit (and the rig he described as the "backpack of shame" when I interviewed him).

While we're watching featurettes, this quick look at the filming of Rogue One's gigantic final battle sequence offers a look at the scope of this production. The "paradise planet" of Scarif is home to some Imperial construction yards in the film, but in the real world, it was a beach in the Maldives and everyone looks equally excited and exhausted to be there.

White supremacists have decided that Rogue One's female lead and diverse cast is an attack on their pasty, fragile masculinity, so they decided to launch a boycott that will probably be as successful as their Hamilton boycott. At the film's premiere, Disney CEO Bob Iger did his best to play down the whole thing, telling The Hollywood Reporter:

I think the whole story has been overblown and, quite frankly, it's silly. I have no reaction to [this] story at all. Frankly, this is a film that the world should enjoy. It is not a film that is, in any way, a political film. There are no political statements in it, at all. [...] [Rogue One] has one of the greatest and most diverse casts of any film we have ever made and we are very proud of that, and that is not a political statement, at all.

Even if Rogue One isn't making a direct political statement, the depiction of a multi-ethnic group standing up to fascist empire is inherently political in the year 2016. That's the thing about art – it's always political whether it wants to be or not.

Entertainment Weekly has revealed a few more aliens and droids as part of a larger gallery of images, including this look at Weeteef Cyubee, a tiny Rebel soldier played by series regular Warwick Davis. Here's how he's described:

Warwick Davis has played various characters in three Star Wars movies — and in Rogue One he's back as a wrinkly member of Saw Gerrera's (Forest Whitaker) team. "Warwick is performing pretty blind inside the animatronic head," creature-effect supervisor Neal Scanlan says. "He is cocooned in his [costume], and his imagination brings such incredible life to his performance." Though Weeteef is a good rebel, his look was inspired by a mean fish. "We thought of a piranha," says Scanlan, pointing out that Weeteef's name is slang (wee teeth) for his tiny, sharp incisors.

We've included a more images in the gallery below, but you can follow that link above for the full gallery and more details.

Early tracking suggests that Rogue One will open with $130 million at the domestic box office, but Deadline reports that the international opening weekend will probably end up somewhere between $280 million and $350 million. That's not as large as Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but no one ever expected it to match those numbers. And anyway, who is going to turn their nose up at $350 million in a just a few days?

ComicBook.com has a wonderful little conversation with John Knoll, who worked as a visual effects supervisor on Rogue One and pitched the original story concept for the film. The focus of their article is on Darth Vader's costume and how they tried to smooth out certain rough edges while maintaining the look of his suit as seen in the original Star Wars:

If you look in New Hope, especially that white corridor scene at the beginning, you can see all these smudges and all these fingerprints on there because it was cast from a clay sculpt. Then by the time we got to Empire Strikes Back, they made a new one that was really polished and smooth and shiny and perfect. The chest plate is different in every film. [...] We matched more what the chest plate looked like in Episode IV, but a little bit more of the high polish that's in Episode V.

Knoll also explains that Darth Vader certainly has more than one set of clothing, so it's totally okay that not everything lines up:

I figure he's got more than one version of those outfits. The reason the armor looks a little grungier and dented up in A New Hope is you're not going to wear your nice armor into battle. You're gonna wear your beater armor into battle. Then, if you're going to go talk to the Emperor or something, you put on the nice shiny one, show some respect.

Great...now all I can picture is a naked Darth Vader wandering his closet and trying to decide which set of black, life-saving suit he'd like to wear today.

And if you have an hour or so to kill, a whole bunch of spoiler-free video interviews with the cast and crew of Rogue One have made their way online. Enjoy.