Movies

Rogue One Bits: Diego Luna's (Possible) Character Name, The First Teaser Poster, And Twitter Reacts To The New Trailer

rogue one bits
By Jacob Hall/

The trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has arrived and with it, a massive deluge of new stories and details and tidbits worth discussing. In today's Rogue One Bits:

  • Everyone with a remote connection to Star Wars had something to tweet about the Rogue One trailer.
  • Who is playing Darth Vader in Rogue One?
  • The name of Diego Luna's character has maybe, possibly, been revealed.
  • Lucasfilm reveals the first Rogue One teaser poster.
  • Is Alexandre Desplat still scoring Rogue One?
  • Felicity Jones introduces the next phase of the Star Wars: Force For Change campaign.
  • The Rogue One creative team are judges in this year's fan film awards.
  • The story of the Death Star's original, non-canon designer.
  • Take a look at the first Rogue One product packaging.
  • Ane more!

    • When the trailer for Rogue One first hit, many artists found themselves inspired by the imagery in Gareth Edwards' film and quickly put pen to paper (or cursor to Photoshop). The result was a deluge of fan-art celebrating the film, despite only knowing the bare minimum about it. That's the power of a strong trailer. Anyway, that poster above is the work of Phil Noto, the acclaimed comic artist who drew Marvel's Chewbacca miniseries and is currently lending his pencil to the new Poe Dameron miniseries.

    The brilliant poster and comic book artist Francesco Francavilla also turned in some art, placing all of the focus on Felicity Jones' rebel soldier Jyn Erso and her badass lady-Han-Solo look. Not everyone can pull off a scarf in wartime, you know.

    Comic book writer/artist Michael Regina also whipped up his own version of Jyn Erso, focusing on the final shot of her in the trailer, where she's wearing an Imperial uniform for reasons unknown.

    While we're sharing tweets, Rogue One screenwriter Gary Whitta shared images of Mon Mothma throughout the ages. From left to right: Genevieve O'Reilly as the future Rebel Alliance leader in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, O'Reilly reprising the role in Rogue One, and Caroline Blakiston initially breathing life into the character in 1983's Return of the Jedi.

    Whitta hasn't even tried to hide his enthusiasm for this film. Can you blame him?

    Many members of the extended Star Wars family also shared their positive feelings about the film. Star Wars: Episode 8 director Rian Johnson seemed awfully excited and recalled the past work of the film's brilliant director of photography Greig Fraser.

    Star Wars Rebels mastermind Dave Filoni also chimed in with his support, although you know he's secretly sweating how the continuity between his show and this film will have to eventually line up.

    Chewbacca himself Peter Mayhew shared the trailer with his followers...

    ...as did Mark Hamill, who couldn't resist the opportunity to crack a joke about his lack of screen time in The Force Awakens.

    The award for Best Rogue One Tweet goes to director Chris Miller, who is currently preparing to shoot that Han Solo spin-off movie with his partner-in-crime Phil Lord. This duo also directed The LEGO Movie, which makes this joke all the better.

    Screen Shot 2016-04-07 at 8.22.10 AM

    Although Ben Mendelsohn is playing the main villain in Rogue One, we know that he's going to have some back-up. Although the size and nature of his role remains unknown, Darth Vader will play a part in the film and Flickering Myth claims to know who will be wearing that iconic suit. Naturally, this is a rumor and you should take it with a grain of salt and so on:

    [O]ur sources are telling us that in fact British actor Spencer Wilding has been cast to play the body of Darth Vader in Rogue One.

    Wilding is mostly a stunt actor and has had bit parts in Guardians of the Galaxy, Batman Begins, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and Wrath of the Titans. We first heard of his casting last year, but waited for more confirmation on the story before running it.

    I can buy this because it's just dull enough to make sense. Of course a physically imposing and mostly unknown stuntman would wear the Darth Vader costume! After all, David Prowse was cast for his size in the original trilogy, not because George Lucas ever really intended to use his actual vocal performance. Flickering Myth does note that Wilding has been running lines on set, which means Vader will talk in the film, which means someone will eventually dub over him. Will James Earl Jones return to his most iconic role one more time?

    Screen Shot 2016-04-07 at 8.23.40 AM

    One of the highlights of the Rogue One trailer was the wonderful use of music, which led many people (including yours truly) to wonder if this was our first taste of composer Alexandre Desplat's score for the film. If so, it was one helluva good sign. But now, Making Star Wars is reporting that Desplat has yet to officially sign on to the film (despite his hiring being widely reported) and that Lucasfilm may pursue other options:

    There's some business issues. At this point there is no contract in place and it is a bit contentious. They're looking at two other composers for the film should it go another way.

    If so, that's a shame. Desplat is a genius and one of the few modern composers who could carry John Williams' torch. Plus, he did incredible work with Gareth Edwards before on 2014's Godzilla. This doesn't mean that Desplat isn't composing music for Rogue One, but it suggests that there is some kind of behind-the-scenes tension. We'll probably hear something official soon enough.

    It's week two of this year's Star Wars: Force For Change charity fundraising campaign and we have a new Rogue One theme. Now, if you donate a little bit of cash to a good cause, you have the chance to win a Stormtrooper helmet autographed by the Rogue One cast. But don't take my word for it – Felicity Jones explains the details in the video above.

    The 2016 Star Wars Fan Film Awards are happening on StarWars.com right now, so if you have the hankering to make your own Star Wars short film, this is your best possible platform. Awards will be given in categories like Best Animation, Best Non-Fiction, Spirit of Fandom, Best Comedy, Best Visual Effects, and Audience Choice, but the top prize is Filmmaker Select, which will go to the "movie deemed best overall." This year's judges in that category are Rogue One director Gareth Edwards, producer John Swartz, and executive producer John Knoll. Everything you need to know can be found in the video above.

    The always-useful Star Wars Minute has dedicated an episode to Bevel Lemelisk, the designer of both Death Stars in the original expanded universe. This character no longer exits, wiped out in the Disney canon purge, but it's still a fun watch...mainly because the character seems more than a little ridiculous. With current rumors suggesting that Mads Mikkelsen's character is the designer of the Death Star in the new canon, poor Bevel is probably about to be erased from continuity forever. Pour one out for the man.

    rogue one packaging

    Take a good look at that toy packaging above. You're going to be seeing a lot of it over the coming year. This will presumably be the template that all of the boxes for Rogue One merchandise will follow: TIE Fighters, AT-AT Walkers, and, of course, a prominently placed black armored Stormtrooper (or "Death Trooper" or member of "Death Squad" or whatever they're supposedly called).

    rogue one poster

    Speaking of things you'll probably see around quite a bit, that is the official and completely underwhelming teaser poster for Rogue One. To be fair, this exists simply to raise awareness and to start burning the title and logo into the minds of ordinary people. A more colorful poster filled with characters and action will arrive eventually.

    Screen Shot 2016-04-07 at 8.12.48 AM

    Meanwhile, Making Star Wars claims to know the name of Diego Luna's character in Rogue One: Cassein Willix. Granted, this could be fake placeholder name used to throw people off the right scent (Rey was "Kira" for a long time during the production of The Force Awakens), but we shall see. In any case, I'm personally glad that it's not a familiar name – the Star Wars universe often feels too small, so the fact that Rogue One's characters don't have direct connections to the main heroes of the saga makes the galaxy feel so much larger.

    Screen Shot 2016-04-07 at 8.19.25 AM

    The trailer for Rogue One offered us our first look at Forest Whitaker's unnamed character, but he was shot mostly in close-up so we couldn't make out much of his costume. However, it did appear to be some kind of bulky suit and Making Star Wars has a few more details about it:

  • Whitaker has a "Power Suit" in the film.
  • The suit is green.
  • It is lumbering in size and sort of evokes a Buzz Lightyear vibe.
  • His cape is the same style as Boba Fett's cape.

    • For the record, this description was published shortly before the trailer arrived, so the details that do directly connect to what we see on screen lend credence to those that we do not.

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