The new ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’ trailer is here and it’s spectacular

We’ve been waiting for this one a while: LucasFilm has finally released a new trailer for ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,’ and it’s spectacular.

Note: There are mild spoilers in this post if you haven’t been keeping up with news. If you’ve been following along though, there shouldn’t be any big surprises.

The trailer is made up of much new footage, giving you a glimpse at the cast around around Felicity Jones’ character. Thankfully it remains sufficiently vague so as to tell you very little about the actual story. All we know is what we’ve been told from the outset: a group of rebels set out to try and prevent the Empire from building the Death Star.

You also get a sense a better glimpse at the special effects this time around, with Industrial Light and Magic creating some incredible environments and ominous Imperial ships. So far, the effects work looks even better than in ‘The Force Awakens.’

But the most exciting bit may be that we finally have visual confirmation that Darth Vader will be present in some form (wait till the end), making Rogue One likely the first time we’ll see Vader (and James Earl Jones) reprising his role as number one villain –  whiny Anakin notwithstanding.

As the first Star Wars film that’s not part of the main saga, there’s a lot riding on Rogue One to prove that the series can survive as a film franchise outside of the primary Skywalker plot thread. If the trailers so far are anything indication though, we have little to be worried about.

December 16 can’t come soon enough.