‘Rogue One’ Featurette Reveals Direct Ties to First ‘Star Wars’ Film, New Footage

With the December release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story coming fast, Lucasfilm and Disney have released a brand new featurette that deliberately links the film to the original 1977 classic, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. 

While fans “in the know” have been aware for a long time that the new spin-off details the theft of the Death Star plans (AKA the event that sets the plot of the very first Star Wars film in motion) the latest video clip literally spells it out for casual fans who might not have realized that Rogue One is not a sequel to last year’s The Force Awakens.

Director Gareth Edwards explains how Rogue One tells the story first described in the iconic crawl of yellow text that precedes the first film, while the video does a close up on the exact lines to which he refers.

In addition to linking Rogue One and A New Hope, the clip also allows Edwards and stars Felicity Jones and Diego Luna to expound on how long they’ve loved the franchise and how honored they feel to be a part of it.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story stars Jones, Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Alan Tudyk, Jiang Wen, Mads Mikkelsen, Forest Whitaker, and Riz Ahmed. The film hits theaters on December 15.