Yesterday, Disney brought us a brief look at Rogue One: A Star Wars Story with a trailer announcement. Today, the teaser has been revealed. Directed by Gareth Edwards, the film is part spinoff and part prequel, as it is set before the events of A New Hope but is also centered on a new group of heroes we have never seen before. The story will revolve around a group of rebels will attempt to steal the plans to the Death Star. Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything) stars as the leader of the group.

Check out the full trailer below.

The teaser trailer first debuted on ABC’s Good Morning America.

Now since this is a teaser trailer, there isn’t a whole lot of footage. However, it uses themes and elements that have been talked about throughout the early parts of the film’s marketing campaign.

In addition to Jones, the film will also star Diego Luna (Milk, Killing Them Softly), Donnie Yen (Ip Man, Blade II), Jiang Wen (Let The Bullets Fly, Devils on the Doorstep), Forest Whitaker (The Butler, Ghost Dog), and Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler, Four Lions), who have all been confirmed for the film. Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal, Doctor Strange) is rumored to play a scientist who defects to the Rebel Alliance who may or may not be the father to Jones’ character. Alan Tudyk (Firefly, Tucker and Dale vs Evil) will play a motion-capture character.

With the studio now focusing on these spinoff titles, the Star Wars universe expands even further and to tell stories that don’t involve the Jedi. Edwards has said that the film would borrow influences from Black Hawk Down and Zero Dark Thirty by focusing on the grittiness of the war between the Rebels and the Empire. Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy spoke about the war aspect of the film while at D23 last year:

We see plenty of that as our rebels peer out through a transport window much like how the soldiers did in the humvees in the aforementioned films. Plus that shot of them trying avoid AT-AT blaster fire was pretty exciting.

Still no official plot synopsis but at this point it really doesn’t matter since the teaser already spelled it out for us. Ben Mendelsohn (Bloodline, Mississippi Grind) seems like he is not playing a major villain character as he is dressed in a very impressive Empire garb unlike anything we’ve ever seen in film. But as to who he is playing that is still unknown.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is slated for a December 16, 2016 release.

Trailer

[Source: Star Wars]