To kick things off, Lucasfilm posted the video “Star Wars Go Rogue – Chapter 1” on Tuesday on the official Star Wars YouTube channel. Based on the description from the video, it doesn’t seem like R2-D2 will be helping the Rogue One team infiltrate the Empire to steal the Death Star plans.
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Though fans are sure that Darth Vader will be making an appearance in Gareth Edwards’ “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”, Ian McDiarmid, who has played Emperor Palpatine since “Return of the Jedi”, confirms that he will not be appearing in the upcoming “Star Wars” movie.
So far, the Rogue One Share the Force campaign is more low-key than it was in 2015.
You can’t have a new Star Wars film without new toys, but who are we to complain when they’re so damn cool?
Other than its black paint job, the droid bears a striking resemblance to the most heroic astromech in Star Wars, R2-D2.
Among the toys featured: LEGO, Funko Bobble-Head and Hasbro versions of the Empire Stormtroopers, as well as figures of leads Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) and Cassian Andor (Diego Luna).
Rather than just unbox toys across several worldwide time zones like last year’s “Force Friday” – which earned an estimated $1B in Star Wars Force Awakens merchandise retails sales – Rogue One toys are being revealed in #GoRogue, a four-part series of fan-made stop-motion animated shorts that spotlight the action figures.
Fans, of course, can pre-order a handful of select items seen in the “Rogue Stories” beginning Friday (Sept. 2) at mass retailers, Disney Store locations and online at disneystore.com. The company noted that teen and adult fans can enter the Go Rogue contest on StarWars.com/GoRogue globally, while kids 8-12 in the US and parts of Canada can participate on Disney.com/MyRogueStory. And since Lucasfilm has been increasing the interconnectivity between the different Star Wars mediums, particularly by bringing a Clone Wars character to the screen in Rogue One, it’s probably a safe bet that Clone Wars favorites, as well as Forest Whitaker’s character, Saw Gerrera, will play a role.
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With the marketing starting to ramp up for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ahead of its December theatrical debut, there are a lot of side pieces that are starting to come into focus.
