INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

New ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’ Footage Set To Debut On Thanksgiving

By Dustin Wicksell
Published on: 02:49 PST, Nov 6, 2016

Star Wars fans are just a scant six weeks from seeing the most recent entry in the franchise, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, debut in theaters, but over the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, they’ll get a chance to see even more footage from the highly-anticipated film before its release.

The announcement comes from a video released on the ABC Twitter account, according to MovieWeb. The tweet advertised the Disney Magical Holiday Celebration, which is set to air on Thursday, November at 8 p.m. ET. Hosted by Derek and Julianne Hough, the special will feature performances by Kelly Clarkson, Garth Brooks, and Trisha Yearwood. At some indeterminate point in the evening, it will also feature new, exclusive footage from Rogue One, a fact confirmed at the end of a 20-second-long video included with the tweet.

It remains unclear exactly what this exclusive footage from Rogue One will be. It could take the form of a new and unexpected trailer for the film, or a behind-the-scenes, “making of” short, similar to the one released at Star Wars Celebration over the summer, as CinemaBlend notes. It is just as likely, however, that the footage will turn out to be a small clip from the film, or a hitherto unreleased commercial with marginal amounts of new scenes for fans to devour.

With just a few weeks remaining until its release, the marketing campaign for Rogue One is in full swing. When compared with the lead-up to the last Star Wars film, The Force Awakens, there are definite similarities that can be discerned; both movies were preceded by their own “Force Friday” events during which tie-in merchandise was revealed to a spoiler-hungry fanbase. Each film was also introduced with a series of trailers which progressively revealed more details, in both cases confirming the inclusion of classic Star Wars characters in the second such clip.

Rogue One is set to be a very different film than The Force Awakens, however, and the marketing campaign has reflected that. The first of a planned series of standalone or spin-off movies, Rogue One will be the first film in the franchise not to focus on the saga of the Skywalker family (even though Darth Vader will play an as-yet-indeterminate part in the proceedings). Instead, it tells the story of the group of rebels who are responsible for stealing the plans for the first Death Star, led by Felicity Jones’ Jyn Erso. The film will also reveal the role her father, Galen, played in the conception and construction of the Empire’s ultimate weapon.

Actor Mads Mikkelsen is set to play Galen Erso in the film, as the Inquisitr has previously reported, while the rest of Rogue One‘s core cast is fleshed out by Ben Mendelsohn, Alan Tudyk, Diego Luna, Donnie Yen, Wen Jiang and Forest Whitaker. As revealed in the earliest trailers for Rogue One, Whitaker will be playing freedom fighter Saw Gerrera, a character who originated in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Gerrera is the first such character to originate in the animated realm who has since transitioned into a live action role in a Star Wars film, though he may hardly be the last.

Whatever the new footage proves to be, fans can see it exclusively on ABC on November 24, just a scant few weeks before Rogue One: A Star Wars Story brings the tale of the Rebels’ first mission against the Death Star to theaters.

[Featured Image By Ben A. Pruchnie/Getty Images for Walt Disney Studios]

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