Rogue One, which will be released Dec. 16 in the US, takes place directly before A New Hope. It’s led by two visual virtuosos in director Gareth Edwards, who directed the recent Godzilla reboot, and cinematographer Greig Fraser, who’s responsible for the fantastic photography in Let Me InZero Dark Thirty, and Foxcatcher.

One shot in particular (at 1:38 in the trailer, and shown below, third from the bottom), of a ship flying through some kind of epic storm, looks a lot like the first half of this trailer for Edwards’s Godzilla (video), which portrays with terrible beauty a team of HALO jumpers plunging through the ashen sky, toward a city ravaged by the titular beast.

If this trailer is any indication, Rogue One will be darker, grittier, and more grounded than the average Star Wars movie. Edwards said the film is “morally grey,” and will meditate on the “nature of war.”

The movie underwent a series of reshoots amid rumors that Disney, which owns Lucasfilm, wanted it to be less of a war movie and more lighthearted in tone. Both Disney and Edwards have denied that’s the case. Unless the movie is drastically different from this trailer, then it would appear all that hoopla was unfounded. This movie might be quite moody, but it’s also gorgeous.

Here are some of the striking images from the trailer:

Rogue One: A Story Wars story
Image: Lucasfilm/Youtube screenshot
Rogue One: A Story Wars story
Image: Lucasfilm/Youtube screenshot
Rogue One: A Story Wars story
Image: Lucasfilm/Youtube screenshot
Rogue One: A Story Wars story
Image: Lucasfilm/Youtube screenshot
Rogue One: A Story Wars story
Image: Lucasfilm/Youtube screenshot
Rogue One: A Story Wars story
Image: Lucasfilm/Youtube screenshot
Rogue One: A Story Wars story
Image: Lucasfilm/Youtube screenshot
Rogue One: A Story Wars story
Image: Lucasfilm/Youtube screenshot
Rogue One: A Story Wars story
Image: Lucasfilm/Youtube screenshot
Rogue One: A Story Wars story
Image: Lucasfilm/Youtube screenshot

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