Check out These Thrilling new Rogue One Clips

With Director Gareth Edwards is set to deliver the first Star Wars standalone films, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, coming out next week (!!!), we're getting more glimpses at what his vision for the galaxy looks like—and it looks like war. 

As you know by now, Rogue One takes place right before the events in the first film in the franchise. A band of rebels come together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction. They're led by Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), who is tapped due to a key connection she has to the Empire's plans—her father, Galen Erso (Madds Mikkelsen) was key to the weapon's creation. The rebel alliance believes Jyn is the only one who can get to Galen and, ultimately, derail the Empire's plans. 

Joining Jones and Mikkelsen are Diego Luna (Milk) stars as Captain Cassian Andor, with Donnie Yen (Ip Man, Blade II) as the blind spiritual warrior Chirrut Imwe, Jiang Wen (Let the Bullets Fly, Devils on the Doorstep) as his heavily armored best friend Baze Malbus, Alan Tudyk (Firefly) as the droid K-2SO, Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler, Four Lions) as the Rebel pilot Bodhi Rook, plus Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) as Saw Gerrera, a character first introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Ben Mendelsohn (Bloodline, Mississippi Grind) as the film’s main antagonist, Director Orson Krennic.

In the new new clips, we see Jyn get sprung from an Imperial transporter (and she's not very appreciative) and a tense flight through a rocky canyon with K-2S0 at the controls. Both clips show that Edwards has crafted a film that looks grittier and darker than previous Star Wars films, a welcome tonal change.

Rogue One hits theaters on December 16.