"Commander, tear this ship apart until you find those plans!" With Darth Vader's words echoing in our ears, we've torn the metapohorical ship of Rogue One apart in the last few days as we welcomed a new issue of Empire into the world. We unveiled six Rogue One-themed covers; a Death Star subscriber-only cover; an exclusive image of director Gareth Edwards filming his star, Felicity Jones; another exclusive of the big bad, Ben Mendelsohn – and today, we bring more imagery of an exclusive nature.
The first image shows Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed) having to deal with some dodgy-looking characters. Speaking to Empire, Ahmed describes his character as a regular Joe: "He's just a guy," he tells us. "An everyman who finds himself thrust into the middle of historic events. He's someone who is disconcerted by what they're up against. It makes his decisions and choices much braver."
Our second image today has Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen) and Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen), two rebels with differing outlooks but fierce loyalty to one another. Yen told us that – even with his vast experience of Hong Kong martial arts movies – he was bowled over by the scale of the shoot. "I have never been on sets with so much resource," he says. "Oh my goodness."
For much, much more on Rogue One – plus much more movie goodness beyond – pick up a copy of the new issue of Empire, on sale now. Probably worth subscribing to Empire if you want to get your copy before everyone else, with subs-only covers...