Look closely at the image above. Some people see it straight away, for others it’s like a magic eye picture and takes a while to come into focus. But whichever camp you fall into, it can be easy to miss when you watch the new Rogue One trailer for the first time.


Yes, as the camera scans over a desert landscape we can briefly make out the crumbling shape of what can only be a Jedi Knight, robed and bearded and wielding a lightsabre, its blade now broken into shards.

At first the scale is had to determine but if you watch back you’ll see what appears to be a white craft flying over it, a tiny speck that suggests we are looking at something pretty immense.

In fact, it looks like a naturally occurring rock formation that’s been hewn into the shape of a Jedi and now partially covered by the sands of time.

The message is clear: the resistance to the Dark Side is crumbling and the Jedi are no more.

But where is this amazing monument? Surely it can only be Jedha, the planet on which Felicity Jones’s Jyn Erso and her fellow rebels band together in the film, and which director Gareth Edwards has revealed is a spiritual hub for those who continue to honour the Force and the Jedi way in the absence of any actual Jedi.

“[Jedha] came from the fact that the era our film is set in, in theory, doesn’t have any Jedi,” Edwards explained during a Star Wars event in London back in July.

Note the use of the phrase “in theory”. We may be clutching at straws, but could the inclusion of this desert Jedi be more than a sign of despair but also possibly a hint that we may meet other Jedi in Rogue One?

We’ll find out for sure on 17th December, when Rogue One: A Star Wars story finally hits UK cinemas…


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC9abcLLQpI