Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Locations Featurette Released

To top off the first week of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Lucasfilm has released another featurette about the film, this one exploring the exotic locations. The movie visits several planets and moons (and one that's no moon at all) throughout, with the Star Wars classic practice of on location shooting for much of it.

"We were super keen to shoot Rogue One on location, because where ever you looked, it looked super real," director Gareth Edwards said.

Unsurprisingly, it looks like the cast and crew most liked shooting in the Maldives, the real-world location for the paradise planet Scarif that the final act of the film took place upon.

"I don't think anyone's filmed here before, in the Maldives, not like this," Edwards said of the gorgeous beaches. "It's like the two most amazing things in the world combined: paradise and Star Wars."

Star Felicity Jones said the contrast of the "beautiful beach and palm trees and survival element to filming" helped fuel the sense of togetherness on the set.

They also used some of the same shooting locations as those in the original Star Wars, helping them recreate locations like Yavin-4, the home of the Rebel Alliance in the first movie (and in Rogue One). Check out the featurette above for a closer look at these and other planets, and how Lucasfilm created them right here on Earth.

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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is in theaters now. Directed by Gareth Edwards, it's the first of the new standalone features from Lucasfilm and Disney, which take place outside the core "Skywalker Saga" of films noted by an Episode number. Rogue One tells the story of the small band of rebels that were tasked with stealing the plans to the first Death Star. The story spins directly off the opening crawl from the original Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. In that crawl, it read: "Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet."