Recommended music: Dmitri Shostakovich – Symphony No. 11 in G Minor
On this #StarWarsSaturday, we’re looking ahead to the 10th anniversary of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in December and checking out trading cards from Topps Star Wars Rogue One: Mission Briefing. Today, I’m sharing base card number 105 – Assembling the Death Star!
Since my action figures are still packed away, waiting for a new display, the cards keep coming out to play.
Topps released the Rogue One: Mission Briefing trading card set in September 2016 to help build excitement for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The main set includes 100 cards covering stories from Episodes I to VI and the animated series from that era, including the creation and destruction of the Death Star. The set also includes 10 cards featuring characters and scenes from the Rogue One Teaser Trailer, which came out a few months earlier.
In the trailer, the Death Star served as the central looming threat, establishing the film’s high stakes and timeline. The trailer revealed the superweapon under construction, culminating in a shot of its massive superlaser dish being lowered into place in its upper hemisphere. This visual immediately signaled to audiences that the story directly preceded the events of A New Hope. In the shot, the station was turned relative to the planet below, which caused some online speculation about the correct position and whether it actually mattered when firing a laser through space. 😄
For promotional artwork showing the Death Star looming over planets like Scarif and Jedha, artists rendered the superweapon larger in the sky than realistic low-orbit physics would allow, deliberately mimicking a solar eclipse or a giant moon to emphasize the Empire’s inescapable shadow of terror over the galaxy. By keeping the weapon front and center across trailers, magazine covers, and posters, Lucasfilm anchored Rogue One in classic Star Wars lore while building tension around a high-stakes heist mission.
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