Eleven long days separate the general public from the wide release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. I dreamt last night that in their efforts to continue to stoke the eternal flame of hype, Lucasfilm unknowingly released the entirety of the film piecemeal over dozens of spliced-together promos. Some ambitious fan isolated each snippet of footage and stitched it back together into the competed feature and released it on his own under the title Not Rogue One. Other Star Wars aficionados, out of respect for the effort, then started to edit fan videos devoted to the DIY film that pretty much resembled the original promos from Lucasfilm. If Borges was alive today and far worse at writing, this would be his latest novella.

At any rate, the Rogue One team has released a pair of new videos to momentarily slake the thirsts of fans getting increasingly impatient with a week and half to go. The first goes behind the scenes to reveal the practical-effects magic that created the many alien creatures of Rogue One. While plenty of effects will come from digital post-production, many of the weirder organisms onscreen come from nothing but sheer Hollywood ingenuity, with good old fashioned clay molds and latex prosthetics. Plus, director Gareth Edwards utters the phrase “space monkey,” so:

And then Lucasfilm’s PR department doubled down and released a new TV spot as well, a brief 30-second clip that goes through a visual roll call of the rebellion fighters before showing them bringing the battle to Empire forces. “HOPE BEGINS,” declare the title cards, perhaps a slight nod to A New Hope. The odds may be against them, but the resistance has the light of good on their side:

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