from rank and file stormtroopers to the imposing darth vader himself villains have long been the engine that drives the star wars universe sure luke han and now finn and rey might be the ones we root for but its the antagonists that give them something to fight against and in many cases provide the franchise with its most powerful imagery its no coincidence that the features of darth maul and kylo ren have been used to promote the phantom menace and the force awakens respectively with less than a year to go until the release of the first star wars spinoff rogue one we have already provided one fairly hefty roundup of what we know about the movie so far you can read that here but for anyone who just needs a simple one line refresher heres one now rogue one is set before the events of star wars a new hope and explores how the rebel alliance manages to steal the plans to the death star it will explore a galactic struggle from a ground war perspective says lucas film boss kathleen kennedy while maintaining that essential star wars feel that fans have come to  knowand of course villains are all part and parcel of this star wars spinoff over the past day or so some tantalising stories have emerged about the nature of those rogue one antagonistsheres a look at each one in turndarth vaderfirst up old darth himself its been rumoured for some time that the dark lord of the sith will appear in rogue one but the original thinking was that he wont be the central villain of the piece but rather a puppetmaster who will only make a few appearances on screen now however reports are starting to emerge that fly in the face of those earlier rumours  vader wont just have a cameo role but will appear in at least one action sequence the story comes from making star wars a site which has a great batting average with these kinds of things  where its reported that several suits of vader armor have been built for rogue one one of them is a detailed replica of the one first seen in a new hope but others have been built for members of the stunt team why because well reportedly see vader slicing through rebels on the battlefield the word is that story boards show vader decapitating and dismembering rebel troops and levitating bodies to make human shields now we have heard that rogue one will be going down a grittier war movie route but this sounds like the kind of stuff that could really push at the boundaries of the pg13 rating given that rogue one will take place before the events of a new hope it sounds both logical and more than a little exciting that we would see vader flex his sith muscles against soldiers rather than hapless underlings on the death star this is certainly one rumor were hoping will come to pass moff tarkin another villain from a new hope is also said to be making a return in rogue one you might recall that moff tarkin was first rumored to be a member of the spinoffs cast as long ago as last year the slightly more spurious part of the story went that the late peter cushings likeness was being recreated using cgi a process which was costing the production millions according to sources talking to the daily mail we havent heard that repeated anywhere else as yet but making star wars now adds to the thinking that tarkin is indeed going to be stalking around sullenly in rogue one their source claims to have seen photoshop concept art that pretty much looks like it could be a cut scene from a new hope whether this actually confirms the suggestion that tarkin will be cgi or whether they simply used imagery from the original star wars as a placeholder remains to be seen for now it at least lends weight to the theory that tarkin will appear in the spinoff in some form perhaps played by the mighty ben mendelsohn its not too hard to imagine him playing the most gaunt governor in the star wars galaxy death troopers its the realities of war director gareth edwards said of the events in rogue one and if the spinoffs about realisticlooking scifi combat wont the standard rank and file stormtroopers who famously couldnt hit a cows backside with a banjo seem a bit out of placeto remedy this lucasfilm is reportedly set to introduce a new breed of stormtrooper in rogue one there were stories last year of blackclad imperial soldiers appearing in the movie but jo blo now reports that theyre referred to among the crew as death troopers whether thats the name theyll have in the finished film isnt currently clear all we know for now is that donnie yen posted and then swiftly deleted an image of three stormtrooper helmets on instagram one was the standard white stormtrooper design we have all seen before the other two were unfamiliar but gorgeously retro looking one is yellowing and worn with what appears to be a blast shield mounted on the top the third is shiny and black akin to a more angular tie pilots helmet could this latter design be the new face of these elite death troopers only time will tell a captured imperial droid okay so this one isnt strictly a villain of the piece but he certainly starts out as one its said that a humanoid imperial droid which is either dark grey or black is captured by the rebels reprogrammed and winds up working on the side of felicity jones and her motley band of fighters lucas film has already confirmed that alan tudyks playing a performance capture character of some sort in rogue one could this be him jo blo thinks its a possibility though its equally likely that its a reprogrammed imperial probe droid as pictured above or what about one of those imperial interrogators that scared the life out of us as kids one of those would make an interesting sidekick returning bounty hunters this is an older rumour but were including it here for completeness sake bloody disgusting reported last year that moff tarkin will at some point in rogue one hire a band of bounty hunters to go off and retrieve the stolen death star plans those bounty hunters youre probably guessing where were going with this dengar zuckus cad bane and some chap named boba fett shiny new imperial hardware thanks to jo blo we also have the rumors that well see new tie fighters and  perhaps even more exciting  a new kind of atat in rogue one rebels facing off against imperial walkers classic bounty hunters and maybe darth vader lopping off heads in the same movie excuse us while we lie down