New Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Photo Shows Off Elite Sith Troopers

Seeing as how it’s only a month away from release, Disney and Lucasfilm have wasted no time when it comes to promoting Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Just yesterday, a new TV spot began making the rounds, teasing an epic finale to the Sequel Trilogy while giving fans a quick look at some truly tense action sequences.

Shortly afterward, Empire Magazine published a cover story focused on the franchise’s latest movie. The article in question is chock-full of juicy tidbits and info, along with a handful of never-before-seen promotional stills. One, in particular, shows off the Sequel Trilogy’s three heroes, while another gives us a glimpse at a new First Order enemy.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen plenty of Stormtroopers, from your typical run-of-the-mill grunts decked out in pearlescent white, to entirely new variants including Flametroopers and Snowtroopers. For The Rise of Skywalker, director J.J. Abrams and the rest of the film’s creative team are bringing us the Sith Trooper. Named after the ancient order of Force-users devoted to the dark side, this new type of Stormtrooper is completely decked out in red armor – a noticeable change from the white we’ve become so familiar with over the past few decades.

It’s not entirely clear if they’re more formidable from their garden variety counterparts, but given their ominous name and striking armor color, we wouldn’t be entirely surprised to hear that these new baddies are considered the elite forces of the First Order.

We’re curious, though: what’s your take on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker‘s new enemy? Do you think the Sith Troopers are a bit too much of a departure from the vanilla variant, or do you dig their new taste in fashion? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!