Vader- key to rogue one or just a marketing gimmick

I figured that was your goal. Carry on.

 

Darth Vader has a son? Must've made him out of midichlorians, or something.

 

Yeah, he has a son, but careful who you share that with...

 

@nightangel as well,

Throughout The Force Awakens the filmmakers consistently proved their ability to re-capture characters from the Original Trilogy (what made them likeable, their unique behaviours, personality), so while we can never say never, I'd be really surprised if Vader's appearance was simply token. Even if they just do a script-by-numbers and capture the most core elements of Vader (intimidating aura, the voice, the ability to command, and his intelligence) Vader will be awesome, because those elements made Vader one of the most iconic bad guys ever.

 

I have a theory based on the Vader playing card and the trailer appearance, specifically differences in costume, incorporating what we've learned about the Catalyst novel - that it occurs during the clone wars.

In the trailer image Vader is looking at a schematic of the Death Star. What if the movie starts shortly after RotS, we see the Death Star project hitting a bump and Galen Marek being kidnapped by Imperial troops, then we see Jyn alone, meeting Saw Gerrera (Bald Saw Gerrara), then the movie jumps forward to shortly before ANH? It would be a new way to make a Star Wars film and would set out the anthologies as being something different to the Saga films where the normal rules of Star Wars storytelling don't apply.

 

I'm really skeptical that Vader will really amount to much in the film. I think anyone expecting to see Vader in any battle scenes might be disappointed. But, hey, seeing that Disney is planning to do SW spin-offs well into the future, you might get a movie that has Vader doing Vader stuff.