WARNING: I am one with the SPOILERS, the SPOILERS are with me.
A long time ago, in a galaxy where people went crazy because
there wasn’t an opening crawl in a Star Wars movie…
Set before Episode IV, Rogue One tells the story of how
Disney retconned Kyle Katarn out of Star Wars canon. Jyn Erso (played by
Felicity Jones) has been on the run ever since her father Galen (Mads
Mikkelsen) was kidnapped by the Empire into working on some super secret
project. But she is drafted into the Rebel Alliance when it turns out that her
father has actually been working on the Death Star. Joined by a rag-tag group of
Rebels and misfits, they embark on a journey to steal the Death Star’s plans in
order to find a weakness in the Empire’s ultimate weapon, and show an oppressed
galaxy that they have a new hope to believe in.
This is definitely a different type of Star Wars movie.
Whereas the other ones were glitzy and heroic, with good always triumphing over
evil, this one shows that such wars do have major casualties. Sometimes the
good guys don’t always win, and sometimes the good guys do some not-so-good
things. Sometimes this works in the movie’s favor, while other times it
doesn’t, but more on that later.
The characters, unfortunately, are not as interesting or
memorable as ones from other Star Wars films. K-2SO is the best of the new
bunch: a new droid with all the sass of C-3PO, but could totally kick your ass
if he wanted to. Chirruit Îmwe – the blind, Force-worshipping monk played by
Donny Yen – and his sidekick Baze Malbus are also interesting characters, though
their full potential isn’t really shown. They’re the “Guardians of the Whils”
and protectors of the Khyber crystals on the planet Jedha. One has a strong
devotion to the Force, the other is a gun-toting mercenary who thinks such
beliefs are nonsense. It just feels like a lot of these traits and their Odd
Couple dynamic weren’t fully explored over the course of the film. But there is
enough there that I think a book or comic series starring these two set before
Rogue One would be interesting.
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| But can he see why kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch? |
The rest of the characters are meh. Jyn isn’t a terribly
interesting protagonist. Bodhi spends half the film as a plot device. Saw
Garerra – a character they brought over from the Clone Wars cartoon – barely
has an impact on the plot and could have easily have been switched out for a new
character without an existing canon background. Mads Mikkelsen’s potential is
wasted here more than it was in Doctor Strange. Cassian shows some sign of
being interesting early on in the film, with him being the audience’s way of
seeing the darker and more ruthless ways the Rebels fight for the greater good.
But this is pretty much dropped at the halfway point. These characters aren’t
unlikeable per say, they’re just on the bland side of characterization.
More infuriating is how weak the main villain – Director
Orson Krennic – is. He’s the person in charge of the Death Star project, has a
personal history with the Erso family, and not only forced Galen to work for
him, but also kills him later on, and yet his final confrontation with Jyn
still feels hollow where it should feel exciting. Star Wars has always had
compelling and threatening villains like Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin, but
here…no, wait, those guys are here too! The mere presence of Vader and CGI
Tarkin (who I didn’t think looked that bad) manages to completely overshadow
Krennic’s role in the plot, to the point where I question why these two weren’t
just made the primary antagonists instead.
Speaking of everyone’s favorite asthmatic cyborg, Vader is damn
good in this movie. He has limited screen time compared to Krennic and the
Computer-Generated Ghost of Peter Cushing, but he makes every second on screen
count. That fight scene at the end alone was worth the price of admission, and
singlehandedly undid all the wimpification damage done to Anakin Skywalker by
the prequels. The Rebels cartoon has been working very hard to remind us how
much of a terrifying powerhouse Vader is, and Rogue One manages to accentuate
that to a nightmare-inducing degree.
(Speaking of the Rebels cartoon, did you guys catch that
little easter egg about a “General Syndulla”? Congratulations, Hera!)
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| "I'm here to kill Rebels and hate sand. And I'm all out of sand." |
And honestly, I didn’t think Vader’s little pun to Krennic
was too bad. He’s always had kind of a dark, snarky sense of humor about him,
like during the dinner scene in Episode V, wherein, after deflecting blaster
fire from Han Solo, remarks, “We would be honored if you would join us.” Granted,
pun-throwing may be too much an extension of his funny bone, but I think
Vader’s in a position of authority that he can Force-strangle the life out of
someone while telling him not to “choke on his aspirations” and get away with
it. Who’s gonna tell him to knock it off?
So let’s talk about the ending, a.k.a. the part of the story
where the narrator closed the book and said, “And then everyone died. The end!”
There are parts of it I like, such as how it shows how much of an uphill battle
the Rebels have against the Empire. They couldn’t very well completely win
against the bad guys in the end, since the Empire is still a nigh-unstoppable
force at the beginning of Episode IV. And it does make sense for all the main
characters to die since none of them are seen or talked about in the other Star
Wars movies, despite the huge part they played in the eventual destruction of
the Death Star.
However, all of the deaths feel so sudden and dropped upon
us with the intention that this is something they had to put in the movie. A
lot of the deaths feel kind of random too. While, yes, this does help with the
realistic war movie feel of the film, I would have preferred more build-up and more
emotion. Take this hypothetical example of Chirrut’s death: Somehow, Vader
becomes more integral to the plot and finds himself in the Battle of Scarif.
Chirrut, thinking his abilities in the Force are much stronger than what they
actually are, goes to fight him. Vader, predictably, curb-stomps him. Deaths
like these are what I wanted; meaningful, memorable deaths, not just “Character
X gets shot/blown up by another Stormtrooper.”
There’s also plenty of call-backs and references to previous
Star Wars movies. Some of these do feel like excessive fanservice, like the gratuitous
cameo from C-3PO and R2-D2, and the even more mind-boggling appearance from the
two guys from the “He doesn’t like you” scene from Episode IV (seriously, how
the hell did these guys manage to get off Jedha before it was destroyed AND
make it to Tatooine a few days later???). But I couldn’t help but let out a
fangirlish squee when Tarkin showed up, or when the ending of the movie turned
into the beginning of Episode IV.
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| I was trying to think of a funny caption but I can't get over the LIFELESS EYES OF K2 BURNING INTO MY SOUL |
It was also interesting to see a Star Wars movie where the
focus wasn’t on the Jedi and/or the screw-ups of the Skywalker family. It
really served to build the world of Star Wars even more, and it was kind of
like seeing a story from the expanded universe unfurl on the big screen for the
first time. If Disney learns from their mistakes in this movie, then I have a
lot of hope for future Star Wars anthology movies to show new sides of the
universe. Fingers crossed for the Han Solo movie!
Final verdict: 7/10
So you guys ready for this fresh, new Star Wars theory?
Snoke is Jyn. Mind blown, right?
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