So, what did I think of
Rogue One? Well, it was pretty good. This is one of those movies I suspect I'm going to feel like a traitor to my class (
Star Wars nerds) and religion (I'm a theistic Christian Jedi) for having mixed feelings on. It was really-really good in many places but also didn't fill me with the kind of overwhelming joy I got from the other installments of the series.
Indeed, if I had to rank the movies, I'd say this is probably the single most technically proficient of the films but probably the one I will re-watch least. I also believe this will be the single most loved of the movies for some after
A New Hope and
Empire Strikes Back. For me, it's just above
Revenge of the Sith. Not because of the acting, the special effects, the likability of the characters, or the plot--all of that is great. Instead, my issues with
Rogue One are entirely about tone and presentation. Also, the fact the movie is kind of creepy in its attempt to literally resurrect the dead on screen.
More on that later.
The actors have great chemistry.
The movie is an prequel (GASP!) or intrequal between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. Indeed, it's really a kind of weird prologue to A New Hope as it's no spoiler to say the movie literally ends like minutes before the events of the first Star Wars movie. There's a few Prequel tie-ins like the inclusion of Jimmy Smits' Bail Organa, Coruscant, and Mustafar but no sign of the elements people disliked about them.
Basically, Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is the daughter of Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), the designer of the Death Star. In the place of Bevel Lemisk from the Expanded Universe, Galen Erso is an unwilling accomplice to the Empire's misdeeds and has sabotaged our favorite moon-sized space station with the whole thermal exhaust port thing.
Galen's put a message with an Imperial pilot named Bodhi (Riz Ahmed) who has been captured by a bunch of anti-Imperial terrorists led by Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker). I use the term anti-Imperial terrorists because they've been kicked out of the Alliance for being too extreme, employ torture, and are made to visually resemble Middle Eastern insurgents in tactics as well as appearance. Jyn gets rescued from an Imperial labor camp by Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and his droid K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) so she can make an introduction with Saw as he was an old friend of Galen's.
I don't care what they say. I say he has the Force.
Along the way they pick up a Force-wielding monk named Chirrut (Donnie Yen) and his atheist companion Baze (Jiang Wen). A lot of things happen which result in it becoming desperately necessary for our heroes to steal the Death Star plans from an Imperial library world. It's a fairly complicated plot but it actually works because the central idea is strong and everything stems from the heroes' failures. For example, Galen's message flat out says what the Death Star's weakness is from the beginning so they probably didn't actually need the plans. Unfortunately, the heroes' lose it and their subsequent attempts to get the weakness through other methods end up as colossal screw-ups.
Which actually brings me to one of my first problems with the movie, in that the Rebel Alliance is a bunch of (to use a Star Wars idiom) karks. We see its members murder semi-innocent people, extort people into their service, plot assassinations, plan surrender to the Empire, and that's just the mainstream Alliance. 9/11 certainly changed American perception of guerilla warfare and there's always been jokes about the Rebel Alliance being a bunch of terrorists but it's kind of painful to watch their handling here. The Empire is much-much worse, what with numerous atrocities against innocent people, but the general tone brought me out of the movie.
More Admiral Piett than Grand Moff Tarkin.
Next, the kinda-sorta main villain of Director Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) was a big disappointment as I'm stunned to realize the movie really doesn't need him. I was hoping for a new Grand Moff Tarkin character but he strikes me as more the fun-hating college dean. With Grand Moff Tarkin actually in the movie and Darth Vader, he's really just a bungling Imperial administrator who kicks over the occasional ant-hill without a trace of real menace. I really wish they'd deleted Tarkin completely and split the story between him and Vader.
Speaking of which, I find the fact they CGIed Peter Cushing's face onto another actor in order to resurrect Grand Moff Tarkin for this movie to be positively ghoulish. I think its disrespectful to the actor and something which should be avoided. The actual effect is almost but not quite there and if Peter Cushing were still alive to approve it, it probably wouldn't bother me as much but I had the same problem when they inserted Sir Lawrence Olivier into
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Let the dead rest in peace.
Beyond these complaints, the movie is staggeringly beautiful with the kind of battle scenes which we only saw the barest hints of on Hoth and over Endor. There's an amazing amount of action in the films with some of the most intense fighting, no, the most intense fighting in all of the eight films. The Rebel Alliance engages the Empire head on and they get their asses truly handed to them but that's not a bad thing as they're willing to sacrifice their lives to inflict as much damage on the Imperials as possible. There's also a single great "Vader as Jason Voorhees" moment which has to be seen to be believed.
The Peace Moon is almost completed.
The characters are extraordinarily likable throughout with Jyn, K2-SO, and Chirrut as the stand-out characters. I would have easily watched multiple sequels with them tooling around the galaxy to fight the Dark Side. Cassian had an interesting character arc which fit into my view of a man realizing he's NOT in a universe where hard men make hard choices but a more idealistic
Star Wars one. I also loved Saw Gerrera as it's very clear he threw everything at the Empire and then some, only to realize it wasn't remotely enough.
The music of the film was unfortunately also a bit weak. I can't recall any real motifs which stood out for me and they didn't even reuse any of the classic movie themes in memorable ways. The music of the film is serviceable but I think it would have benefited from John Williams doing a couple of signature songs for it and making use of classic pieces like the original Star Wars theme.
Still, when the credits finally rolled, I had mixed feelings about the film. The film didn't feel like
Star Wars where the power of idealism and hope triumphed over cruelty as well as cynicism. There are a lot of sacrifices made in the movie and while that's a valuable lesson in real life, because change does require great sacrifice, it's perhaps a bit too much. I felt numb instead of elated and I don't think that's the direction Star Wars should go. I compare the feeling at the end of the movie to where Jaina killed Jacen Solo at the end of the
Fate of the Jedi series. Yeah, the Sith Lord is dead but it's at a horrific cost which doesn't remotely feel worth it. It was a good movie but I wish they'd done several things differently to get that Star Wars feel.
And why was there no opening crawl or Star Wars theme? BAD! BAD MOVIE!
8/10
