04 May Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Review

ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY

dir. Gareth Edwards, starring Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, et al

[UPDATED REVIEW – 20 April 2022]

Yeah, Rogue One is the best of the Disney Star Wars movies. After watching Episodes VII-IX and Solo, I am relieved that Rogue One was the final film for these updated reviews. It is a terrific film and represents the eventual direction Star Wars would find success.
The Mandalorian eventually did what Rogue One started and was criticized for: telling a story in the Star Wars universe that doesn’t involve Jedi or Skywalkers. My review below covers all my thoughts regarding this new direction, and I want to double down on the basic conceit that there are fantastic stories to be told that don’t require Skywalkers. Lucas’ universe and lore has breadth and depth far beyond the nine entries in the Skywalker Saga, and Rogue One is the first film that embraces this.
Particularly considering The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker being too cowardly to kill any side characters to support the dramatic power of the story, Rogue One shines as a tragedy in every sense of the word. The action scenes are also incredibly well-staged and thrilling.
One thing that has not aged super-well is the two major CGI characters: Peter Cushing’s General Tarkin and Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia. Even in the last 3 years, the ability to create CGI representations of deceased or aged characters has improved dramatically. But this is a minor complaint, especially considering this film’s emergence as the best of the five Disney Star Wars movies. Fire up Rogue One and enjoy!

[UPDATED REVIEW – 6 April 6, 2019]

Honestly, my opinion hasn’t changed, except that Rogue One is my favorite of the Disney-era Star Wars films to date, and that opinion is easy to defend and commonly held. Episode VII was too nostalgic; Episode VIII was too desperate to be different it went dumb; and Solo was simply a complete waste of film. Rogue One is left a the only interesting film with any hint of original, creative thought that isn’t stupid. The fact that Disney is filming a TV series of these characters on its new streaming service for later this year attests that viewers wanted more of these characters, and I’m perfectly fine with that.

[ORIGINAL REVIEW – 4 March 2019]

Shortly after Attack of the Clones, I decided that George Lucas was a brilliant idea-guy with remarkable technical talent but almost no appreciable talent directing human beings. So why doesn’t he come up with great Star Wars stories and hand them off to more talented directors? You know, like he did with The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi?! I wanted James Cameron or Ridley Scott (two of the greatest science fiction directors ever) to be given the opportunity to leave their unique mark on the Star Wars legacy. When J.J. Abrams was announced as the director of Episode VII, I was ok excited: he was a master of franchise resurrection (Mission: Impossible and Star Trek) and knew how to weave action and character work. And with Cameron stuck in Avatar-land and Scott revisiting his Alien franchise, Abrams was a solid choice and undoubtedly an improvement over Lucas.

The Force Awakens was a great movie, and my third favorite Star Wars joint. Its biggest flaw: it is clearly a remake of A New Hope. While not necessarily a bad thing, it was surprisingly unoriginal, relying on nostalgia to mask plot and narrative beats identical to various elements of the original trilogy. I was also disappointed that it centered around another Death Star, and I was concerned about Rogue One, since a fourth Death Star-centric film would mean a majority of Star Wars films clung to the same McGuffin. Honestly, the Fast & Furious franchise tries harder to change things up. Think about that…

With the news that Gareth Edwards would be directing Rogue One, I was immediately intrigued. His indy film Monsters was remarkable on many levels, and his Godzilla remake was (for the most part) exceptionally well done where it needed to be (i.e.: Giant Monsters Fighting).

So, what did Edwards do with Rogue One? Here’s the short version:

Rogue One is the most grounded, gritty, hard-edged film in the Star Wars franchise. It succeeds in impressively improving certain aspects of Episode IV; deals with unexplored subject matter and settings within the Star Wars universe (the impact of a galactic war on actual regular people instead of space wizards); and features some of the most remarkable visuals of the entire series. Oh, and also some of the best character work in the Star Wars canon.

And now, I’ll dive into a more in-depth review explaining why I enjoyed Rogue One so much, while also touching on a few weaknesses.

Fair Warning: Spoilers Abound!!

Big movies from established franchises often rely on characters that are so disconnected from the reality of the audience, that the world-building necessary to accommodate them demands larger and larger suspensions of disbelief to continue. To describe one of my favorite aspects of Rogue One, I’m going to pick on one of Disney’s other properties as a negative example of this phenomenon.

While I love the Marvel Cinematic Universe and have seen all 14 films multiple times, the MCU has utterly failed to account for the consequences of superheroes’ actions and their effect on normal people. The core problem is captured by item #5 in this article from Cracked, which boils down to this: despite the massive, catastrophic damage wrought by the heroes of the MCU, at no point do the films meaningfully address the effect on normal human beings. Or, as Cracked poignantly states it: ‘Marvel Humans Don’t Give a Sh*t About Monumental Tragedy’.
The effect of this obvious, consistent flaw in the MCU is that the entire franchise is increasingly disconnected from any emotional or consequential realities that normal humans in the audience can relate to in the real world. In my opinion, the cumulative effect is that each consecutive film is diminished in its possible emotional impact.
The best example is found in The Avengers, when, after NYC is partially leveled in a massive battle with space aliens, cuts to the next scene, which features the Avengers meeting in Central Park and saying goodbye to each other as “regular” people stroll around as if nothing has happened. This moment started my growing criticism of Marvel’s handling of violence and consequences in the MCU.
Taken a step further, I might point out that the entire plot of Captain America: Civil War was centered around dealing with the consequences of all the previous films’ destruction, but the manner in which it was addressed was incredibly disingenuous. When Tony and General Ross introduce the Sokovia Accords to the Avengers, it is patently idiotic that the entire team didn’t stand up and point to Tony Stark as the root cause of almost every major incident; unquestionably he was the central and arguably sole cause of all the destruction in Captain America: Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron (really, Weekend of Ultron). The Sokovia Accords should have been the Stark Accords and simply put Tony Stark under restrictions. The fact that nobody did this, even when Tony off-handedly confirms his own sole culpability, further reinforces the MCU disconnection from reality and their indifference towards the consequences on the regular people they are supposedly protecting.

So, what does all that have to do with Rogue One? The point is this: just as Marvel has long and almost universally ignored the consequences of violence and mass destruction on normal humans, so, too, has Star Wars long ignored the plight and effect of all the large-scale galactic events on everyday people throughout the prior seven films of the Skywalker Saga.
Episodes 1-7 are populated by characters that are, in one way or another, superheroes, hardly less powerful than Marvel’s characters. The Jedi and Sith are obvious, but even characters like Padme Amidala, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and especially MF C-3PO and R2-D2 have all lasted well past their expiration date by surviving events that, quite frankly, were incredibly traumatic and should have profoundly altered the (physical, psychological, and emotional) life of a normal person; often they move on without so much as a brief moment of respite. They are, almost across the board, unstoppable superheroes, with a few obvious exceptions, i.e., carefully orchestrated deaths for narrative impact (Han Solo, Obi-wan Kenobi) or to (lamely) fulfill the promise of a long-previous film (Padme, who died shortly after Leia was born…of a broken heart?) As the Skywalker Saga progresses, the argument that there is a serious disconnect between the consequences of galactic violence and the everyday bloke caught up in the midst of the Rebellion vs. Empire/Resistance vs. First Order struggles strengthens.

All of this is what makes Rogue One unique and special. Instead of ramping up the carnage and destruction wrought by superheroes and space wizards (and further reinforcing the disconnection from reality), Lucasfilm decided to make Rogue One, an entire movie that completely throws this paradigm out the window by focusing entirely on regular, everyday folks who meet exactly the end that regular, everyday folks meet in these circumstances: they all die and are essentially forgotten in name, though their deeds have a profound impact on the success of the superheroes.

Rogue One tells the story of a band of legitimate nobodies and has-beens, who have no appreciable powers near the scale of, say, Anakin or Luke Skywalker, or Rey WhatsHerLastName (Kenobi? Palpatine?!). Rogue One’s literally throw-away characters are given an important, if initially small, assignment that evolves into one of the most crucial moments in the Skywalker saga. And although they succeed gloriously, unlike any of its blockbuster, franchised peers, they suffer a staggering, permanent, irreversible personal cost–they all die and are completely forgotten; nobody left alive in the Star Wars universe of characters knows their names or backgrounds.
These characters are infinitely more relatable because the reality of their fate reflects the hard, oft-unmentioned reality of our own lives here in the real world: despite having a unique life story and personal experiences, most of us will die and a negligible number of people will ever know we even existed, much less recall our purpose or accomplishments in life. Because of this, deep-down we relate to them better than Luke Skywalker. For every Einstein, there are millions of scientists whose names are lost to history. For every Skywalker, there is an Erso who dies among a sea of nameless heroes whose names and stories are lost to oblivion.

THIS IS WHY I LOVED ROGUE ONE. It tells the story of regular people who rose to the occasion, succeeded, but suffered real consequences and were ultimately forgotten. This, to me, is the essence of what I wanted to see so many years ago: a gritty, realistic story within the Star Wars universe that was more relatable than the social and political struggles within a family of powerful space wizards.

That’s my philosophical meanderings about why I loved Rogue One. Let me highlight some of the practical aspects of the movie I particularly liked:

· Best space battle in SW history: The final battle over Skariff was as epic and emotionally draining yet satisfying as anything else in SW canon. The special effects, the use of unused Episode 4 footage, and the sheer scale and imagination that went into the battle were the definition of epic. I loved every second of it. The Hammerhead Corvette smashing the Star Destroyers together to destroy the force field gate: that was pure, unadulterated cinematic joy. It was The Reason I love movies and why I go to the theater to see them. That moment will never be as impactful at home. The experience of seeing it in the theater was indelible and amazing.

· Character Development Through Action, Not Exposition: All of the important characters in Rogue One were well-developed, well-rounded, and interacted more like real people than any other SW movie. Most of the character development was done in increments as we slowly learn about each character through their decisions and actions; not solely through exposition (cough Prequels cough). When movies rely too much on exposition, the audience is given no opportunity to fill in gaps or use their imagination—we are told exactly what the filmmakers want us to know. Allowing the story to dictate the traits and disposition of the characters by their actions and reactions leaves out many finer details about their backgrounds and motives but permits the audience to have a unique experience interpreting the characters for themselves, which is much more satisfying!
Diego Luna’s Cassian is a great example. While we do get bits and pieces of exposition, he makes some decisions throughout the story that seem to defy his initial presentation as a cold-blooded killer. By the end of the film, his actions are defined by a real character arc, not a substitute, one-dimensional excuse, like “Cassian fell in love with Jyn”. It was great to see so many characters develop in the same way. The main villain, Director Krennic, was also treated the same way and was so much the better for it. Despite all of his power and resources, he is scared and desperate, and watching him alternate between hiding and harnessing this fact to pursue his ambition is fascinating and satisfying to watch.
I think this could ultimately be the great advantage of the anthology films: permitting more realistic character studies that just happen to be in the Star Wars universe. Jyn Erso was a great character who undergoes a life-altering moral about-face in a matter of days, and it is believable because her character has clearly defined strengths and vulnerabilities that the story delicately explores then fully exploits. This type of one-off film allows this because it doesn’t need to hold back bits of character development for later sequels. Rogue One is Jyn’s one and only moment, and in the end, she’s a better, more rounded, and far more compelling character than fan-favorite Boba Fett.

· The Breaks from SW Idiosyncrasies: Rogue One eschews many trappings of the other movies. From the moment it starts, there is no opening crawl; almost no familiar characters inhabit the film; the few characters we do know are presented in a way we have not seen them (Darth Vader FTW!!); C-3PO and R2-D2 have only single-digit seconds of screen time. Although some of these seem minor, I liked the respective choices that eliminated some overly common SW tropes. It introduced a measure of unpredictability that made the film more exciting. Ultimately, while I knew the universe, I was seeing it from a different, and enjoyably unfamiliar, perspective.

· The Embracing of Star Wars Idiosyncrasies: There were some entirely enjoyable Easter eggs throughout the film that made it fun and familiar, and (mostly) unobtrusive. The loss of an opening crawl was assuaged by the immediate appearance of blue milk. Those two guys that got all up in Luke’s face before defeat from Obi-Wan’s lightsaber in Mos Eisley were apparently planet-hopping douchebags, which made me laugh. The references were frequent but unobtrusive, and that made the film feel familiar, even when everything about the characters and setting was unfamiliar.

· Surprisingly Satisfying Retconning. Although I never had a huge issue with it, I always thought it was curious that Empire Quality Control never noticed an exhaust port that went straight into the reactor core. I LOVE how this entire film is centered around explaining why that is entirely plausible, even by specific design! Jyn’s dad’s role is kept ambiguous for the first half of the movie, and once it is revealed that he is the central reason the Rebellion ultimately succeeds, and that he had the purest of motivations, I was happy to write off my previous question about A New Hope. In fact, a few aspects of Episode 4 are better for the events and perspectives of Rogue One. It’s rare that a movie can be improved 40 years later without touching it, but That Just Happened.

There was so much more than I enjoyed, but these were the bigger, more unique items.

There were also a few things I didn’t enjoy. For example:

· Lost Footage? I find it annoying that footage featured in trailers was not only absent from the final film but was later revealed to be never intended for the film at all. I don’t like being deceived by trailers into expecting a movie that doesn’t exist. This wasn’t as egregious as, for example, the trailer for Predators, but still annoying. Luckily, the final movie was perfectly great, but the first (and incredibly awesome) teaser for Rogue One turned out to be almost total bullshit.

· Darth Comedian: At one point, Director Krennic visits Vader in his castle on Mustafar (which raises its own super-weird questions), and Vader ends the meeting with a joke. At first, it elicited a laugh from me, but in repeat viewings, I found the sudden bit of humor from Vader in the form of a horrible pun an unsatisfactory break in character. Minor, but annoying.

· Deus Ex Cassian. At the end of the film, Cassian seemingly falls to his death, in an emotionally powerful sacrifice to give Jyn the time she needs to escape and transmit the plans to the Death Star. Then, when the writers apparently wrote Jyn into an unavoidable corner, he just shows up again and saves the day! Never mind the crippling injuries one would sustain from an incredible fall onto metal girders! A little too convenient. But given the extensive (and apparently almost complete) rewrite of the third act very late in the game, this slightly unbelievably convenient narrative inconvenience was forgivable…

That’s about it. These are minor, to say the least.

In the end, I still think Empire Strikes Back is a superior film, but Rogue One stands as my second favorite Star Wars movie, with The Force Awakens a close third. If Force Awakens had been more original or taken more risks, I would have ranked it higher. But Rogue One’s space battles and wholly unique take on normal-guy consequence wins out.

Star Wars is always greatest when it tells the small stories of seemingly inconsequential people caught up in peripherally big events, such as Episodes 4, 5, and kinda 7. Rogue One takes the risk of telling the story of truly inconsequential people and how they end up playing a pivotal yet tragic role in saving the galaxy. The genuine tragedy elevates the film above most of its predecessors, and the future of the SW universe looks so much the brighter if Lucasfilm is willing to continue making unique, compelling one-off stories.

Review by Jim Washburn