Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - Review Thread

Sorry Jibbs.  When you're talking about huge blockbusters like this it's easy to forget that not everyone is silly enough to rush out to see it.

I've got a bad feeling about this.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story(12/16/2016)

In the world of videogames there’s a term that’s been come to used, at least amongst people with some interest in the financial side of the industry, called “annualization.” This is used when a company, usually a major publisher like Activision or Ubisoft realizes that one of their series is a really popular cash cow and put enough resources into it to have multiple teams working on multiple sequels to it at once so that they can reliably put out a new installment of the franchise every single year. This makes sense for sports games like Madden but becomes more problematic when it’s applied to series that are actually supposed to have stories like the “Assassin’s Creed” franchise and even when it’s applied to something like “Call of Duty” which doesn’t have a continuous story it still sort of kills a lot of goodwill from consumers who complain that they’re being bilked into buying the same game over and over again, and even if they’re okay with this in principle there’s no doubt that this practice sort of kills that anticipation that players build up for new installments of franchises like “Grand Theft Auto” who take a slower approach and make each installment an event. This same practice isn’t unheard of in the world of film, in fact you could argue that the Marvel movies have been doing it for years now, but it seems to have really taken a hold now that Disney is also trying to do something like it with their newly acquired Star Wars license. Now for basically the first time there’s a Star Wars movie in theaters that isn’t an official “Episode,” a sort of Star Wars “Halo: Reach” that’s officially called Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Rogue One is set in the days leading up to the start of the original Star Wars film and focuses on a woman named Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), whose father Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) has been coerced into working as an engineer for the Empire. With this in her past and her mother dead Jyn has seemingly grown up to be something of a streetwise rebel. Her parentage does catch the attention of the Rebel Alliance, who believe that Galen may be working with an Imperial general named Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) on a super weapon that could end the Rebel Alliance once and for all. As such a task force led by a guy named Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and featuring a reprogramed Imperial robot called K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) break her out of prison and bring her on a mission to find Galen and determine what he’s up to and if necessary neutralize him.

When I first heard the title Rogue One I had envisioned it as a sort of Star Wars flyboy movie that would focus on a squadron of X-Wing pilots, but the film is more of something along the lines of The Guns of Naverone with a team of misfits setting out to retrieve one of cinema’s most famous MacGuffins. There are definitely some good ideas at its center. In essence the movie is trying to give the viewer a better idea of what life under the Empire leading up to the original trilogy and what the fighting in the titular wars was like for those in the trenches rather than the VIPs we follow through the other movies. That’s a great idea in theory, but certain aspects of the execution here leave something to be desired and the movie gets off to a real shaky start. The film doesn’t begin with an opening text scroll like the other Star Wars movies, which is a smart way to differentiate it from the “real” Star Wars movies with episode numbers, but the movie could maybe use one because the first act of the movie feels like something of a jumble of names we don’t know and political machinations that could have used a bit of extra exposition to untangle.

A big part of the problem may simply be the new characters that the film introduces just aren’t that strong or maybe that the movie doesn’t do a very job of establishing a connection between them and the audience. Jyn Erso is a character that certainly seems interesting in theory and Felicity Jones does bring a certain something to her, but at the end of the day she’s a bit one dimensional on the page and her motivations seem a bit inconsistent. The movie desperately wants her to be this aloof Han Solo type but she spends the whole movie trying to protect her father’s honor and the movie never really seems to decide how many fucks she gives in general. Similarly Cassian Andor just seems like a very one note company man and other characters like a defecting Imperial pilot with brain damage or something played by Riz Ahmed mostly just seems to confuse matters and the movie just never makes other characters like Chirrut Îmwe and Baze Malbus just kind of seem to be here out of a nebulous obligation for the movie to build a team rather than because there’s any real reason for their presence in the film. Not every character here is lame, the robot K-2SO is pretty charming for example, but few of them really leave the same kind of impression as the iconic charcters from the original trilogy or even some of the new characters introduced in The Force Awakens. Hell, for all their shortcomings even the prequel trilogy probably introduced more characters that people are likely to remember the names of than this movie.

Beyond that the film is frustrating in that it establishes this darker tone and puts forward some interesting ideas only to then squander them. In particular I was not impressed with the way the film suggests that the Rebel Alliance had its shortcomings and destructive tendencies only to fail to really explore them. For example, the initial mission that Jyn Erso is sent on is to find a guy named Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) who Mon Mothma labels as an extremist Rebel who has ultimately proven to be a liability to the Alliance. That’s an interesting idea but it goes nowhere, we never really see what makes this guy a Rebel extremist or what he’s up to. When we meet him he’s certainly an interesting looking character but all he actually does is give Jyn the next piece of the puzzle and send her off to the next location. Later we’re left to deal with a tension within the group as they debate over whether to assassinate Galen Erso, but the stakes to this are never really clear. We as an audience know that whatever harm Galen can do has already been done and if it hasn’t then what is the urgency to deal with him? Later still we have to deal with what is essentially one of these stock standard movie situations where the hero is right about something but the Rebel Alliance acts as this artificial roadblock to the “man of action” who wants to do something and when the Rebels have a change of heart on this point it isn’t terribly clear why.

Having said all that, the film kind of redeems itself in its third act. It probably isn’t much of a spoiler to say that the movie ends with a big battle scene which is classic Star Wars with the action cutting between three or four different aspects of the action scene each one of them interesting in their own way. It isn’t just that spectacle that makes this third act work though, it also does a lot of clever things to connect the movie to the beginning of the original Star Wars in ways that are impressively seamless. I was also impressed with the film’s willingness to have a rather dark ending that isn’t afraid to leave things in a pretty grim place to set up why the Revels so desperately need “a new hope.” Of course the film’s interest in recreating aspects of the original Star Wars does have some drawbacks. For one thing, Grand Moff Tarkin is a character in the film, which is narratively logical but it with Peter Cushing having died in 1994 the filmmakers decided to use CGI to resurrect him, an idea I might have been willing to roll with if the technology was there but the result is decidedly a trip into the uncanny valley. I don’t know that I would have wanted them to recast the character either so I guess I wish they had left him out or maybe done his scenes with those blue hued hologram things or something. Their decision to bring back Darth Vader for a few scenes was also done with mixed results. You’d think his costume would make him easy enough to recreate, but there’s just something different about him… maybe David Prowse deserves more credit than he gets.

It’s been a truism in filmmaking that if a movie has a lousy ending it will undue a lot of goodwill a movie has built up and if you have a great ending audiences will forgive a lot of earlier mistakes and Rogue One may prove that to be true. The film’s last third does indeed really leave you just about ready to completely forgive how poorly written the first two acts are, but not entirely. I don’t think time and repeat viewings are going to be kind to this movie, the thrill of seeing Darth Vader unleash on some Rebels is going to diminish over time and the unfulfilled potential of the film’s exploration of the messy side of rebellion is going to remain a disappointment. I must say though, that I feel like a bit conflicted about my reaction to this one. When The Force Awakens came out I thought it was pretty cool but complained that it stuck too rigidly to the formula of the previous movies and relied too much on old characters and nostalgia, and now here comes a movie that boldly eschews the old formula and plays by a new set of rules and it’s still not really what I want. I guess that’s what’s frustrating about the movie: it seems to have the right idea and go about it the right way, it just botches the execution along the way and doesn’t handle its best ideas the right way. Despite all that, on balance there is definitely enough here to make the movie a mostly worthwhile experience as the best parts work like gangbusters, it’s just that you’re kind of left with what could have been.

*** out of Five

PhantomKnight Deexan

Hardcore fans love the movie. General audiences are enjoying it. It's the cinephiles that are being more critical.

Yeah, I haven't decided if it's better or worse than Return of the Jedi.

When the first Star Wars spinoff film was announced about Rebels stealing the plans for the Death Star, I was excited because it was new Star Wars but also a little underwhelmed. How exciting could they make the film be when we essentially know exactly the ramifications of their efforts and the fate of the Death Star? My hesitations were answered with a breakneck paced film that delved into the Star Wars universe and seated itself as a worthy entry in the franchise while also succeeding as a standalone film. The film centers on Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), who bears similar attributes and backstory abandonment issues to Rey from Force Awakens last year, the daughter of Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) who as an Imperial engineer is credited with having created the Death Star for the Empire. It's never quite expanded on to its fullest extent in regards to Galen's true allegiance and why he had a change of heart, but after deliberately developing a weakness in the Death Star (thus ending the discussion of one of cinema's greatest "sins", now if only The Hobbit films had come up with something about those damn eagles) the Rebels race to extract the information in order to destroy the weapon and turn the tides of the war. Jyn is headstrong and blunt, and Jones does a nice job of playing Jyn with attitude and flair while never bordering on annoying or unlikable. I'm not entirely confident that she was fleshed out nearly as well as she should've been, especially since she seems to get heavily invested in all of this rather quickly for someone that had to be captured and brought in for all of this. Sure, her father who she hasn't seen for some odd years is at the center of all of this conflict, but early on in the film she has a Han Solo-esque mentality about it all and then in subsequent sequences is giving speeches and talking about how important all of this is. Other than the droid K-2SO, the other characters joining Jyn weren't overly memorable or interesting, so it would've been nice to forgo them for more Jyn. Still, the movie puts a lot on its plate early on in regards to planet hopping and character introducing and unfortunately some of the potential for more interesting political explorations and questions of allegiance are pushed aside.

The story plays itself safe, but there are some positives to the comfort in the screenplay. For one the film doesn't bog itself down in endlessly contrived twists ("I'm an Imperial spy, tricked you!") and espionage that I can't stand in conspiracy flicks, and while it perhaps could've worked with less characters and more emphasis on the big characters at play, I'm okay with the film not trying to be something that Star Wars just isn't. To say that this film is groundbreaking or wholly unique Star Wars would be pure hyperbole, but the film does expand on the universe well while somewhat distancing itself from the other entries. For example, I really liked seeing the Empire's reach throughout the galaxy. From refineries to trading posts to large cities, we get a sense of the Empire's power and reach that has really only been depicted pertaining to Luke and Co.'s journey in past films, and so it was a nice expansion on what's really at stake in the galaxy. And despite the film attempting to showcase itself as running on its own legs, the fan fare here is plentiful. Perhaps Disney was a little bit worried that a film that deviated too far from the characters and familiarity we all know wouldn't resonate with audiences, and as a result there are several homages and cameos littered throughout the film. For some this was annoying and I can't disagree that it's another element of the film that you wish was scaled back in order for Rogue One to shine on its own regard. I personally didn't mind it at all, especially since the events here are running so parallel to A New Hope that it's almost impossible not to throw some nudges and winks in there. Darth Vader's screen time is brief but effective nostalgia, and the short sequence of him onboard a Rebel ship is far and away the movie's most awe inspiring moment. At times it's disappointing that Rogue One doesn't branch out to be a movie capable of operating in its own universe in regards to new characters and settings, but for me the cameos and homages to the previous entries supplemented the film and didn't hurt it.

Rogue One may not dip into the politics as firmly as you would expect, especially with Tony Gilroy cowriting the script, but it certainly delivers on entertainment value. The dogfights remain as spectacular as ever, and the third act of the film is a captivating land battle with the fully unleashed mayhem and destruction you could ask for. It's what we should've gotten at the end of Return of the Jedi. Gareth Edwards got a lot of deserved flack for the lack of intrigue and action in 2014's Godzilla, but Rogue One manages to be a thrill ride like Force Awakens was last year hurtling us from one planet to another with a lot of fun packed in-between. My criticisms of this are different than the ones I had for Force Awakens, and yet the end result for me was about the same. I am very aware of the flaws and missed opportunities of both films, but I had a blast watching them both and can firmly say that the issues didn't detract from my enjoyment of the films. Will this change with subsequent viewings? Probably, I've still only seen Force Awakens once. Am I letting myself get swept up in nostalgia and memberberries and ignoring issues with the film solely because I had a great time watching the film? Probably. Is this Hobbit films apologist losing his critical edge and going soft in this PC world? Fuck you. But for now, I'm okay with embracing Rogue One despite its flaws.

7/10

Subject to Change:

Empire
Star Wars
Force Awakens
Rogue One
Sith
Jedi
Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones

Hence Sith's low placement.

Actually, that's not entirely fair. Dumb as that scene is it's far from the only reason I think Sith sucks.

Caravan of Courage/Battle for Endor > all other SW movies.