Rogue One: A Star Wars Story may be my favorite movie in the Star Wars franchise. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is set after Episodes 1 through 3, the inferior prequels to the original entries, Episodes 4 through 6. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story takes place immediately before Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is the story of how the Rebel Alliance got the plans for the Death Star.
For Star Wars fans, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has plenty of Easter Eggs to reward you for your devotion. Even though I have been following the franchise, my enthusiasm has always been tempered by my dissonant experience with the franchise’s ideals and some of its fans’ less than progressive attitude. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is a particularly intriguing movie to watch at this point in American history because some of the same viewers cheering a rebellion voted for the Empire.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story impressed me because the characters are essentially nameless cogs in the wheel of the rebellion, and each one gets a brief moment of recognition. The significance of his or her actions is unknown to the characters, but they act nobly anyway despite seemingly insurmountable odds, a lifetime of bitter experience, and the understandable human desire to survive. Their actions will not be memorialized, and their names will never be known like Skywalker, but everything matters. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story reminded me of a quote from the TV series Angel, “Nothing in the world is what it ought to be. It is harsh and cruel…..Doesn’t matter where we come from, what we’ve done or suffered or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be.” The viewers are very aware of whether or not the sum of the characters’ actions ultimately lead to success so Rogue One: A Star Wars Story becomes an admonishment to us to act similarly when we return despondently to the real world to face daunting challenges.
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I loved that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was so bleak, and that every character introduced in the film died. A rebellion does have fatal consequences, even for the good guys, and the Star Wars franchise always pulled punches when it came to the fate of its heroes. The Star Wars franchise lacked a certain amount of gravitas and seemed juvenile in its approach to love, war and morality. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story finally shows what it is like to be on the planet when the Death Star strikes. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is an elegiac movie for those who had to stare down the wrong end of the Empire’s barrel. They step out in faith, do their part and fall. “I am with the Force, and the Force is with me.”
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story finally brought some moral complexity to the conflict reminiscent of Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story offers its audience more nuanced rebels, particularly Cassian, a rebel willing to murder allies in order to achieve the main objective. Darth Vader even has a foil in the rebellion, Saw Gerrera, who has similar physical challenges, a penchant for torture and a my way or the highway nature. Galen is basically a war criminal whose conscience got pricked too late to avoid the attention of the Empire. The rebels in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story make Hans Solo and Lando Calrissian seem like Boy Scouts.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has the most diverse cast of any of the films in the Star Wars franchise. This cast makes Rogue One: A Star Wars Story a believable film about a conflict that spans the universe. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story actually has actors with accents that are not British or American! I think that a Mexican actor is a perfect choice for 2016 and provides a regional shout out to South America that is long overdue considering the region’s history. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story may even have a same sex couple. Still don’t think that I did not notice that the black guy is still too radical for the liberal power base, or that there are maybe two black women on the sidelines, one of which had a line pooh poohing the heroes’ strategy. Maybe we will get more than a line in 39 years (CGI doesn’t count).
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has some serious acting talent. Any mother would ditch her kid and try to save her husband if he looked like Mads Mikkelsen. Maybe Mikkelsen is Superman’s dad? I am glad that American audiences finally got to see Ben Mendelsohn, whom I first saw in Animal Kingdom, in a major role as a villain though his cape needs ironing. Live by the Death Star, die by the Death Star. Clearly I have failed myself by not knowing about Donnie Yen before watching Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. I clearly am going to have to check him out in the Ip Man franchise. Alan Tudyk provided pitch perfect vocal and physical humor in Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope, which is not surprising for people who are familiar with his work in Firefly, Serenity, Dollhouse and particularly Death at a Funeral.
I have some minor criticisms of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The body actors for Darth Vader, Spencer Wilding and Daniel Naprous, in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story did not have the same physical presence and imposing grace as David Prowse in Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope. The final scene in the hallway was terrific, but otherwise the pointing was lackluster and limp. Also Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is impressive for basically resurrecting actors who are no longer alive to give performances that still outshine the work done by some living actors in other films, but the CGI was uncomfortably too close to uncanny valley to enjoy.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story gives me hope that Disney has finally figured out a way to please audiences and make money on a standalone spin-off film while simultaneously creating meaningful content that is faithful to the original cannon instead of Lucas’ prequel abominations.