WARNING: Full spoilers throughout this review.
Going to put this right out there immediately, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is brilliant!
Though last years return of the Star Wars franchise was generally a success in The Force Awakens, Rogue One seems to best it by being more unique and original in its premise, delivery and situation. It doesn’t seem to rely on the nostalgia that Episode VII seemed to in order to be a success. On top of that, Rogue One has no Jedi, no Skywalkers (more or less) and a whole array of great scenes that help to create one of the best, if not the best, film in the franchise.
Rogue One is set between the events of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. The film opens amidst the Empire control of the galaxy. Systems are being taken over and rebellions crushed and oppressed. On an obscure planet, Galen Erso, excellently played by Mads Mikkelsen (he’s everywhere at the moment!) is living with his wife and daughter, Jyn. A peaceful life, farming, is quickly interrupted by an Imperial craft landing on the planet. Enter an array of Stormtroopers and Rogue One’s main villain Orson Krennic, who is Director of Advanced Weapon Research for the Empire (anyone want to take a guess at what he’s working on).
The tension in this scene is excellent, Jyn has been told to hide away but as a curious child she has returned to a place of low visibility to watch the interaction between her father and this intimidating troupe. Turns out that Krennic needs Erso to help complete the ‘weapon’, it cannot be done without him, apparently. After Jyn’s mother is murdered by the Empire, Jyn runs to hide as she searched for by the Imperial troopers and her father goes with her mother’s killer. She is successful in remaining unseen until she is found by Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) who takes care of her and raises and protects her.
Flash forward 15 years and Jyn (Felicity Jones, who is brilliant) is captive of the Empire, under a pseudonym. Whilst being transported to a work camp, she is freed by a band of rebels, led by Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and accompanied by a reprogrammed Imperial droid, K-2SO, take Jyn to their base. The rebels propose to Jyn that she can be free and released from their capture if she helps them speak with Saw Gerrera, now a Rebel Extremist, who has taken into captivity an Imperial pilot who has defected and has reportedly snuck out a message from Jyn’s father, Galen. They feel because Jyn knows Gerrera well, she would be able to speak to him without being attacked, Gerrera now paranoid and distrustful of most people.
Reluctantly Jyn agrees and travels to Jedha to speak with him. After some excellently choreographed street battles upon arriving in Jedha, Jyn and co. make it to Gerrara’s hideout, where everyone except Jyn is thrown in a jail cell (told you paranoid). At this point we are properly introduced to the blind monk, Chirrut Imwe, and his companion, Baze Malbus. They realize they are with the pilot and attempt to escape. Whilst this is happening, Gerrara shows Jyn the message from her father.
What we learn next is the answer to a question that most Star Wars fans may have been asking for the best part of 40 years:
At last we finally know how those guys with the weird shaped black helmets see….I kid, but we know now!
If you didn’t watch the video, essentially we now know why the Death Star has the exhaust port that made it possible for Luke Skywalker to destroy it A New Hope. It turns out, Garen Erso (Mikkelsen) has intentionally put in this design flaw that allows the Death Star to be destroyed, giving it its weakness. It turns out that Erso has been working with the Empire for the last 15 years to ensure it gets finished in this way, making sure he was vital to the Death Star’s completion.
Personally, I loved this as it is clear that fans have queried this in the past (i.e. the Family Guy video). Before anyone else can see the message, cue the yet to be finished Death Star (ears must have been burning) to test fire the weapon, but only on a city at this point. Having harvested the Kyber crystals from the temple to help power the Death Star, the Empire was done with this city. After successfully escaping the destruction, the crew (Jyn, Cassion, K-2, Imwe, Malbus and the pilot) all return to the rebel base to decide what to do next. They decide to head to Yavin-4 where Jyn’s father is working, Jyn believes she is going to retrieve her father as do all of the companions, except for Cassion who is given secret directive, assassinate Garen Erso.
I quite like the idea of adding in the Rebel Alliance as a temporary enemy, both sides will do whatever they can to achieve their goals and they do acknowledge this later on in the film. Fortunately, our main man redeems himself, Cassion decides against assassinating Garen Erso, but not before a Rebel attack squad assault the base he is at, losing his life to ‘friendly fire’. Grab the tissues, as Jyn finally sees her father for the first time in 15 years for about as many seconds. What I want to congratulate at this point is the relationship that both Mikkelson and Jones managed to create in terms of their father – daughter love. It is truly believable and gut-wrenching despite the brief time they have to develop it.
In his hologram, Erso had revealed that the plans for the Death Star, which will reveal where the weakness is, is located on the Imperial planet Scarif. With Erso dead and the hologram destroyed, the Rebel Alliance vote to give up, surrender, as they cannot verify the message he had sent and are therefore skeptical of an Imperial technician who has worked to build this planet killer. Jyn does her best to try to convince the rebels that they might as well give it a go if there’s nothing else to lose. However, the deciding chooses to end the rebellion, that’s it, game over man, game over.
Except it isn’t, all our main characters as well as some inspired others, band together to form ‘Rogue One’, who steal a ship and head to Scarif to obtain the plans, as mission that they all accept they may not come back from. There is little plan and everything is done ‘off the cuff’. Which is awesome, there isn’t time to plan, they’re just going to wing it and hopefully it’ll succeed, hope being their driver. It makes a refreshing change to films where a plan is exacted and a few things deviate from the plan. Things that happen are all unknown, the improvisation levels of this team are over 9000!
The final act and sequences are truly excellent. The drama, action and heartbreak throughout is truly on the edge at time. This is despite us knowing that they must succeed in some way, Episode IV tells us they do. It also, more or less, tells us that Rogue One don’t survive. They are never acknowledged in any of the other Star Wars films. Given the final circumstances, it is pretty much a given anyway, Scarif is a shielded planet, the whole planet is only accessible through one point, controlled by the Empire, whilst it is open. When the Rebels finally come to their senses and make their entrance with the Rebel Fleet, the shield quickly closes. Everyone gives their all, literally everything they have to give, so that there is ‘A New Hope’.
The acting is great throughout Rogue One, the characters interact really well and are all really well-defined. There aren’t any odd choices and kudos to director Gareth Edwards for his decision to stick true to the lineage of the franchise by including the original likenesses of Carrie Fisher and Peter Cushings used to make sure that Leia Organa and Grand Moff Tarkin look as they should. It really took me by surprise and I was super impressed at these moments, it was done spectacularly. No characters inclusion seemed overdone, Darth Vader is in it (woot for James Earl Jones) but he’s not shoehorned in at any point, he feels organic. We don’t see the Emperor and although a female Jedi is referred to there is no being saved for any lightsabers. I was also eternally thankful that there was no tacked on love story, I guess it could have easily happened between Jyn and Cassion, but they didn’t go that way with it, it wasn’t needed.
R2D2 and C3PO are in the film and perhaps one of the few missteps in the film, they’re appearance has raised some eyebrows among fans as their location at the Rebel base during the final attack. Although it is always nice to see the robot duo (like a Stan Lee cameo), timing wise, fans have raised concerns that they may not have been able to be present at the beginning of Episode IV if they are where they are in Rogue One. Though it is likely that they could have been picked up, moments after the scene where we see them
The music is as you’d expect from a Star Wars film. The orchestral pieces rise and fall appropriately and the sound effects are true to the series. Visually it looks great, though I would always like to see a Star Wars without the obligatory desert planet. Though saying that, some of the environments are so varied, Scarif was a shock as it was so picturesque, not all built up like I imagined. Further to that, it is so awesome to see the return of the AT-ATs and the AT-STs in full swing!
What I did like was the all of the technology was true to that of the original films, the Death Star schematics looked as they did in 1977 and didn’t seem upgraded just because there’s the better technology now. This also seemed the case with other pieces of technology such as the video binoculars, it was a nice touch that didn’t jar you from the time it was set (in Star Wars time at least). The pacing was great too, the film did not feel overly long and transitioned enough to keep you interested, whilst every scene was dripping with intrigue and often tension.
The film ends basically minutes before the start of Star Wars: Episode IV. The plans have made it to the Rebels and the very brief appearance of Princes Leia and Darth Vader is in pursuit. In a nod to the originals, the director also included some unused footage from the original films, which was a nice touch and added to feel of the film. Despite that, it didn’t feel as though the film relied on the feel of the original, like I alluded to for Episode VII. Though I will admit, it was weird for a Star Wars film to not open with the fanfare that they normally do after seeing the text “Long ago, in a galaxy, far, far, away…”
I said at the start that this could well be the best Star Wars film yet and I truly think that this could be the case. But, before you jump on forums to tell me how Empire is the best, let me explain. Rogue One works so well because of the existence of all of the other films, it cannot exist as it does without the intrigue and mystery that was established earlier on in the franchise. We know that the Rebel Alliance get the plans, we never knew how, we didn’t know why the Death Star had that seemingly odd weakness and we certainly knew there weren’t any Jedis doing the rounds at that point.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that Disney are trying to just churn out some more merchandising opportunities by releasing more films with the release of the ‘Star Wars Stories’ but with Rogue One, at least, they have triumphed. It is everything you would want from a film series so well revered. It has laughs, drama, massive action, likeable characters (K2 is brilliant and definitely no Jar-Jar, rest assured) and some teary eyed bits too, especially at the end. I would recommend Rogue One: A Star Wars Story to all and hope that we see more films in the future like it.
Rebellions are built on hope.
May the force be with you Rogue One.
