Review: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
- Apr 4, 2017
- 4 min read
My lovely partner Kimbit informed me before I saw Rogue One: A Star Wars Story that she had no interest in seeing it. I didn’t know what it was about other than ‘Star Wars!’ so I did not understand the issue. For those of you who support as blindly as I do, Rogue One is the story of how the Death Star plans got to Princess Leia and the leaders of the Rebellion in the first place. It is essentially an immediate prequel to A New Hope. Kimbit’s opinion is that if you know how it ends, and with the lead in directly to A New Hope we do, what is the point? Though I do see her point as there is no surprise ending here, no will they/won’t they get the plans to her, so what is the point?
Yeah they don’t…
I being a fan of story in any form wasn’t really concerned about that and saw it anyway. In my opinion it was totally worth it. To me, the point of the story when you already know how it ends is the story itself or the ‘journey’ as it were. The characters and their struggles, lessons, wins and losses are what make it worth it. A big part of story is the plot, but to me a larger part is those that reside in it. I want to connect to a character or situation. The ending is only problematic to me if it’s unbelievable or predictable through bad narrative not the nature of the story.
Now for something as big as the Star Wars franchise it is also important that it informs the larger story. For example Rogue One fills in the biggest plot hole in A New Hope. You know the one, why would they make a basic self-destruct button on the damn Death Star? To what end?! Now we know. It’s a pretty simple answer, but it is nice to have it immortalized on film.
Now to the actual review:
Trek/Wars – Potato/Potato
What I loved about Rogue One is that it’s a war story. Sure they all kind of are, but this brings you back to the trenches and what it really means to be in a war; Even a worthy one like the rebellion. It’s about the struggle of war and also what it does to the individual. It explores the prejudice, distrust, mistrust and general murky waters that is war. It asks some tough questions like when should you follow and when should you resist your own leaders? Do the ends justify the means? When have you won or lost? Is it worth the fight? And, when, if ever, is it over? The movie doesn’t necessarily answer these questions but presents them in a way that makes the audience think about them.
Now beyond the validity of the story, what of the movie overall? I’ve always been a huge fan of the droids in Star Wars movies and Rogue One does not disappoint. K-2S0, cheekily voiced by Alan Tudyk, provided a good deal of the laughs in the film. Equal to him however is the butt-kicking duo of Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen) and Baze Malbus (Wen jiang). The duo acted as a great buddy cop pairing of Jedi and skeptic working together in harmony and hilarious annoyance of one another. The ‘main’ characters of Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) and Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) were intriguing, but they are where I got much of the trust issues of war plot points but I didn’t find myself overly attached to one or the other.
Gibson and Glover amiright?
The story of the movie is fairly simple, like many of the classic Star Wars. Find the plans, get the plans to the right people (in this case Leia). However this is something that I love about Star Wars in a childish way, this movie does ask the questions of right or wrong, but in a simplistic way, there are the good guys and the bad guys and it’s pretty easy to root for the good guys.
Now the only real presence of Jedi in the movie is Chirrut Imwe who I have heard described as the blind guy with the stick. This would be accurate but incomplete. He is the bada** blind Jedi with a stick. Infinitely better sounding yes? I thought so.
My only real complaint was actually Forest Whitaker as Saw Gerrera. I normally love Whitaker from The Crying Game to Panic Room, but his portrayal felt forced to me and a little out of place. His costume was a little haphazard and disheveled so maybe he played it perfectly and I just didn’t ‘get it’, but he felt almost cartoony to me which took me out of the story a bit.
Most real moment in my opinion, and the best one of his (no joke here)
Overall this wouldn’t be my favourite Star Wars movie but I thought it a welcome addition to universe. And hey, the more we get to overshadow the disaster that was the prequels trilogy, the happier I’ll be. I give it 4 stolen blueprints out of 5.
What’s your favourite Star Wars movie? How do you feel about movies you know the ending to? Let us know on social media!
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