Rogue One: A Star Wars Story graced UK cinemas on the 15th December, and as the Star Wars ‘fanboy’ that I am, I didn’t really hesitate to go and see it at the midnight premiere. The event in itself was quite an enjoyable experience, a good horde of people of all ages filled up the entirety of the cinema’s screens. Employees dressed up (quite profoundly to boot) as the biggest and best Star Wars characters – all for a charity cause. Merchandise was of course on sale, albeit for rather unreasonable prices. But that’s the Star Wars effect, people will buy it anyway. The film itself, was pretty damn remarkable. A fitting entry into the saga, and a hopeful beginning for what will no doubt become a rather big spate of ‘anthology’ films.
Rogue One is technically the 4th prequel movie, following on from Revenge of the Sith, and coming just a few weeks or even days before the beginning of A New Hope. Thankfully, people have been a lot more supporting and less cynical than they were about Lucas’ prequels, and it’s pretty obvious why. Simply put, the film feels like ‘original’ Star Wars. Darth Vader returns in live-action after 11 years, assuming you count the glorified cameo in Revenge of the Sith, and damn do his scenes deliver. The Mon Calamari are back leading fleets of ships much like good old Admiral Ackbar. The Rebel Alliance and the Imperial Empire are in the full swing of war. The Death Star begins its final preparations that we’ll later see completed in A New Hope. And through the magic of CGI, some classic and well-known characters make miraculous returns to the big screen. All the while, little throwbacks to the events of the prequel trilogy and The Clone Wars series help to bring the saga together as a fully flowing and satisfying story. Remember the end of Revenge of the Sith? We all know that when Darth Vader and the Emperor were looking out at the construction of the Death Star, and Obi-Wan delivered Luke to his aunt and uncle, we wanted to see more. We wanted that gap between Episodes III and IV to be filled. With Rogue One, we get that. And for those among us who don’t mind 3D animation, the Rebels TV show also helps fill the gap in a so far fulfilling way.
So fan service aside, what makes the film actually good? Well, a lot of things. For starters I am very glad that we’ve gotten an official installment that delves into the dark and gritty side of the Galactic Civil War. After Revenge of the Sith, the Jedi are all dead. The Empire reigns. And the rebellion is being hunted down and killed slowly but surely. All the while, a ‘planet killer’ is in the works by the Empire just to rub salt in the wound. The cruelty of the Empire is pulled off really well, reminiscent of modern-day oppressive governments who care about nothing but pure order and superiority. In charge of the Death Star’s creation and overseeing development is Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), who is a new, original character. Throughout the film he butts heads with Grand Moff Tarkin, who will later become the commander of the Death Star in A New Hope. Tarkin, originally played by Peter Cushing who died in 1994, is brought to life through a CGI likeness of Cushing, and the performance of actor Guy Henry. Initially, I was concerned over the news that a CGI Tarkin would be used in the film, simply because I underestimated how it would look. Tarkin is a major player, and arguably Star Wars‘ first major antagonist until the introduction of Emperor Palpatine. With this in mind, I am glad that they went the route they did, as the CGI looked incredible. Personally, I could only tell he was CGI purely because I knew Peter Cushing had passed away 22 years prior. Some people apparently couldn’t tell it wasn’t him, and were shocked to find out he was purely computer-generated. It’s funny really, coming from the stigma of the prequels due to their rather bad CGI, to whole characters being recreated and brought back from the dead in a believable fashion. The final scene with Vader was purely amazing. For the first time since Return of the Jedi, we got to see him in action in perhaps his best scene ever put together. Back in my small review and defence of The Force Awakens, I made a point to say that I hoped to see a “more mature version of the strangling scene from A New Hope” and well. I got just that. Seeing Vader turn on his lightsaber in the darkness was honestly purely chilling, and you really felt the terror in the poor Rebel soldiers that got on his wrong side. Just think – that was the only time they’d probably seen a Force user or a lightsaber in action. It’s a pretty damn heavy scene when you think about it.
The plot of the film technically revolves around the actions of a single man. A man who realises the cruelty and madness of the Empire, and works to cause their downfall from the inside. He is Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelson), an Oppenheimer-like character, who helps to construct the Death Star and later regrets his actions after learning of the nefarious plans that come with it. From within, he creates a single fatal flaw on the Death Star – an exhaust port that when fired into will set off a chain reaction causing the entire space station to explode. After almost 40 years, the Empire’s single flaw in their construction, and a near deus ex machina to the Rebels, is given reasonable explanation. The Rebels didn’t get lucky with the design of the Death Star after all, and it was in fact all part of a plan from the beginning to cause the Empire’s downfall. Now, there’s not much point outlining the rest of the plot in great detail, purely because it’s rather straight-forward. Galen’s daughter Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) receives a message from her father after an Imperial pilot defects with the message in hand. Galen explains his plan, but informs her that she will need to retrieve the plans from the Imperial Databanks, on the planet Scarif. This essentially sets up the rest of the movie, Jyn meets with the Rebel Alliance leaders, and forms a team of people consisting of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), K-2SO (Alan Tudyk), Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen), Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen), and the Imperial defector pilot – Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed). Some details I have left out, such as Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) hiding out on Jedha, and the rescue attempt of Galen. Again, explaining the whole plot isn’t necessary for the sake of this ‘review’, and I assume that by reading this you’ve already seen the film anyway.
Now, what I will discuss is certain places and characters looked into by the plot, purely because I feel like the movie does a great job at expanding the Star Wars universe, even if it is considered fan service. The desert moon of Jedha, where Clone Wars veteran Saw Gerrera remains within the film, is a brand new location within the series. Though there are fittingly no Jedi within this film, we actually see their place of origin in the form of this moon. Jedi, Jedha. You see the similarity? The moon is also a huge source of kyber crystals – the crystals used in lightsaber manufacturing, and little-known before this film, also used to power the Death Star’s superlaser. I love the use of Jedha in this film, which expands upon the origin of the Jedi and their weapons, and also serves as a final symbolic moniker of the lost order, which is then fittingly blown up by the Empire once they get the kyber crystals they were after. One other location glossed over quickly is the planet of Mustafar, where Darth Vader now resides in an ancient castle modified to his liking. Mustafar is perhaps most prolific as the place where Anakin and Obi-Wan had their battle which later gave birth to Vader himself, however it also has made appearances in Rebels, and is known as a place where the Dark Side of the Force is particularly strong, which is why Vader goes here to meditate and recuperate. This whole setpiece is very intriguing and it’s awesome to see that that lore of Rebels is being translated into these future films, keeping the canon clean. Finally Yavin IV returns as the base of the Rebel Alliance, and lots of characters return here. General Dodonna, Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, and even R2-D2 and C-3PO very briefly – keeping with their tradition of being the two characters to appear in every film. The whole place is very nice to see almost exactly as it appears in A New Hope, and it’s good to see Bail Organa get a final appearance before we see him headed off to Alderaan where he will later meet his doom, and also put the plan in place to bring Obi-Wan out of retirement for the impending war. Finally a pleasant surprise was seeing the pilots Gold Leader and Red Leader from A New Hope return for the space battle of Scarif. I’ll admit, I haven’t seen A New Hope for a while, so at first I simply thought maybe they were recasted. When I later learned that they used old, unused archive footage from the original movie, I lost it a bit. It wasn’t even noticeable. Those scenes slipped right in there from a near 40 year old film, and I didn’t even notice. It just goes to show how well they nailed down the feel of Star Wars. A ‘new’ Red Five pilot also appears during the battle of Scarif, but is killed – opening the slot up for Luke Skywalker to take up in A New Hope. Little things like this definitely help continuity, and Rogue One is honestly followed by A New Hope almost perfectly. When the home release comes around, I’d love to watch the two back-to-back and see just how seemless the transition is between the two films.
All in all, Rogue One is an excellent installment into the franchise, and quite literally the definition of fan service. The characters introduced are quite well fleshed out, though it would have been nice to get some additional backstory on a few characters before they were all, well… obliterated into space dust. Ultimately the best moments of the film are probably the callbacks and links to other films. Darth Vader, Grand Moff Tarkin, Bail Organa, Saw Gerrera, and Princess Leia no doubt generated the most response and excitement from the audience, which was perhaps expected. The ‘Rogue One’ crew were simply expendable – someone had to get those plans, and so they feel almost like the background focus of the film in a way. That said, things like the appearance of Jedha, Vader’s castle on Mustafar, the familiar faces of Yavin IV, and the Red and Gold Squadrons taking to a whole new space battle worked brilliantly to formulate a simple-yet-effective prequel to the original film, and as a result I am very excited to see what they do in the future with the Han Solo film, and whichever anthology film comes after that.
Final verdict: 8/10
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