Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

If you’re gonna do a Star Wars spin-off, then this is the way to go about it. And to think some people were worried.

Rogue One, the first non-episodic Star Wars film in what will be a long line of them moving forward, follows a group of Rebels during the original trilogy as they come together to steal the plans for the infamous, planet destroying Death Star. Years after being separated from her family as a child, a now hardened Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is forcibly tasked with finding her father, Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), an Imperial scientist and Rebel sympathizer, in the hopes of stopping the completion of the Death Star before it becomes the most unstoppable force the galaxy has ever seen. As the story jumps around, slowly bringing our band of heroes together and positioning them for their final battle, Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), a key player in the race to finish and eventually use the Death Star, moves closer and closer to spoiling Jyn’s plans, and potentially killing her and her team before their mission even begins. With some very familiar faces helping the Rebels and Imperials alike, it’s only a matter of time before Jyn and her crew are faced with their final test of wits, strength, commitment, and most importantly, hope.

First things first, this film is absolutely stunning. From the production design, to the costumes, to the lighting, computer graphics, and shot composition, director Gareth Edwards has crafted the best looking Star Wars film to ever hit theaters. Whether it be the vastly different worlds we visit, to the mostly practical effects inherent throughout the film, to the proper attention to detail being paid in all the right places, Edwards is able to make the final product look and feel like a Star Wars film while at the same time giving us a unique and never before seen spin on familiar Star Wars trappings.

Outside of giving a strikingly beautiful quality to every frame he shoots, having an excellent cast certainly helps Edwards further achieve his vision, and even though I truly enjoyed most of the new characters (Donnie Yen’s kickass blind warrior Chirrut Imwe, Jiang Wen’s heavy gunner Baze Malbus, and Alan Tudyk’s repurposed Imperial droid K-2SO in particular), I couldn’t help but feel less attached than I ought to in regards to the remaining team members. Now don’t get me wrong, the casting and acting is top notch, and while I get that everyone’s fates are inevitable, I had this nagging feeling throughout the film that a lot of these characters were just a means to an end, essentially acting as plot devices before acting as fully formed characters in their own right.

Take Riz Ahmed’s Bohdi Rook for example. Ahmed is a superb actor, surprisingly so in literally everything I’ve seen him in, but his character in particular felt more like an after thought, especially considering that his main purpose is to really just get the beginning sections of the plot moving. I get that he has some skills as a pilot, but other than the beginning of the film, I felt like his character is really only needed to add some more beats to the already heightened climax. It would be fine if he were a smaller character that had only one real purpose for a handful of scenes, but the script tries to sell him as an integral part of the crew throughout the film’s runtime, and as likable as Ahmed is as an actor, it feels as if his character got short changed more than once, which sucks if only because he deserves better.

Other than Ahmed, I had the same issues with Diego Luna’s Han Solo-esque Cassian Andor, another character that I felt had more to him than the script let on. I never got a chance to — nor felt the need to — latch on to Andor as a character, and considering he’s paired up with Felicity Jones’ Jyn Erso for the majority of the film, their weird sorta kinda romance coupled with some light yet intriguing back story, tells me that he most certainly could have been made into a better character if the filmmakers chose to do so. Save for Jyn, all of these characters are fun to watch and follow throughout the film, but any real emotion and character work seemed to be shut down almost immediately in favor of slowly moving all pieces in place for the exhilarating finale, all of which is a bit of a bummer considering we’ll most likely never see these characters again onscreen.

While the finale gets ALL the kudos, a relatively slow first half, paced somewhere between jumping all over the place to taking its sweet ass time, took a bit of steam out of the proceedings at points, never truly allowing me to appreciate everything happening outside of a few scenes here and there. By the end of the film I had a much better understanding of what the filmmakers were intending to accomplish here, and I mostly praise them for it, but it took a while for everything to fit in the way I’m sure they hoped for.

Two more nitpicks and then I’m done: I don’t know what was going on with the editing (yes, the editing) and the score by Michael Giacchino, but both seemed oddly off for a film of this caliber. Editing-wise, I always felt like every shot went on too long, and that every scene seemed to overstay it’s welcome as if the cutting room floor was a non-existent part of making this film. As for the score, you really can’t beat John Williams at his own game, and while I appreciate the callback cues in a handful of scenes, I couldn’t help but feel like the music was a little on the “meh” side.

On the hardcore nerd front, Edwards has deftly managed to cram in a whole shit-ton of callbacks, fan service moments and cameos (the cameos!!!), and when you really step back and look at how all of this fits into the larger over-arching story of the Star Wars saga, it’s quite impressive to see how effortlessly everything lines up and piggy-backs off of what has come before and what will come after. Obviously no spoilers here, but the final few minutes, while extremely abrupt, had me cheering in my seat, and with a solid answer that finally explains why the Death Star had that little Achilles’ heel that Luke so effortlessly exploited, I have no complaints from a fanboy standpoint.

Rogue One is a better all around movie than The Force Awakens, but if you’re looking for a more “classic” Star Wars film, then you might actually prefer Episode VII to this more gritty, grounded look at the war between Rebels and Imperial forces. There’s a lot to love here, specifically the last 45 minutes where I literally could not keep myself from smiling ear to ear as I thanked the cinema gods for what I was seeing, but due to the fact that this is a totally different take on what it means to be a Star Wars film, there’s still a bit of growing pains associated with what’s presented here; luckily just never enough to threaten this film from being anything less than great. If the quality of these movies keeps in line with what we’re being given here then we have nothing to worry about moving forward. Episode VIII can’t come soon enough.