Review: Rogue One - A Star Wars Story

When Disney bought Star Wars the announcement that they were making a sequel trilogy was surprising but not overly shocking. What perhaps was was the reveal that in the years between each episode there would be a spin-off story, a tale away from the Skywalker Saga. It would’ve been easy to call it a cash-grab on Disney’s part, especially since their first Star Wars story ended up being about how Leia got the plans for the Death Star before Episode 4, a story that was neither necessary nor important to tell. But following on from The Force Awakens completely revitalising the Star Wars name, suddenly Rogue One started looking like it could be actually pretty great, add in a hell of a cast and the director who made American Godzilla cool again and there was every possibility.

You know what, they bloody well pulled it off.

Set during the height of The Empire’s power, the film finds Jyn Erso, loner and criminal, imprisoned by the imperials until she’s rescued by Rebel soldiers who take her to their base on Yavin 4 to ask for her help. An imperial pilot has defected and has a message for rebel militant Saw Gerrera about a rumoured super-weapon, the message sent by Jyn’s father Galen who she hasn’t seen in 15 years since her mother was killed by Officer Krennic and her father was taken in to work on the super-weapon. Having been raised by Saw, Jyn is the Rebels best chance to get an audience with him without getting killed, despite both her absense from Saw’s life for several years and her own distrust in the Rebellion, Jyn accepts on the condition that they help her save her father.

Teaming up with rebel officer Cassian, his droid companion K-2SO, and later blind monk Chirrut, his mercenary bodyguard Malbus and the defected pilot Bodhi, Jyn travels to the war-torn city of Jedha to find Saw. However at the same time Krennic has put the final touches to his super-weapon, the planet killing Death Star, and plans to use its first test on Jedha. Finally face-to-face with the same Imperial evil that took everything from her, Jyn finds the strength to stand up and help this ragtag group of misfits save the Galaxy.

For what is essentially based on one line in the opening text of A New Hope, there’s a strong story here to be told. Not only does it tie itself nicely into the series – fixing a major plot-hole and recurring joke for fans by making it a big part of this plotline – but it takes the Wars aspect of Star Wars and takes it to the best it’s been since Hoth. The first act does take a little while to get going, having to reintroduce the concept of a galaxy spanning Empire control and the rebellion fighting against it, but once things kick off they keep going leading to an incredible final act and an ending that shocked and awed in equal measure, the final ten minutes of this film are golden for any Star Wars fan out there.

Characters were fun, granted some were written better than others but there was a realism to them all that fed into this war-torn Galaxy. Mads Mikkelsen did a fine job as Galen, using his time to show a father regretting the choices he’s made but knowing they were best for his daughter and while I would’ve liked more of Forrest Whittaker as Saw, I thought he did a great job as a rebel fighter using more violent methods due to more violent encounters with the Empire, ending up physically and psychologically broken as a result. Plus it’s great to finally see the animated Clone Wars get some recognition in the live-action series, the Clone Wars and Rebels are both considered canon so hopefully Saw’s inclusion will open the door for more in the future.

The Rogue One team themselves were a nice change of pace for the series since none of them were Force-users, perhaps Force-sensitive with Chirrut being a strong believer and able to feel the world around him through The Force, but none of them actually able to use that as a deus ex-machina. Some of them were pushed to the sidelines in favour of the main characters, Riz Ahmed’s Bodhi being the most hurt by this but he was still able to build a character who was a bit of a coward but found humour and bravery through his team with the rebellion. I also would’ve liked to have seen more with Chirrut and Malbus, both were interesting additions to the team and made for a great double-act, Chirrut being a blind monk able to use The Force to heighten his abilities while Malbus was the more ‘shoot first, then shoot again, then shoot some more type’. There was a friendship and respect between the two which allowed them to bust each other’s balls without being malicious and it added to their friendship.

Also big points to Donnie Yen for the funniest line in a Star Wars film ever.

Following on from his masterful work as a chicken in Moana, Alan Tudyk keeps on the Disney gravy-train with droid K-2SO, a former imperial droid reprogrammed for Rebel means. K-2 felt a lot like C3PO at points, being the same upper-class, statistic spouting know-it-all, but unlike 3PO’s general horror at the world around him, K-2 instead had a great sarcastic wit about him, not hiding his feelings nor bothering to try. He’s a fun addition to the franchise and felt a lot more independent than previous droids which allowed for some very human moments with him.

Diego Luna made for a much darker type of hero than we’ve seen before, his first scene has him meeting an informant, then killing the informant to keep him out of Imperial hands. There’s a greyness to him that makes for a very interesting character, he does terrible things but for good reasons, we’ve not seen this moral ambiguity in Star Wars before and it was a nice touch. There was a coldness to Luna that set Cassian up as a loner type, amplified by his only companion being a droid until Jyn and the others join him, in fact it’s very easy to think that it’s because of them and the companionship they bring that he’s able to warm himself to the idea of having friends. It’s a very similar arc to Jyn’s but where Jyn was about finding a reason to fight, Cassian was remembering why he was fighting.

Also I did like how they didn’t go for the romance angle with Cassian and Jyn, there was a mutual respect there, maybe even some flirting towards the end, but they came across more as friends, comrades even if you think about it. It would’ve been very easy to shoehorn a romance in and I’m glad they didn’t.

Jyn herself, played by Felicity Jones who I never expected to see in a Star Wars movie but I’m glad she is, is a good lead. Admittedly a little clichéd with her having the same Daddy Issues as every fucking protagonist in this franchise, but thankfully rather than Luke’s ‘My dad is a Sith lord’ or Kylo Ren’s ‘My dad doesn’t understand my emo phase’, Jyn’s issues stem from the fact that her father is the chief engineer for the imperials, meaning that she’s had to hide and fight her entire life, always on the move and never able to settle in one place, it’s the namesake that she resents more than her father which is why she agrees to help the Rebels in the first place. Like Cassian there’s a coldness to Jyn, a distance that’s developed over so many years on her own that keeps her from getting too close to anyone but also like Cassian you can see her warming as the film goes on. To be honest Jones doesn’t sell the harshness all too well, she’s far too soft and proper to pass as this hard-edged loner, but as the film moves forward and Jyn is able to open herself up to friends and to a purpose, that’s where Jones shines. The scene where she sees her father’s message is as heartbreaking as anything Star Wars has done and later, seeing her trying to rally the Rebels, fighting tooth and nail for a cause that she initially didn’t believe in, in fact she downright hated it because of the pain and misery brought on to her, Jones is just amazing during those emotion driven moments and it makes Jyn a much better character than what she started off as.

On the villains side we had a few returning favourites in the shape of CGI Tarkin, every bit as menacing as his New Hope days, and Darth Vader who, in a very limited role, manages to remind everyone how fucking terrifying he is with the best 45 seconds he’s ever had. The main villain of the film was Krennic, an Imperial officer and Director of the Death Star project, played by Ben Mendelsohn who was pretty much born to play the villain. What’s interesting about Krennic is that he’s a new type of bad guy to the Star Wars universe, he’s looking out for his own aspirations rather than the Empire’s, but he’s constantly getting shit on by Tarkin – quick aside, Tarkin being a pompous dick totally justifies his inclusion in this film – because Bodhi was under his command and now he’s missing. It’s that push/pull mentality, Krennic wants to prove himself but is kept down by his superiors so he tries harder to prove himself, it was great because it added a level of animosity within the Empire ranks, Krennic just wanted recognition for his work and he never got it. Arguably it makes him more evil than Tarkin because where Tarkin wanted the weapon the kill, Krennic just wanted it to work, regardless of who or what it worked on, he was a great villain for the film but still somewhat understandable in his actions.

Aside from a few too many cameos – some were fun, others were pointless - director Gareth Edwards, in only his third feature following the small-scale Monsters and the not-as-good-as-it-could’ve-been-but-still-kinda-awesome Godzilla remake, managed to bring back the time of the Empire in a big way, much like Force Awakens he used practical set-pieces enhanced by CGI and as a result he’s able to return to that down and dirty feel that people loved about the original trilogy. There’s a real sense of oppression, of the clean and sleek Empire against the ragged Rebels, and that’s shown during the battle sequence, an early ambush on Jedha is a chaotic, unplanned assault made by militant rebels with little regard for human casualties, just so long as the Empire are disrupted, it’s actually quite refreshing to have part of the Rebel alliance be kind of assholes, this is a war film and war breeds people of all kinds of all sides, Saw’s band of Rebels are the kind that like to kill and are seen as an unnecessary trouble by the Rebel council but even so, they themselves are shown to be uncooperative and kind of cowardly, a far cry from their peak during the Skywalker days, I’d hate to use the word Dark but I think it’s appropriate, especially giving how things pan out it’s not all nice and neat like you’d expect, .

The fact that Edwards doesn’t have any Forcer-Users to play with means there’s much more focus on stealth and espionage, no hand-waving-fuckery going on here. Not just sneaking around which doesn’t really come into play until the final act but the use of informants and snipers helps paint the Rebels as an underground movement, something that perhaps had been forgotten about in the decades since Return Of The Jedi, these aren’t all trained soldiers, they’re people who felt the need to pick up a weapon and fight, there’s going to be ugly choices and there’s going to be a lot of relying on your wits to survive. That finale in the Imperial base brought the espionage into Star Wars not seen since Han and Luke suited up Stormtrooper style, using distractions, disguises and every ounce of luck they could gather to finish this impossible task.

The war aspect really enhanced the battle sequences, like I said the ambush on Jedha is a disorganised nuisance which causes more harm than good but it leads right into Krennic’s first use of the Death Star with only a fraction of its power and the effects are still as devastating, more so because we’re in the heart of it. A shorter scene on the rain-soaked cliffs of Eadu – the varied locations, both new and familiar were pure Star Wars brilliance – didn’t go as cleanly as planned due to miscommunication and puts the Rebels in probably their most unlikeable position to date with their actions. And, as previously mentioned, the final act on Scarif is where the film comes into its own; a new paradise beach location, a small band of soldier on the ground against a much more well-equipped army with nothing but the element of surprise on their side – loved the Godzilla like shot of the AT-AT coming through the smoke – an epic space battle above with similar odds, Jyn and Cassian stuck in the heart of the Empire, some of K2’s best moments, each and every one getting their moment to shine. It’s one of the best final acts Star Wars has had and really took the war elements of the film to their best, even down to those final, shocking moments.

If Rogue One is the benchmark for the Star Wars Anthologies to follow then I’m all for it, there’s a lot more story to be told outside of what happens to a couple of whiny farm boys and this proved it. Building into the mythology of Star Wars and telling a story that we’d not even glimpsed at before while still maintaining its own identity, a solid group of new characters with Jones, Luna, Mendelsohn and Yen all making strong impressions and Edwards managing to bring the dirty side of Star Wars to the forefront. Disney are two for two now, it’s safe to say Star Wars is in capable hands.

8.5/10