Now, before we dive into the depths of the holiday season’s best prequel film, I must state the obvious: Spoiler alert, if you haven’t seen “Rogue One” and don’t want spoilers, turn back now.
Good, now that that is out of the way and I too can skip the infamous crawl as “Rogue One” did, let us discuss.
“Rogue One,” though it made my Star Wars fanboy and childhood nostalgia meters read at high levels, was not a good movie.
Don’t get me wrong, I liked it and will happily watch it over and over again for decades to come. You can like and re-watch not-good movies, such as “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” but it doesn’t remove the fact it is a bad.
Ultimately, this film was mediocre at best, but will still make Star Wars fans happy.
Pacing
The pace of “Rogue One” makes the first half of it arguably the slowest movie I’ve seen since “Lord of the Rings.” The film introduced far too many characters and planets in too short of a time frame.
There was Jedha and um … other planets? I’ve seen this movie three times and still haven’t grasped any of the other introductory planets’ names.
The later part of the film, being the Battle for Scariff, moved much quicker and was a relief to the already bored movie viewer.
Character development
Diego Luna’s character Cassian Andor left me questioning his integrity throughout the entire film, which lead me to pause and ask if anyone is really the good guy in this film.
When we first meet Andor, he kills a contact of his in cold blood for the simple fact that his contact was a liability. However later on, he hesitates to kill Mads Mikkelsen’s Galen Erso or Ben Mendelsohn’s Director Orson Krennic. This leads me to believe his character is conflicted in morality and thus a weak character who I find hard to really root for or against at the end of the day.
Why wasn’t Mikkelsen’s Erso developed more as a character? I love Mikkelsen, he is arguably my favorite actor and one of the most talented there is. His character, however, was very minor in terms of screen time and his background was not fleshed out enough. Sure, his character served to drive the plot in that finding Erso was the mission of the Rebel Alliance.
“Star Wars: A New Hope” also played on the find-this-person plot, only it did it in a swift manner and didn’t leave audiences waiting. “A New Hope”‘s Princess Leia was also hyped up to be a very important character, whereas Erso left me feeling like he was important but not imperative to the story.
Felicity Jones’ Jyn Erso, daughter of Mikkelsen’s character and “main” character of the film, was the most disappointing aspect of this film. Going into it, I was expecting a Carrie Fisher-esque feminine badass and opposition leader who really inspired me as a viewer. Instead, I would pair Jyn Erso to the likings of Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen from “The Hunger Games” films. She was a mundane character who only aspired to kick ass because she had to, not because she wanted to.
Sure, Jyn’s father was killed by the Empire in front of her eyes, which pissed her off toward the end of the film, but until that point Jyn was only there because she had no choice. Otherwise Jyn seemed like a mopey individual who just goes about her business and is not really aspiring to much.
Mendelsohn’s Krennic provided more humanity to the Empire instead of the traditional bad-guys-only vibe. Ultimately his arrogance and lust for power caused his downfall, though. His humanity, I think, could have been better played if he were to have aided the Rebel Alliance toward the end of the film, instead of crushing him.
Finally, Alan Tudyk’s K-2SO is my new most likable and favorite character in all of Star Wars canon. The re-commissioned Imperial droid provided both comic relief and an overall sense of happiness in an otherwise dark and bland film that didn’t really provide much to audiences. It was sad to see him sacrifice himself for the mission, but at the same time it was a good testament to his character. (Side bar, did you know Tudyk also played Pirate Steve in the film “Dodgeball?” Me neither.)
I suspected every character would basically die at the end of this film due to their lack of appearance in the following, but I didn’t care or feel for 99 percent of characters dying in this film. There was no-not-them moment (save K-2SO) where I felt bad for a character dying. The filmmakers didn’t really do a good job to inspire audiences to care for the characters and instead shipped them off to die in war. Which, in a war movie like this, technically is fine but the good war movies make sure you care about a character or few first.
Cameos
Gratuitous cameos were abundant in this film. Bail Organa? Check. Young Princess Leia? Check. Darth Vader, Grand Moff Tarkin, Mon Mothma, R2-D2 and C-3PO? All checks, and most actually serving a part in plot progression, aside from being inserted into the film solely to make fans happy.
So many cameos left me wondering: where is Emperor Palpatine? Ian McDiarmid, the actor who plays him, is still alive and well.
If producers can computer generate Peter Cushing’s (Grand Moff Tarkin) face and voice into the film for a substantial amount of screen time, even though he died in 1994, there is no reason to not have even a brief snippet of the Emperor especially for how power-obsessed his character is.
CGI and after effects
Not surprisingly, the computer-generated imagery in this film is out of this world (pun-intended).
Perhaps the most outstanding element is how the filmmakers were able to insert Cushing and Carrie Fisher’s (Princess Leia) likenesses from over 20 years ago into the film and uses voices that remarkably sounded similar to what their characters did in the first Star Wars film. I’m glad that Cushing’s Tarkin is finally revealed as a true badass that ruins any doubts viewers had from the original film.
Editor’s Note: Rest In Peace Carrie Fisher.