Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

The first in the promised series of standalone anthology films set in the Star Wars universe, Rogue One had a lot to prove.  It succeeded with flying colours, managing to feel both like a traditional Star Wars film, and refreshingly different from every Star Wars film that has come before.

Premise:  Set shortly before the events of Episode IV: A New Hope, Rebel Alliance spy Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) learns that the Galactic Empire has been developing a planet-killing superweapon called the Death Star.  He goes in search of Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), the missing daughter of the scientist responsible for the Death Star’s design, Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), in the hope of finding a way to prevent the weapon’s completion.

Verdict:

“It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire.
During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.
Pursued by the Empire’s sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy….”

Those of us of a certain generation, who grew up with the above opening crawl to Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope, probably never wondered about the full story behind that first introduction to the Star Wars universe.  Rogue One, quite simply, is that story, which also makes it a fitting subject for the first of the new series of Star Wars standalone anthology films.

What’s really impressive about Rogue One is how well it weaves into – and even enhances – A New Hope.  Continuity-wise, the two films interlock seamlessly, and they make a great double-bill.  But what makes Rogue One such an impressive addition to the Star Wars universe is that it actually allows you to re-watch A New Hope in a brand new light.

Now that Rogue One has shown us what it took to steal the Death Star plans, when we see Princess Leia desperately trying to evade Darth Vader and smuggle out the plans with R2-D2 at the start of A New Hope, we have a real sense of the struggle it took to get those plans in the first place.  When the Rebels in A New Hope learn about the vulnerability in the Death Star design, we now know the true reasons for the space-station’s Achilles heel.  And when we come to re-watch the Battle of Yavin at the end of A New Hope, we’ve already seen Red Leader and Gold Leader play their parts in the Rebel Alliance’s first victory in the Battle of Scarif.  This all adds a whole new extra dimension to re-watching A New Hope, and makes the forty-year-old film seem new again.

“…the cast bring shades of grey to the battle between the Dark Side and the Light Side…”

But back to Rogue One – and what’s also great about it is that it manages to feel like a “proper” Star Wars film (in a way that the Prequel Trilogy arguably never did), while also being sufficiently different to establish a unique tone for the “anthology” films that is distinct from the “saga” films/Episodes.  So we don’t have an opening crawl, or the John Williams theme tune, or the traditional wipe transitions – but we still have X-Wings, TIE Fighters, the Force and even some blue milk (Luke’s beverage of choice on Tatooine), along with dozens of other Easter Eggs and hidden references to the Original Trilogy that leave you in no doubt that this is set in the same Star Wars universe that you know and love.  And the film also opens up the universe with some great new locations (rather than revisiting the same old planets again and again), including location filming in Iceland (for the planets Lah'mu and Eadu), Jordan (for the planet Jedha), and the Maldives (for the planet Scarif), that further adds to the “realism” of the film (rather than it feeling like a sterile green-screen studio).

The cast is an eclectic mix without a single weak link, but interestingly, they also bring shades of grey to the battle between the Dark Side and the Light Side that also helps to give Rogue One a very different feel from the “saga” films.  Felicity Jones leads the film as Jyn Erso, and is the audience’s way into the struggle between the nascent Rebel Alliance and the seemingly unstoppable Galactic Empire.  We start the film with her tragic origin story, and then discover that she has learned to survive by trying not to get involved in these political struggles – when one character asks how she can bear to see the Empire flag flying overhead, she replies it’s not a problem if you don’t look up. A metaphor that seems very apt for current times.

“…the character arcs are emotional and inspiring…”

Diego Luna provides a wonderful counter-perspective as Cassian Andor, a Rebel spy and true believer who admits that he has had to do terrible things for what he believed was the greater good.  His introduction scene is one of the most morally challenging introductions for a character that I’ve seen in recent years, and makes the argument over whether “Han shot first” look pathetic in comparison.  Diego Luna does a great job of keeping such a potentially unsympathetic character sympathetic, especially in the context of someone who’s been fighting for the Rebellion since they were six years old.

The character arcs that Cassian and Jyn go through during the course of the film are without a doubt the most emotional and inspiring, but they’re not the only ones with gravitas and heart.  Riz Ahmed’s portrayal of Bodhi Rook, a defector and former Imperial pilot, carries a real sense of the heavy weight bearing down on his soul, as he tries to make amends for (unspoken) past deeds by listening to his heart and doing what he knows is the right thing to do, no matter the cost.  Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen bring a touch of warmth to the group, as the lifelong friends Chirrut Îmwe and Baze Malbus, former guardians of the Jedi Temple on Jedha, now warrior monks without a purpose.  Rounding off the Rebel cell is K-2SO, a reprogrammed Imperial strategy droid voiced by Alan Tudyk, who adds some much needed humour and levity to the film.  In supporting roles, Forest Whitaker appears as Saw Gerrera, a character familiar to viewers of the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels, and Mads Mikkelsen’s portrayal of Jyn’s father, Galen Erso, breaks my heart every time I watch it.

Although the publicity made a big noise about the fact that Darth Vader appears in Rogue One (voiced once again by the legendary James Earl Jones), it’s important to bear in mind that Vader only has a cameo, so the real villains of the film are Ben Mendelsohn as Director Krennic, and a returning character from A New Hope (I won’t spoil it, just in case you haven’t heard about who else returns besides Darth Vader).  Krennic is a fascinating character, as he’s more of a bureaucrat than a true acolyte of the Dark Side, and his motivations are ambition and self-promotion rather than anything grander.  But despite all his hard work, you’re left with the feeling that this is someone on the outside looking in – the equivalent of the clichéd state-schooled pupil trying to get into the private-schoolboy clique, yet always finding himself barred by the invisible class divide.

“…you couldn’t ask more of the first standalone anthology film…”

As well as the exotic location shooting, Rogue One also has some breath-taking VFX, and the space battle at the end is particularly impressive.  There’s also some great work with digital face replacement, and while it is not quite 100% convincing yet, it is far better than even Tron: Legacy was a few years ago.  I know a few children (who didn’t know going into the film that the characters in question were digital face doubles) who haven’t made any comments about those characters, so they must be pretty convincing.  I’ll leave it to others to debate the moral implications of using other actors’ likenesses through digital face replacement technology, but from a personal perspective, I did think that the inclusion of the characters in question significantly enhanced the film in a way that simply recasting the roles probably wouldn’t have done.

Rogue One feels like a Star Wars movie for our time – dealing as it does with complex issues such as the fine line between freedom fighters and extremists, the moral cost of doing bad things for good reasons, and the fact that (to paraphrase Edmund Burke) all that is necessary for the triumph of the Empire is that good people do nothing.  Rogue One takes the Star Wars universe and does something new with it – and you couldn’t ask more of the first standalone anthology film.