2016’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story“, directed by Gareth
Edwards.
Starring Felicity Jones, Mads Mikkelsen, Diego Luna, Donnie
Yen, Wen Jiang, Forest Whitaker, Ben Mendelsohn, Riz Ahmed, and Alan Tudyk.
Nominated for an Academy Award in Best Achievement in Sound Mixing
(David Parker, Christopher Scarabosio, and Stuart Wilson), and Best Achievement
in Visual Effects (John Knoll, Mohen Leo, Hal T. Hickel, and Neil Corbould).
What is it about?
“Rogue One” is a Star Wars anthology fable, based around the
time period between Episodes III and IV of the Star Wars canon (Star Wars
3.5?). We meet the enterprising Jyn (Felicity Jones), who at a young age had
her father (Mads Mikkelsen) taken from her, and her mother murdered, by the
Empire. Mikkelsen is forced to finish his engineering work on a powerful space
station called, the Death Star. While completing it for his boss (Ben
Mendelsohn, himself a tool for Darth Vader), Mikkelsen engineers a weakness in
it’s design, a detail crucial to movies set in the future. Raised by Resistance
leader Forest Whitaker, Jyn joins a rag tag group (Diego Luna, Donnie Yen, Wen
Jian, and Riz Ahmad) that realizes that their only chance in fighting the
empire will be to penetrate a planet stronghold and transmit the Death Star’s
weakness to the rest of the rebels. With their fates already set, will they
survive the Empire’s ruthlessness?
Why is it worth seeing?
“Rogue One” at times can suffer from the same drawbacks that
prequels “Episode I: The Phantom Menance”, “Episode II: Attack of the Clones”,
and "Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” do. With the series’ fate already known,
just how much drama can be injected into a narrative we already know the ending
to? However, the movie’s characters that exist mostly in the margins of the
“Star Wars” universe, allows Director Gareth Edwards to bring an exciting
sensibility to “Rogue One”- that being “Star Wars” as a legitimate war movie.
Full of confusing and chaotic guerilla ground battle scenes that more
accurately reflect the realities of warfare- that of consequence. The rebels
are outgunned every step of the way, and “Rogue One” expertly depicts the
desperation of the underdog, facing unbelievable odds and sobering conclusions.
“Rogue One” is especially refreshing after the initial film
in Disney’s new ownership of the series, 2015’s “Star Wars Episode VII- The
Force Awakens”. While it possessed plenty of strengths (and lens flare),
“Episode VII” featured an almost slavish fan service to many character and
narrative beats from 1977’s seminal “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope”. “Rogue
One” also displays some really interesting battle techniques, and it has an
artistic beauty to it, featuring plenty of sublime vistas and mushroom cloud
themed backdrops. Finally, it shows us a segment of the Star Wars universe that
we’ve not seen before, such as a robot that is actually lethal- and not just comic relief.
The familiar path that “Rogue One” lays itself in can also be
a strength- particularly for fans of the series’ iconic characters that show up
here. But what is not a strength is the “uncanny valley” on serious display in digitizing character’s faces who either no
longer look the way they used to, or are deceased. And ultimately, the movie’s
greatest flaw is that we hardly knew ye’. Featuring many people with spunk but
no actual purpose other than target practice, it makes cheering for characters
that we really can truly understand and get behind feel a galaxy far away.
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