Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) Director: Gareth Edwards
“I am one with the force, and the force is with me.”
★★★☆☆
Rogue One marks Disney’s first foray into a Star Wars side-quest which takes place within the same canonical universe as the original trilogy, but does not necessarily follow the Skywalker saga. Rogue One was directed by Gareth Edwards (of the Godzilla reboot fame) and it offers a prequel to the original trilogy –the plot of the film notably answers an important question which pertains to Star Wars IV: A New Hope, namely how did the schematic plans of the Death Star wind up in the hands of the Rebellion?
Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) is a scientist hiding out from the Empire on a remote farm with his family on the planet Lah’mu. The film opens as the Empire, led by weapons director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) discovers and kidnaps Galen Erso in order to aid the Imperial military in constructing a new super-weapon, causing Erso to send his daughter, Jyn, into hiding where she is then rescued by a family friend and veteran of the Clone Wars, Saw Guererra (Forest Whitaker). He later becomes a separatist rebel leader who is unaffiliated with the greater rebel alliance. Thirteen years later, Jyn (Felicity Jones) has struggled in adjusting to early adulthood, we find her imprisoned in an Imperial labor camp on Wobani. However, she is quickly released by a gang of secret rebel leaders –Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), Bail Organa, and Mon Mothma– who encourage Jyn to convince her old family friend Saw Guerrera to share his rumored possession of plans for a new Imperial super-weapon. The plans were apparently sent to Guerrera by a secret pilot named Bodhi Rook who was in turn sent by Galen Erso. Jyn briefly views the plan and she learns that her father has built a little-known weakness into the new station. While speaking with Guerrera, the Empire arrives at the desert moon of Jedha and suddenly destroys it all using the new Death Star while Jyn escapes and Guerrera dies. She travels with Cassian Andor to Galen’s research facility on Eadu in the hopes of rescuing her father, but at the moment they arrive Galen is attacked by Imperial forces as punishment for releasing the plans, and he dies in Jyn’s arms. Back with the rebels, she launches a plan to steal the schematics for the Death Star from their secured holding place on the planet Scarif. In a high-flying acrobatic, high-octane mission, Jyn and Andor manage to release the plans and send them to the rebel alliance. In the end, Jyn sacrifices her life with Cassian Andor on Scarif in order to expose the sole weakness of the Death Star (I guess this is why Mon Mothma says “many Bothans died to bring us this information” in Return of the Jedi).
Rogue One is Disney’s first experiment in releasing a unique Star Wars story loosely connected to the original canonical story which depicts little plot-holes and side characters. It wonderfully addresses the age-old fan question: why is the Death Star so easy to destroy? The film offers some incredible special effects –it does an amazing job of recreating Admiral Tarkin and Princess Leia, as well as Darth Vader, in the manner that we first saw them in A New Hope. I should also note that there are a few great new characters introduced in this film –such as Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen), a blind force-sensitive warrior; Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen), his companion; and a reprogrammed Imperial droid called K-2SO (Alan Tudyk).
Even with a recent string of disappointing decisions made by Disney with respect to Star Wars, Rogue One stands apart as a surprisingly entertaining and enjoyable blockbuster that offers some terrific nods to fans of the series. Interestingly enough, apparently George Lucas enjoyed this film more than The Force Awakens. Understandably, Rogue One does justice to the original trilogy and, in my opinion, it is the best of Disney’s Star Wars films which have thus far been released.
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Credits:
- Directed by: Gareth Edwards
- Screenplay by: Chris Weitz, Tony Gilroy
- Story by: John Knoll, Gary Whitta
- Produced by: Kathleen Kennedy, Allison Shearmur, Simon Emanuel
- Starring:
- Felicity Jones…..Jyn Erso, a young renegade who is detained for her crimes against the Empire until she is freed by the Rebel Alliance to help steal the plans for the Death Star
- Diego Luna…..Cassian Andor, a Rebel captain and intelligence officer
- Ben Mendelsohn…..Orson Krennic, director of advanced weapons research for the Imperial military
- Donnie Yen…..Chirrut Îmwe, a blind warrior who believes in the Force (he is said to be a Guardian of Whills)
- Mads Mikkelsen…..Galen Erso, Jyn’s father and a research scientist
- Alan Tudyk…..K-2SO (both voice and motion capture), a former Imperial enforcer droid who was reprogrammed by Cassian Andor to serve the Rebellion
- Jiang Wen…..Baze Malbus, a longtime companion of Chirrut Îmwe
- Forest Whitaker…..Saw Gerrera, a veteran of the Clone Wars and a friend of the Erso family who had mentored Jyn in her later childhood years
- Cinematography: Greig Fraser
- Edited by: John Gilroy, Jabez Olssen, Colin Goudie
- Music by: Michael Giacchino
- Production Company: Lucasfilm Ltd.
Rogue One was the one of the most surprisingly enjoying films I saw in the cinema, at a time when I was barely seeing movies in the cinema at all. It gave me enough faith that the Star Wars universe’s magic still had life. Of course any new Star Wars film will have quite a daunting task in recapturing that much appeal after the latest trilogy.