I brought my crew to my local theater to see Rogue One: A Star Wars Story on our theater’s opening night. The night was great because of who was with us, but the film didn’t evoke what I was hoping to feel. The best moments of the film come from flashes of awesome references to the Saga. Rogue One’s characters are interesting, but not as compelling as other characters in the franchise. Then again, this is a war movie with several characters building the team. There is some great action and battle sequences that will be loved. While not as perfect as I would have loved, I still give Rogue One the Not Quite Golden, Ponyboy rating.
Rogue One is a compelling war story
The Empire is building a weapon and the Rebellion is trying to find out anything they can about it. Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is the daughter of Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), the weapon’s designer, and the Rebellion hope to use her to collect the information they seek. She’s teamed up with Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) on her quest to retrieve the plans.
My favorite new character is K-2SO and I give Tudyk all the credit. Firefly fans know Tudyk is great at delivering jokes and he is the funniest element of the film. K-2SO is the droid we’ve been looking for all our lives as he has the spunk of R2-D2 with the ability to speak that’s not annoying. Yes, I’m talking about you C-3PO. Sure, we laugh at you, but K-2SO had us laughing at those annoying humans. Going in, I was worried that another new droid may not work, but like the surprise BB-8 from Episode 7, K-2SO rocks.
Maybe too many bad guys
There are several characters that show up from A New Hope. Of those, many of the actors are either far too old or dead, and that’s where the distracting CG comes in. The characters that are computer generated humans look like computer generated humans. They are on-screen for quite a bit of time and shows one of the biggest problems with the film. There is just too much storytelling going on.
Primarily the arc of Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) who gets as much screen time as our protagonists. While the Saga is no stranger to viewing the villain’s perspective, in a film with so many new characters being introduced it felt like it took time away from learning about our heroes. I say this with the intent being there was no need for another person to hate in the Empire. There are established bad guys in this time period of the franchise so developing another one felt a bit unnecessary.
I liked Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso and Diego Luna as Cassian Andor just fine. However, I didn’t love them though, and that’s the first time since the prequels I’ve felt that way. I loved Rey and Finn. Luke, Han, Chewie and Leia are among my favorite characters in film. However, I never quite felt the attachment to Jyn or Cassian that I feel this film needed me to have. Yet, I did love Chirrut and Base Malbus. The connection between them is a compelling aspect of the story. In fact, when the war starts going this film gets dark and gritty. It shows why Princess Leia and the Rebels fight so hard in A New Hope, Empire, and Return of the Jedi. The Empire is monstrous and needs to be stopped.
Final Thoughts on Rogue One
I don’t think Star Wars fans will be disappointed with this film. However, this isn’t the level of story, excitement, or fun that we got from Episode 7. This is a war story so things get bleak at times and the stakes are really high. There are plenty of things to make fans happy and some emotionally charged moments. Even though, I kind of want a spin-off film for Base and Chirrut now. Maybe in five years I suppose? Come on Disney, we are one with the Force, and the Force is with us.
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