Movie Reaction: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Formula: Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope + Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Sequels are hard. Most films are intended as a complete story, so finding a way to continue the narrative can feel forced. Prequels are even harder because the stakes have a ceiling. In essence, the film must take the audience from A to C in the narrative when the audience already knows what C is. You know, Bilbo is never in danger in The Hobbit because you know he makes it to Lord of the Rings. That puts a lot of pressure on B (going from A to C) to be entertaining, so that the movie becomes about the journey, not the destination. Direct prequels are the hardest kind of prequel. An origin story can take place so far before the original movie that the world is unrecognizable, but an immediate prequel is literally working around a story that has already been told and has no wiggle room. That's what makes Rogue One so impressive. It's a direct prequel and barely feels limited by it.

No series knows the dangers of prequels better than Star Wars, so it was almost surprising to hear that they were doing another one and upping the degree of difficulty. You see, Rogue One is the story of the Rebels who secure the plans to the Death Star. It's a single line from A New Hope that is expanded into an entire movie. To make that work, the movie needs to be about more than the Death Star plans. And it is.

Rogue One follows Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), the daughter of the lead engineer of the Death Star (Mads Mikkelsen). Her father was taken from her as a child by the Empire. She's survived since then as a criminal but is pulled into the Rebellion, at first, against her will. Circumstances have made her the only person with the needed connections to get the information about the Empire's new planet destroyer, so she has no choice but to help. In a lot of ways, it's a very traditional story. Jyn's initially resistant to helping the Rebellion but comes around by the end. She picks up a motley crew of characters to help her along the way: a Rebel Captain (Diego Luna), a reprogrammed Imperial droid with an attitude (Alan Tudyk), a former Imperial cargo pilot (Riz Ahmed), a blind zealot of the Force -who isn't a jedi- (Donnie Yen), and his longtime friend/protector (Wen Jiang). The climax involves Jyn climbing to the top of some tower to do something that everything depends on*. It's a familiar formula.

*Seriously, the number of big movies that rely on that setup is staggering. It's one of those things I can't un-notice once it was pointed out to me.

The movie works around the limitations set by A New Hope very well. It takes a convenient conceit from the original film (Why does the Death Star have this massive weakness?) and works it into the story. The fact that the heroes of Rogue One aren't featured in A New Hope gives this a different kind of ending than other Saga Star Wars films (i.e. the ones with "Episode" in the title). In essence, it uses the limits set by A New Hope as the spine of the narrative and relishes in the challenge of filling the holes in the story. It's a pretty impressive example of reverse-engineering (which is normally something I hate).

The cast is delightful. I'm a big fan of Felicity Jones in general, so it's fun to see her in this world. Jyn Erso is tough, but not in the way that a lot of films would make her, in which "tough female" ends up meaning "superhuman badass". Diego Luna is a good counter to her. They are both rule breakers, but one works in the system and the other works outside of it. K-2SO, the droid voiced by Alan Tudyk, throws so much shade. It's like if C-3PO learned sarcasm. I loved it. Really, all the characters, even Ben Mendelsohn as the director behind the construction of the Death Star and Forest Whitaker as the fanatical Rebel who raise Jyn after her father was taken, are types. It's a big cast in a self-contained story. That's a hard thing to get around. There isn't the time to fully flesh everyone out. The characters all fit into this universe though and have enough individual flavor to stand out, which is all I needed from them.

Rogue One isn't the Star Wars movie that's going to suddenly make you a fan of the franchise. That shouldn't count against it. On a technical level, it's every bit as good as The Force Awakens. The climactic battle is up there with Geonosis and the assaults on the Death Star from the original trilogy. The stakes feel high despite already knowing the outcome. There are enough call-backs to other movies to entertain attentive fans while not so many that it gets annoying. On a gut level, it does feel lesser to the Saga stories just because it is a side-story. If it isn't about the Skywalkers, it's not tapping into the same nostalgia for me. Sorry. However, for what it is, it is very good and I look forward to these individual adventures going forward nearly as much as the Saga stories, which is a helluva lot.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend