The new Star Wars movie: Rogue One

I saw Rogue One last night, and I realized that I am very unhappy with Episodes 1 to 3 for ruining my ability to watch a new Star Wars movie without skepticism.  I went in to each of the releases for 1 through 3 with excitement and anticipation for wonder and magic.  I even enjoyed them the first few times I watched them.  And then I started noticing that my love for Star Wars had blinded me to just how awful episodes 1 to 3 are.  So when I saw Episode 7, I reserved judgement, and ended up liking the characters and how well the actors did.  I liked a fair amount of the lines.  But I was disappointed by how much of it was a direct copy of Episode 4.  So while episode 7 doesn't upset me as much as episodes 1 to 3, it's still not quite the level of magic and wonder I get from episodes 4 to 6.

Don't get me wrong.  I understand that the concept of teddy bears fighting storm troopers and winning is pretty ridiculous.  I understand that there are flaws with the originals, but the story and characters were good enough, and the setting great enough, that I am still moved to tears when Luke snaps at the thought of Vader stealing his sister to the dark side of the Force... and Luke (accompanied by a masterful John Williams) creates the best scene in all of Star Wars.  And that's saying something since there are lots of truly great scenes.  Han wasting no time and immediately shooting at Darth Vader comes to mind.  I love that scene too.  And even though the logic behind the trench run is a bit flawed, I truly love that scene as well.

So I went into Rogue One with suspicion but still a little hope.  I was worried because of episodes 1 to 3, but hopeful because it's Star Wars.

And I'm pretty happy with it still the morning after seeing it.  I'll see it again a few times, and time will have to pass for me to trust my own judgement, but at this moment I think I can say that I really liked this movie.  There are three nitpicks I'll make in the spoiler section of the review, but they're nitpicks.  Some excellent new characters that have their own personality and interest, and I think the writers overall did an excellent job.

On a scale of 0 to 100 I'll give it a 94 (only suffering because perfect scores aren't really possible, and because of the three nitpicks).

Now we're moving into spoiler territory.  If you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want to hear about any of it yet, this is the spot to stop reading.

~ SPOILERS FOLLOW ~

We knew from before the movie came out that it's the story of the rebels getting the first death star plans, which is just before episode 4.  The beginning of episode 4 is Darth Vader's Star Destroyer chasing a rebel blockade runner that is carrying the plans.  Rogue One ends with the blockade runner fleeing an imperial base where they stole the plans.  But of course, that's not the movie.  That's just how it relates to the existing movies.

I'll start with the nitpicks.

Nitpick 1: One of Vader's lines
Darth Vader is having a conversation with the imperial director who was in charge of the Death Star project.  This guy is arrogant and ambitious.  He spends most of the conversation shifting blame for problems away from himself, and trying to get recognized for the things he accomplished.  He's a sniveling brown nosing coward.  Well written.  Vader is obviously getting impatient with him, but is restraining himself from killing the guy because he IS useful to the Death Star project.

The end of the conversation has the director asking Vader if he gets to keep his command.  Vader responds by Force choking him for a bit and then delivering the worst line of the movie (in my opinion)...

"Don't choke on your aspirations"

What I want Darth Vader to have said is just "Go away".  Making the cheesy play on words is not Darth Vader.  Really though, this is the only thing they did with Darth Vader that bothered me at all.  The scene at the end is freaking awesome, but I'll talk about that later.

Nitpick 2: R2-D2 and C3-P0 are in the wrong place
There's a point in the movie where the rebel fleet charges off of Yavin IV to get to the imperial base where their agents (the main characters) are currently stealing plans for the Death Star.  They realize they need to back them up.  As the ships are taking off, they show you the cameo appearance of R2-D2 and C3-P0 standing at one of the entrances to a hangar watching the ships leave.  3P0 makes some comment about them flaying away and him not knowing what's going on.

This is a problem.

At the beginning of Episode 4, the droids are on the ship with Princess Leia that has the Death Star plans.  If Rogue One ends with Leia on her ship fleeing the battle that the droids didn't attend, how did she get the droids?  If she went back to Yavin IV and picked them up, then she would already have achieved her most important goal from episode 4... getting the plans back to the rebel base.

So Rogue One seems to mess up by having the droids on Yavin when they should already be on the ship with Princess Leia.

Nitpick 3: The CGI faces
Several of the characters are from Episode 4.  They're only supporting characters in this movie, but you can clearly see them, and because the actors either don't look like they did in 1977 or the actor has passed away, they used computer graphics to overlay faces on the characters that look like they did back in 1977.  The problem with this is that the CGI isn't perfect.  You can tell it's not quite right.  It drew my attention.  It's not awful or anything, but the differences are enough to draw attention.

Now the the nitpicks are out of the way...
There's a lot to like about this movie.  The progression of the story is pretty good.  Most of the lines are well written, including some of the humor, especially from the re-programmed imperial droid K-2SO.

Major Spoiler - don't read this paragraph if you haven't seen it and want a little surprise:

I also LOVE that they didn't shy away from characters dying.  I sort of figured at least a few would leave the story since the main characters in the story don't appear later with the rebellion.  But... really... all of them die.  It doesn't feel forced or wanton.  It fits right into the story, and made me cry when my favorite characters died.  This part is wonderfully written.

The main character girl is Jyn Erso.  She had her father taken away when she was little because her dad is apparently a brilliant scientist capable of being the primary contributor to making the Death Star work.  Jyn escapes when her father is taken, and ends up being raised by a family friend who hates the empire.  But even they get separated and Jyn ends up in an imperial prison.  This is all pretty early in the film.  I guess I'll leave that as all I write about spoilers for her.  The character works.  She's been kicked around by life a fair amount, and then she finds herself in the situation of deciding whether to do good things for all people, or just run away.  She's definitely the hero character that we are following for the story.  And I think they wrote her character well.  Along the way she meets people that will aid her in her journey...

The first human that is injected in the story as an ally of Jyn is Cassian Andor, a rebel.  His character fills an important role in the story, and he has a couple good moments.  Most notably is his speech given to convince Jyn to take him and a group of rebels along with her to do the big awesome thing they are supposed to do.  So he fills that role of being the not completely trusted ally very well.

The other ally she meets at roughly the same time as Cassian is his droid friend K-2SO.  K2 is a re-programmed imperial droid that works with Cassian, and who's programming makes him prone to saying what he's thinking.  This is the source of most of the funny lines in the movie.  He's also in the running for my favorite new character in the movie.

Major Spoiler - don't read this paragraph if you haven't seen it and want a little surprise:

K-2SO's death made me cry openly, and I'm near to crying now as I type this.  Holy crap.  It's going to make me cry every time I see the movie.

The next character that joins Jyn's band that I really like is Chirrut Îmwe.  He's a believer in the Force that stays at a Jedi holy city trying to protect it despite the lack of Jedi.  He is also blind.  And he's such an earnest caring character that I don't know how to describe it here.  If you've seen the movie, you know what I mean, and if you haven't seen it, you will see.  I remember telling my wife during the movie that Chirrut is a much better version of Daredevil than Daredevil could ever be.  And in fact, Chirrut is my new baseline for blind characters that can fight.  So... Daredevil is just a poor version of Chirrut.  He is also in the running for my favorite new character in the movie.

Major Spoiler - don't read this paragraph if you haven't seen it and want a little surprise:

Chirrut's death made me cry openly, and I'm near to crying now as I type this.  Holy crap.  It's going to make me cry every time I see the movie.  Yes I copied the paragraph from K2's section.

Chirrut came with a support character of his own, who I think is really a main character.  When he's introduced, he's kind of the quiet friend that stayed in the background.  His name is Baze Malbus.  You start not knowing much more than that he follows Chirrut as a protector.  Chirrut doesn't need a lot of protection since he's so bad-ass, but Baze jumps in when things get to the point of need.  Chirrut is the spiritual one that gives himself to the will of the Force.  Baze is the skeptical one that teases Chirrut, but at the same time respects him.  As the story progresses, it becomes apparent that the two are long time loyal friends.  And the writers did an excellent job of making it apparent.  Bravo on this one.

Major Spoiler - don't read this paragraph if you haven't seen it and want a little surprise:

Baze dies soon after Chirrut does... so I was already crying.  Yes, I cried more.  Especially as Baze takes up Chirrut's chant as he marches off to take out more storm troopers.  Holy crap.  yeah... I'm still going to cry every time is see this scene too.

So what you can probably see is that I loved several of the characters.  There are more that I liked, but this review is pretty long already.  So I'll mention just the one more thing: Darth Vader.

In the original trilogy, Darth Vader is awesome.  Just awesome.  He's the terrifying villain that shocks us all with the revelation of Luke's parentage, and who is redeemed just at the end of the story.  It IS technically the story of Anakin Skywalker after all.  His character should be well done.

In his supporting role in Rogue One, I think the writers did an excellent job (except for that one line nitpick) of making villainous and frightening.  There is menace in him that just pours out of him.  I have to give credit to the actor playing the director that was in charge of the Death Star.  He did a great job of conveying the character's fear talking to Darth Vader.

But that's not all there was... Darth Vader had a scene that makes you understand why people fear him.

Major Spoiler - don't read this section if you haven't seen it and want a little surprise:

At the end of the movie when they're showing the rebels trying to get the Death Star plans into a ship that can run like crazy out of there, they show what is very good sense of urgency from the rebels carrying the disk.  They're fleeing through the big ship they're on because it's been boarded this point, and they have a smaller faster ship that can still take off and leave.

A malfunction stops the carrier of the disk from getting all through a corridor.  He manages to pass it through a small opening to another rebel.  But this is the scene that is awesome.  Totally awesome.  I love it.  Darth Vader is so scary.  Darth Vader is one of the imperials that boarded the ship, and he catches up to the rebels running with the disk.  There are like 12 of them.  They open fire on Darth Vader with looks of fear on their faces.  Their fear is justified.  Darth Vader is scary.  He starts parrying shots with his lightsaber, and blocking more shots with his other hand.  And he just advances and starts cutting people down... and then he starts grabbing people by the throat with the Force and either crushing their throats or slamming them into other people... it's freaking awesome.  I'm scared that after time has passed I'll look back and realize something about this scene was not awesome, but right now I'm a fan-boy shaking in my seat over how awesome this scene was.  Holy crap Darth Vader is scary and awesome.

So that's it.  Those are my main thoughts about Rogue One.  Now that I've gotten it all down in words, I think I really like this movie, and I consider it to be an excellent addition to the Star Wars universe.  I can't wait to see what else Disney has to offer.  And I hope some of the creativity we see in Rogue One is apparent in Episode 8 when it comes out.  My rating of 94 on a scale of 0 to 100 stands.

Edit: 7 Sept 2017

I came back to read this recently, and remembered a complaint my brother had with the movie that I hadn't thought of. He brought up that the movie didn't need to connect directly with episode 4 by having the fleeing blockade runner come right from having stolen the plans to Tatooine. It felt like rushed things in a way that made it less logical. When you see Episode 4, in my opinion, it gives the impression that Vader has been hunting for the rebels who have those plans for quite a while instead of for the past day or less. There's that meeting with the imperial leaders where Vader gets chastised for not having them safely back yet... as though he's been failing at the task for a while. He wasn't responsible for protecting the plans to begin with, so if Rogue One is the way things happened, Vader only took on responsibility for recovering the plans a very short time before that meeting.


So it just doesn't quite feel right to me. But then I thought about it a little more. If Vader has been hunting these plans for a week or a month... why hasn't the rebel ship been able to make it back to the base in that time? What the heck are the rebels doing? Are they that incompetent that they can't get those plans onto a ship and headed to Yavin IV? So maybe the movie had to play out that way. Maybe it had to be that close to explain why the rebels were still in the process of getting the plans back to the base. So maybe I'm okay with it. But then I think about one more problem: Darth Vader...


In Episode 4 we see Vader and Obi Wan face off. They are seeing each other for the first time in 19 years. They're both old, and neither has had much practice to keep them sharp in their skills. They're not as nimble as they used to be, and Vader is on cyborg legs that might not work as well as his natural legs did. They're both fighting in a reserved way. And to be clear, this one of the best lightsaber fights in the whole series of movies. And if you disagree, you're wrong. It has nothing to do with choreography... it's about emotional content. But I'm digressing. This lightsaber fight makes sense. It's logical that the two aren't as flashy as they used to be. Vader is diminished from his younger self.


But if the Episode 4 version of Darth Vader makes sense, then the Rogue One version can't. It's probably my favorite scene in Rogue One: Vader wrecks house... he's a machine of destruction and it's so well done that I'm still getting giddy thinking about it. But that version of Vader doesn't jive with a version that maybe two days later is as diminished as he is in Episode 4. When I first saw Rogue One, and saw that scene, I assumed still that the this was much earlier in the 19 year span between Episode 3 and Episode 4. It hadn't occurred to me yet that the plans wouldn't have been stolen years before... since getting the plans to the rebel base wouldn't take years if the rebels are the ones who stole them.


So now I'm left with a vague unease. It doesn't feel like the end of the movie took into consideration everything it should have. And the drastic change in Darth Vader over the course of a day or two is hard to accept. I feel like the Rogue One version of Darth Vader could have existed a few years after Episode 3, but not days or hours before Episode 4. That's my update. I still really like the movie, but it does have some minor issues.