But "Rogue One" is strictly for completists, for the type of "Star Wars" fans who hated "Phantom Menace" and yet watched it more than twice.Neil and Dan get their teeth into the latest movie in the Star Wars franchise, Rogue One, a prequel to Episode IV which is steadfastly doing its own thing, complete with retconned Death Star powers, penis-tentacled monsters and sarcastic droids. Felicity Jones will probably become wealthy from this, which is the only happy thought to take from the experience. The characters are as depressed as the scenario, and Michael Giacchino's music can't make it better. Without getting too specific, most of the last half of "Rogue One" involves a heroic effort to download and transmit a large computer file. The screenwriters must instead come up with something else, and they do, something bland and undramatic. But it can't be an exciting battle scene, featuring something like the destruction of the Death Star, because that has already happened (or will happen) in another movie. The last hour of "Rogue One," like the last hour of "Godzilla," is nothing but a battle scene.
But then anyone could win a gunfight against the storm troopers, whose elaborate armor seems to be made of white cardboard. Jyn and Cassian are accompanied by a genuinely funny robot ( Alan Tudyk) and by Chirrut (Donnie Yen), a warrior in whom the Force is so strong that he can win gun battles even though he's blind. Maybe it would be better than a war that has gone on for decades, not just for the people on screen, but for audiences since 1977. You know that a "Star Wars" movie is in trouble when you start thinking, hey, maybe they should throw in the towel. Everything about their mission is tainted by doubt and moral confusion, just as the rebel hierarchy is a disjointed lot, a bunch of competing factions beaten down by war and ready to give up. She is joined in her journey by Cassian ( Diego Luna), a rebel officer, but he's a tortured soul - basically a murderer, who feels guilty about it. It's also as if she has been enlisted into the cause. So "Rogue One" takes place immediately prior to "Star Wars Episode IV," a kind of "Episode III.v."Įarly in "Rogue One," Jyn is kidnapped by the rebel forces, in the hope that she can help them contact her father. At first, I thought this was another Death Star, but no, this is the same Death Star that was the major focus of the first "Star Wars" movie back in 1977. Meanwhile, the Empire is developing a super weapon, a "planet killer," which we are to understand is the Death Star. Her father is a scientist with known rebel ties, but he is working for the Empire, so his true sympathies are unclear. She's young, stern and capable, and she talks with an English accent, because a lot of them talked that way back then. The little girl grows into Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso, and Jones makes a good "Star Wars" heroine. She's shot from below, and something in the sight and the angle and the music, which sounds like John Williams but not as good, announces that this is a "Star Wars" movie, and for a while that's enough. We see a little girl running across a barren planet. It's the same as shoveling a weight onto the audience. But to impart that exhaustion onto the characters is a huge mistake. Yes it's understandable that after eight movies depicting the same struggle, filmmakers might feel a certain exhaustion. evil, about the rewarding hard work of bringing the light and casting out darkness. War movies are about toil, half-victories, moral compromise and self-doubt.
With the help of four screenwriters, Edwards turns "Star Wars" into a war movie, and that is a fundamental error. Part of the problem is director Gareth Edwards, whose previous big credit is "Godzilla," which is mostly just spectacle. And the difference is as obvious as the difference between a live dog and a stuffed dog. Jar Jar was not a corporate product, but "Rogue One" not only is, but it feels like it. You might have been annoyed or repulsed, say, by Jar Jar Binks, but you could still recognize the character as an honest product of a specific person's imagination. But now comes "Rogue One" to remind us of the good things that are lost to the series, such as naivete and the sort of loopy sincerity that lent integrity even to the worst elements.