Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is a stand-alone prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy, its story occurring immediately before the events of George Lucas’ Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977). With the completed construction of the Death Star, outlaw Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), daughter of the planet-killer’s architect, is brought together with a team of rebels and strangers on a journey that will lead them on a mission to find the Death Star’s weakness.

First to join Jyn in her adventure are Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and a reprogrammed Imperial droid called K-2SO (Alan Tudyk). These two are basically the Han and Chewy of this film. With the exception of Jyn, Cassian and K-2, it is not an easy task to remember the names of the characters. While infiltrating an alien desert city, our heroes are joined by Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen), the (arguably stereotypical) blind Chinese martial artist, his best friend Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen), who packs some serous heat, and Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed), a nervous pilot and defector from the Empire. While these characters may lack memorable names, their individual character designs make them recognisable and easy to tell apart. There is, however, a problem with their development. We don’t spend much time getting to know the members of the team, and aside from some mannerisms or downplayed displays of temperament, their personalities are only just distinguishable. The exception of course is K-2SO, who has absolutely no facial expressiveness but is written with a clear personality, and that is precisely because his character is written, within the story, to speak his mind so he makes no secret of his opinions. This also makes him the funniest character without necessarily resorting to an extreme for the purposes of comic relief.

On the supporting cast is the villain Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), Jyn’s father Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) – who may have been named after Galen Marik from the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed videogames (just like Starkiller Base was) – and cyborg rebel Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker). One might think these are also a little unexpressive, though that is arguable, but like the others they are not without instances of passion. Krennic is merciless, ill tempered and gunning for authority, and Mendelsohn does a good job of showing the character’s composure failing under aggression. Mikkelsen is always quite a stone-faced actor, but he is portraying a serious character, reluctant to yield to the Empire’s demands and build the Death Star for them, having to sacrifice himself for the lesser of two evils. We don’t get much time for Forest Whitaker’s character but he is at least represented to have legitimate care for Jyn and to make difficult decisions, a soft side that contrasts to his ruthless treatment of Bodhi Rook.

When Rogue One’s screenwriter Chris Weitz tweeted, “Please note that the Empire is a white supremacist (human) organization” – to which former writer on the project Gary Whitta added “Opposed by a multicultural group led by brave women” – in relation to the recent US Presidential election, controversy arose around the ethnically diverse casting, female lead, and white male villain. The response, at least in the minority, was that of accusations of a political agenda, particularly of a sexually or racially divisive nature, and a hashtag campaign to boycott or “dump” Star Wars. Keep in mind that J. J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens (2015) had a female white Brit and a male black American in the lead and the response was largely enthusiastic. Had it not been for the writers’ comments on Twitter, the response to them would likely not have surfaced to such a degree as to be considered newsworthy.

Weitz later apologised for “connecting an innocent escape to ugly politics” and Disney CEO Bob Iger said there was no intent to make a political statement through Rogue One, that the issue had been blown out of proportion, and that he was proud for making the most ethnically diverse main cast in Disney history. Good on him. As inappropriate was the attitude used to compare Star Wars to US politics, Weitz and Whitta did bring up a good point. The Alliance/Rebellion consists of several interplanetary cultures and alien species (even if some of the aliens have been said to resemble racial stereotypes), and is led by female leaders like Princess Leia and Mon Mothma, while the Empire is basically space Nazis…with black Stormtroopers—okay, bad example! Darth Vader’s helmet is even designed to be a mesh between that of a Japanese samurai and a Nazi soldier. The point is, if anything the female lead and diverse cast reflects a subtextual theme that dates as far back as the original trilogy.

Speaking of the original trilogy, the film includes several appearances and cameos from characters and visual themes from the first three films. This includes Mon Mothma, played by Genevieve O’Reilly as she reprises her role from the making of Revenge of the Sith (George Lucas, 2005). O’Reilly plays the role with gentle authoritativeness similar to that of Caroline Blakiston’s portrayal, but the funny thing is the time of this story’s events aren’t all that long ago from Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand, 1983), so Mothma looks a bit younger than she ought to. Darth Vader makes a return to the film series, voiced by the one and only James Earl Jones and physically portrayed by Spencer Wilding and Daniel Naprous, as the iconic villain makes a couple of appearances. Vader’s costume is fantastic as always, and his presence, voice and projection reminds one of how intimidating the character is. In this instance he seems to be represented with a slight sense of humour, which seems slightly out of place or out of character, although it is just the one time and it doesn’t necessarily diminish the film in any way.

Surprise! The film also sees the return of Grand Moff Tarkin (Stephen Stanton (voice) and Guy Henry), the man in charge of the Death Star, originally played by Peter Cushing in Episode IV – A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977). In this case, computer imagery is used to replicate Cushing’s likeness. While we know this is CGI because Peter Cushing passed away in 1994, and our minds then look for the telltale signs as such, it is a convincing likeness. It reminds one of the animation style used in Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf (2007), where the CGI characters accurately resembled their voice actors. Some sources have perceived this so-called ‘resurrection’ of Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin to be disrespectful to the actor, so whether it is to be praised is somewhat up for debate. At this time one is of the opinion that the method used to recreate a well-known character from the first film in this way is at least impressive.

The appearances of Mon Mothma, Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin, as well as many others – including classic Imperial vehicles such as the camel-shaped AT-AT Walkers from The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and the two-legged AT-ST “chicken” Walkers from Return of the Jedi – are attempts at fan service, or could be ways to link Rogue One to A New Hope and onward. In fact, the Stormtroopers are so typically bad at shooting that non-Jedi melee fighters can engage and incapacitate them. Twice!

You know what’s not like your typical Star Wars? The colour pallet. With the exception of scenes aboard Imperial ships, which are shiny black with white lights anyway, most of the film has very low lighting with low colour saturation. There is a desert planet, where everything is mostly bright brown and yellow, but for most the first two thirds of the film the heroes are always in some dark and gloomy environment, whether it’s in their spaceship or on alien worlds. These planets have atmospheric feels to them but they don’t have much of a fantasy quality, basically being like plain old Earth settings. At times it gets so bad that you can barely see. This contrasts greatly from the use of light and colour in just about every other Star Wars film. It’s only during the climax, which takes place on a planet resembling the Maldives (where the scene was shot), when one learns to appreciate colours again.

So, how is the story? Going into the movie, one may feel they have a vague idea of how the story is going to resolve; the Death Star won’t be destroyed because it’s going to be around for the events of the first film. The heroes hop to different worlds, something is said or done, and we move onto the next one. It feels a bit like “chess piece storytelling”, going from one place after the other, rarely staying in one place to learn more than one thing. There are emotional moments with the Rogue One team during the climax, one by one, but it lacks a big enough impact on the audience because they haven’t spent enough time getting to know these characters. One won’t deny there is a sense of urgency and threat in the action scenes and the story at large.

In conclusion, Rogue One is passable. It has things that fans will recognise as to appeal to them. Unfortunately the colour grading is not very attractive, and while the story isn’t terrible – the film does try – it is quite lackluster. It’s basically an origin story that no one was curious about. The chief characters have only one or two layers of personality traits and appealing qualities, for the most part, and while they look discernable the overall seriousness of the performances blends them in with each other. The film does seem to be made in the spirit of Star Wars – it’s not unwatchable. Its action scenes too are quite entertaining. That said, as a spinoff (particularly a film in canon with the official series) it doesn’t quite do enough to make itself indispensable to the franchise. If you go for all the old winks to the original trilogy, you’ll get them, just not in an especially compelling story.