Built on Hope
Some thoughts on ‘Rogue One’
Almost two weeks removed from seeing Rogue One in theaters — enough time to digest, I think. Some thoughts.
Overall, I thought it was a very solid entry into the canon. Was it the best Star Wars movie? No. But I also think that’s an unfair comparison since it’s not meant to be on the exact same main storyline. Was it better than all of the prequels? Of course. It was good. Maybe even very good, depending on your taste for war movies.
Mainly, I liked it because it proved you could do an offshoot in an appealing way. And perhaps especially, that you can make a good film in spite of the whispers of the film being a disaster in need of massive reshoots. There were at least a thousand ways Rogue One could have gone badly, and just a handful of ways it could have stuck the landing. And yet, stuck it, it did.
A lot of the reviews I read after the fact (always read reviews after the fact) focused on the fact that it still relied a lot on the original Star Wars material. Not as much as Episode VII, of course. But still, as a stand-alone movie, critics worry that it’s too interwoven. I think those are fair critiques, but that was clearly a deliberate choice which makes the movie a lot more fun than it would otherwise be as a stand-alone film about rebellion and war.
As much fun of a brain exercise as it may be to think of a Star Wars movie that is completely detached from the original films and story lines, would anyone really want to see such a film? Why even bother with a tie-in? Unless you’re setting up a slow-build to something far down the road, that’s a hard case to make. (See also: some of the criticism Prometheus received, even though I thought it did strike a nice balance between old and new with regard to the Alien franchise.)
Given that we now live in the Marvel world of extremely interwoven and long-building storylines over several films, it’s also impressive to see the Star Wars franchise pull this off after the fact — almost 40 years after the initial fact, in fact! While there may have been a general storyline for the original trilogy, we’re far beyond that now. And with all due respect to George Lucas, there was no Kevin Feige hand at play here. Tacking something like Rogue One onto one of the — if not the — most beloved franchises in cinematic history seems substantially harder than planning it from day one.
It’s like blowing up a Death Star. Or, at the very least, stealing the plans to do so.
So yeah, color me impressed. And it’s a film I definitely have a desire to see again — undoubtedly multiple times. The 3D elements were completely superfluous, but otherwise, it was perhaps the most beautifully shot Star Wars film yet.
My only other nit is that just as with Oscar Isaac in Episode VII, I wish they had used Mads Mikkelsen more. (Sidenote: What if we get a Galen Erso prequel to the prequel?!)
Perhaps the most interesting element of the film was the CGI resurrections — but that’s another topic, for another post.¹ But overall, it’s really hard for me to come up with a list of ways I think they could have made Rogue One, given the limitations listed above, better than it was.
If you’re into Star Wars at all, it’s great fun. If you’re not, get into the other films and once you’re done, Rogue One will undoubtedly taste like icing on the cake.² It may not be needed, but it makes the cake that much better upon completion.
¹ Also — MINOR SPOILER — too soon :(
² It will be fascinating to see if future generations try to watch Rogue One before Star Wars (Episode IV). Presumably they will, but I’m not sure how well it will hold up given the above. That’s an experiment I’m happy to try though!
