Films > Film Reviews

Star Wars: Rogue One

19/12/16

In 1977 I was 7 years old. Like many my age, I fell in love with the notion of ‘ a galaxy far far away’. The first record I bought was the Star Wars soundtrack, on my eighth birthday, and I hadn't even seen the movie at that point. By the end of summer 1978, I'd seen Star Wars at the cinema seven times. I'd even sat on the stairs of my local flea pit listening to it when I was too late to actually get in to see it for an eighth time.

I can tell you the day I went to see each of the original three movies, who I went with, and the specific circumstances surrounding those days. Like many love affairs, passions have blown as hot as a Tatooine wind and as cold as a Hoth snowstorm over the years. I lived in denial for some time about the relative quality of the prequels George Lucas produced at the end of the last century, yet Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm a few years ago presented this ageing fan-boy with a new hope, and the exciting promise of a new Star Wars movie every year. The jump to light-speed started all over again in 2015 with the somewhat marvellous and perfectly flawed Episode 7: The Force Awakens. Disney’s long-term plan is to continue the Skywalker story, but at the same time take the opportunity to tell other tales, perhaps ones only just hinted at in the past. That’s what we get in 2016, with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Simply put, remember at the beginning of the very first Star Wars movie, when the opening text crawl tells us that rebel spies have stolen the plans to the Death Star? It's that story.

Immediately, the biggest problem Rogue One faces is that it is not Episode 8. It's not a continuation of last year’s story, and many people may be left wondering, after being expertly introduced to them not twelve months ago, where the hell have Finn, Rey, and BB-8 got to? All too soon it becomes apparent to me that that’s not the only challenge that Rogue One faces. From the start you can tell that this isn’t going to be a usual Star Wars movie (if there is such a thing). There’s no fanfare opening title, and no text crawl to set the scene for us. That’s the movie’s first stumble. For the first fifteen minutes I find myself almost confounded and disorientated by the number of locales we’re visiting in an attempt to root us in the story and put characters where they need to be – none of whom it feels we’re actually on a hero’s journey with.

We’re introduced to Jyn Erso, competently played by Felicity Jones, our female protagonist, and her motivations for doing what she does in the universe. Rogue One does this with confidence and sensitivity; Mads Mikkelson’s performance as Jyn’s estranged father, is as effortless as ever, and adds a much needed soul to the story. It takes a long while to get a first action scene, maybe even too long, but as an introduction to some of the diverse team Jyn is building to take on the Empire - it’s spectacular. Trouble is, as this is happening, the plot starts becoming a mess of jumbled, writhing tentacles, flailing around even more rebellious rebels, and an unnecessary brain eating monster.

This baffling nonsense pulls me out of the movie, doesn’t allow me to build a connection with the characters I’m supposed to care about, and that’s sure to have an impact on how I feel about these people as they meet their fates later in the movie. The set pieces throughout the movie look fantastic, but most of the connecting narratives are incomprehensible at best, and as a result the true connection to the force of the movie is lost.

Rogue One could have been the first Star Wars movie to touch on some heavier subject matter too. Fighting tyranny is what it’s always been about, but terrorism, the ends justifying the means, and who pays the real price in a time of war are all approached but never engaged. I ask myself if that’s the Star Wars I’d want to see at the cinema? And maybe the movie-makers did too, because you can tell that Rogue One has been through significant rewrites, rethinks, re-shoots, and edits. There are two major portions of the movie that feel terribly muddled and events that feel convoluted to the point of confusion. The original cut may have been considered too dark for a popular audience, but I think I’d have preferred a fully explored, different approach to storytelling in the Star Wars Universe, rather than the weird lumbering rancor beast of a tale that we got. When the movie is not forgetting itself in a tangle of plot changes and editing room botches is when it becomes Star Wars. Lots of lovely nods to what's been and what’s to come, and one or two genuine surprises. There’s no denying that new Star Wars trades on nostalgia, both seen and imagined, and that’s fine with me. Much like Michael Giachinno’s score (the first Star Wars movie soundtrack not written by John Williams) my heart soars at the beats and the moments that I recognize but have never seen before.

If it hadn’t been so busy fumbling around creating story points that serve no purpose other than to kill characters off in the middle of a warzone, and badly editing in ill-thought out new ideas, Rogue One’s finale could have been up there with the saga’s best – the escape from Hoth at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back. Instead director Gareth Edwards, in his usual fashion, leaves it until the last few minutes to deliver something that I consider to be very special. The nerd in me argues that Rogue One is worth the admission price just for that one sequence alone. The seasoned movie-goer in me has a slightly different perspective.

Star Wars has always been about simple storytelling beats revealing a glorious Space Opera, filled with modern mythology building and excitement, and it may be the case that right now I’m being overly critical. But I feel justified in that criticism. Star Wars is mine, in the same way that it’s yours and everyone else’s, and I don’t feel like forgiving the filmmakers for presenting me with something that wasn’t fully formed – like Vader taking his first faltering steps at the end of Revenge of the Sith

I had concerns about The Force Awakens after my first viewing, but now I bloody love that film. Maybe the same will happen with Rogue One. Or maybe I’m just adjusting my expectations – and that’s a path to the dark side of prequel denial, which I’m fearful of… and fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and we all know where hate can take us…