Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. Long ago back in the late 70s and early 80s, these episodes existed peacefully and became the iconic franchise that influenced others while being a game changer. Then everything changed when George Lucas created the prequel trilogy. The fans of the once beloved franchise were exposed to more boring political talks, Jar Jar Binks being completely terrible, bland romance with horribly written dialog, and great actors giving flat deliveries of the writing (such as Samuel Jackson and Natalie Portman). But when all seemed lost, the Star Wars fans found a new kind of hope with Disney acquiring Lucasfilm and launching new films starting with The Force Awakens. This revival of the franchise struck gold and excitement but now is the time to see if the force will remain strong with the upcoming entries. In the coming years, these won't just be new episodes but also standalone stories in order to expand on the universe and its lore (while separating nerds from their hard earned cash, including myself). After seeing the trailer to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the hype train returned for the fans. I entered the theater ready to see its impact on the franchise and I left the theater excitedly happy with two things in mind: it's another favorite entry and the force is strong with this one (despite the lack of it in the actual movie).

Plot: The film fills in a story arc about how the rebellion ended up stealing the Death Star plans from the Empire. It follows the rebels in their efforts to battle the empire but instead of being simple black and white, it shows morality lines being crossed in gaining advantages that affect the public image of the warring sides (this kind of topic has been discussed a little in an episode of Star Wars Rebels in a conversation between a main character and an imperial officer but this tackles it head on). A character with a connection to the death star eventually meets with the rebel alliance and they endeavor to find the best method to critically wound their overpowering foes. It does show manners being handled on the empire side in terms of bureaucracy similar to that of The Force Awakens and A New Hope (and thankfully not the prequels). The action is spread throughout the story and is more gritty than anything the episodes have ever done so far. Even though the plot is slowly paced in the intro, the story paces itself very well afterwards and even takes care of some story issues in episode IV. Overall the plot is easy to follow with a dark and edgy tone in carrying the story of the struggles of bringing hope by either doing the right thing or crossing morality lines to do so.

Characters: The characters to focus on for Rogue One are Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen), and K-2SO (Alan Tudyk). Jyn is a hardened girl with a connection to the death star and joins the rebellion to fight the oppression of the empire. Felicity does an excellent job with portraying the development given to this role. Honestly Jyn Erso reminds me of Daisy Johnson from the show Marvel's Agents of SHIELD (except the force push seismic powers and love interest). Cassian is a rebel officer whose actions support the aforementioned idea about the Rebellion. Despite being limited in character development, Diego does a good job in showing a character transition from crossing lines to approaching goals the more honorable way for the greater good. Chirrut is a blind warrior who believes in the Force and joins the ragtag team in fighting the empire. Donnie is very entertaining in this role with his awesome moments he's given and providing advice when he can. K-2SO is an imperial droid that's been reprogrammed to help the rebels. Basically he's a combination of the droids in the past: the calculating prowess and larger version of C-3PO's body (minus the flamboyant personality and in black), the hacking abilities of R2D2, and the charm of BB-8 with the added bonus of Alan Tudyk great readings of fun one-liners stealing every scene he's in. There are other supporting roles involved but one of the minor issues with having so many characters is having to know which one gets developed better, which one drives the plot, and which one gets their moments to shine (This kind of concept has happened before with one of my earlier entries, The Magnificent Seven). Overall despite some characters being favored with development over others, every actors does a fantastic job in bringing life and flavors to these roles that ends up making the experience even more enjoyable.

Overall Consensus: Even though Rogue One: A Star Wars Story tells a predictable story, it's honored with a dark and gritty action adventure as the performance of the cast inject their characters humanizing traits as they fight to bring hope to the galaxy. ⭑⭑⭑⭑1/2 🍿

Reasons to watch it: You are either a die hard or casual Star Wars fan and want to see easter eggs spread throughout the movie. You want to see how this standalone story affect A New Hope. You want to see a droid be a fun comic relief that can steal a scene like BB-8. You like watching dark gritty science fiction movies. You want to see excellent space battles. You want to see a Star Wars movie without the force or lightsabers being involved in the climatic battle. You want to see where you would rank this movie compared to the other entries. You want to see different kinds of Storm Troopers. You want to see a fantastic massive gritty climatic battle. You want to see more planets in the Star Wars universe. THE THIRD ACT!!

Reasons to avoid it: You don't like Star Wars or science fiction movies.