Rogue One: A Star Wars Story 2016

Acting/characters- Pretty good overall. Cassian was by far the best part of the movie, K-2SO was great, Jyn was decent (not the best or worst main character, but I liked her well enough) and the rest played their part just fine. The one big gripe I have was that they may have put too many characters into this condensed story, there wasn't proper time to get to fully appreciate the pilot or the soldier who acts as the Monk's guardian but it wasn't terrible in terms of that.
Setting- All very pretty areas, but they really needed to chill out and stop switching scenery so fast. It's impossible to get the full atmospheric experience when you only see each area for around 20 minutes. They could have easily found a way to narrow the amount of planets they visited to 3 or so.
Story- pretty straightforward plot, felt natural the entire time, people made decisions that made sense and it fit well into the greater story (as it needed to considering it was made to fill a blank spot)
Sound- standard star wars, didn't do anything particularly impressive but it worked fine
Action/effects- The director of this movie clearly made sure that every single part of this movie had some sort of action to keep the blood pumping. This is maybe the most action packed Star Wars movie there is, the only one I can think that even comes close is Episode III. Because of this emphasis on action they clearly also made an effort to make it all look really good. Also there are a couple bits where they had a CGI version of Young Leia and Tarkin which I thought would be really "uncanny valley" looking and irritating to the eyes but surprisingly they seem to have surpassed it and made practically photorealistic reproductions of their faces. Really wild to watch, they still don't exactly move like human skin but it's damn close.

Random bits I want to mention- While Darth Vader's scenes were both really good I think it would've been much more powerful if he didn't have the first one where he talks to the commander and instead solely showed up as a surprise whilst boarding the rebel ships and tearing apart their soldiers
-Forest Whitaker did an absolutely awful job in this movie. I don't know what the fuck he was smoking while filming but I DON'T want some, he looked like an idiot. I wanted to separate this from the acting because it was an outlying part of it, but it needed to be mentioned.
-It's shallow, really shallow. Star Wars isn't known for depth and has outright been criticized when experimenting with it in the prequels and this movie take little to no risk. It's a very safe movie that everyone will enjoy but it never even reached for greatness.
-The ending is really good, by far the riskiest part of the whole shebang. It knows it is a self contained story and utilizes it's final 30 or so minutes to make the most out of the time it has.

The creators of Star Wars has found a way to keep us all wanting more. I finished watching Rogue One and I was ready to watch it again or just simply watch every movie again. I am that excited.

At first I wasn't really sure about it all. Seeing that everybody told me it's a whole different story from the "normal" Star Wars movies (I highly disagree there because it literally fits perfect between film 3 and 4) and I didn't know how to feel about Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso (I know, it's bitching about something not worth bitching about, but I did it anyway). I think getting the right actor for the role is so imported. It could make or break a movie. I had my doubts about Felicity but I'm taking them all back because she was so so good. Her looks fitted in perfectly. Although I do feel like once she started talking the amount of "cool" dropped a bit, perhaps because her accent is so perfect, but I don't know. I felt like it just didn't really fit once she started talking. (I'm sorry)

I always like it when I watch a real cool movie with tons of actors I don't know. I didn't really know Diego Luna, Donnie Yen, Wen Jiang or Ben Mendelsohn before Rogue One. I'm sure not to forget them now because they were all great. I liked Mads Mikkelsen as well because he is one of my favorite actors and he is amazing, that's all. (Also, small shoutout to Forest Whitaker for being cool). I enjoyed the camera work as well. It was all beautifully filmed and in the beginning there were a lot of shot containing the environment and not only the actors. That gives a lot of breathing space and I think is a great way to build up the movie towards the action filled parts.

Rogue One did a great job at telling its story, with beautiful camerawork and great actors. It got me all hyped up about the Star Wars universe again and I can't wait to see more.

First of all, I'd like to say that Rogue One does an admirable job of slotting itself onto the wider context of the Star Wars universe and its story is pretty solid and definitely engaging.

However while the plot and action sequences in this film were good there was very little in the way of character development and in my opinion this is where the film falls down. On the whole the characters were very likable and interesting but unfortunately (and ironically considering I watched it in 3D) they were also pretty two-dimensional. This wouldn't be so much of an issue if there were going to be more films in which to develop the characters but considering they all die at the end that seems unlikely.

I have to admit, I've never been a huge fan of war movies, so perhaps I'm just not the intended audience for this film. But as a lover of Star Wars and someone who places a strong value on characterization, I have to say I was a little disappointed. As I said, there was a strong plot and some amazing action sequences but the film was also oddly paced at times and personally I don't think Felicity Jones was a particularly strong or compelling lead. While the rest of the cast were able to bring their characters to life despite very little to work with, I feel that Jones failed to do this and so I never really warmed to her character.

All that said I very much appreciate the racial diversity of the cast; it's very unusual to see a Hollywood blockbuster where the main cast consists almost entirely of people of colour and I'm hoping it's demonstrating a move towards more diversity in the film industry (I can only hope that the next Star Wars film will feature some WOMEN of colour in the main cast as well!)

Rogue One was okay. Definitely better than The Force(d) Awakens. But it doesn't have the necessary kick it should have had. 2/3 of the film is just Jyn Erso wandering around. The real film starts at the last 1/3 part of the film.

Despite having the Rogue One team as the center of the film, there is no Rogue One team. There is only a bunch of ragtags with a noble mission.

Let's start with Jyn Erso. Jyn, the reluctant heroine, was initially uninterested in being involved with the whole Rebellion vs Empire conflict. But after a life-changing event involving her father, only there she started to be engaged. The problem is: this happened too early. Just a moment after her newfound spirit, there is another moment that should have kickstarted Jyn. Something involving her mentor, Saw Gerrera. But instead having that point as the driving force, the writer chose to uplift the mood too early. Leaving us with spirited Jyn, dispirited Jyn, and then spirited again.

Also, the trademark quip you see in the trailer, "I rebel," actually got cut off in the final release. So the rebellious Jyn presented in the trailer is actually not that rebellious in the film. This is one of the problem with character development in the film: we don't get to see how Jyn react with her surrounding. We don't get to know who she actually was, her relationship with her mentor. There is implied that something serious is going on between the two but we don't get to see why she should be emotionally attached to him (or her father, even).

The problem with this character development also happen for the long duration of the film: how the characters bond with each other. Yeah, in the long course of the adventures of Rogue One, we don't actually see them working as a team. There are only Jyn and Cassian and K-2SO, the Force fanboys duo Chirrut and Baze, and the unfortunate ex-Imperial pilot Bodhi Rook stuck in this ragtag group. Oh and a few of Cassian's men, who we hardly knew. Despite having them wandering around together for 85 minutes, the film doesn't give them enough screen time to work as a team. Instead we only see Cassian working with K-2SO as a part of rebellion, Jyn acting as reluctant heroine, Chirrut and Baze as remnants of the ancient Force order, and Bodhi who has no choice but to chauffeur them to their desired places. And a bunch of Cassian's men joining the bandwagon at later times.

So, unlike the solid team we see in Star Wars The Force Unleashed (the game), or maybe other Disney-published film Guardians of the Galaxy, we see here a dysfunctional team who just happen to band together. They are willing to die for a cause, but it's unclear how willing they are to protect each other's back. Yes - because in the course of the movie they only act for the friends they already know. Baze only for Chirrut (and vice-versa), Jyn for Cassain/K-2SO (and vice-versa), and poor guy Bodhi being a lackey because he has no one he knows. When anything goes bad in the team, we don't see them losing as a team - only as individuals.

Speaking of characters, the film also has some unnecessary drama and characters taking dumb decision. The film starts with a really unnecessary death which can be prevented. The same goes with Saw Gerrera. This potential character, derived from the older Expanded Universe saga, is not utilized in full effect. Despite portrayed as important, he remained in the background almost in the whole time, with no air of mystery at all. We hardly knew him.

Felicity Jones acting as Jyn Erso is a bit jarring. She is a better written character compared to Rei in Force(d) Awakens, but Jones don't seem to act her properly. In some sequences she seem to behave awkwardly, like being uncomfortable at the scene. Then just a moment later, she became high and mighty.

In universe, the film also has several weird take on the Star Wars canon. First is Chirrut's constant praying to the Force. No one prayed to the Force before. Force is not Jesus, you don't pray to Him. Lucas' inspiration of the Force was Eastern esoteric religion - it's some sort of energy that surrounds us. Having someone praying to the Force is a very monotheistic approach to the concept of religion.

Another weirdness is the jumping to the hyperspace plot device. Like in The Force(d) Awakens, jumping to hyperspace is utilized as a too convenient deus ex machina: it can be done while in atmosphere. In Star Wars canon (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) you can only jump while in the orbit. The lack of security in Imperial-occupied planets also look very jarring. How can rebel ships slip into the planets that easily?

Despite all that, the last 1/3 part of the film is exciting, albeit using some cliched plot device (romance, main goal being sidelined by petty challenges). The space battle is fine. X-Wing and Y-Wing are utilized properly as fighter and bomber (not otherwise). The tactic with Hammerhead-class cruiser is, while ridiculous, still more satisfying than the one-fighter-destroy-one-SSD-by-crashing in Eps IV. Also the cameo of characters like Tarkin is pleasing to EU fans. The only weird part is the directors and governor addressing Vader as "Lord"--didn't they see them as a peer in Eps IV, by calling him simply as "Darth"?

All in all, not bad, but not that good either. As for the weird tone in first 2/3 of the film, I suspect there is Disney's part in here. Them ordering reshoot to make it more "fun and light-hearted".

7.0/10. A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi are the sacred texts of the Star Wars universe. Every story and every piece of the universe that has emerged in the wake of those first three films – sequels, prequels, midquels, comics, T.V. shows, video games, trading cards, action figures, and commemorative plates – are indebted to the franchise’s holy trinity. Each of them, no matter what claim to originality or expansion they may make, echoes, references, or “rhymes” with those instigating incidents. For as wide and wooly as the famed distant galaxy has become over the years, the creators and collaborators behind Star Wars are forever filling in the gaps left by those all-important lodestones of the franchise.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is the peak of this gap-filling mentality brought to bear. It is inexorably tied to the original Star Wars, taking great pains to connect the events of the film to those of its hallowed predecessor, even when it gets in the way of telling Rogue One’s own story. In that way, it feels closer to pandering than to a novel extension of the Star Wars universe, like a film desperate to remind you what comes next in the story, without regard for whether any of the harbingers it presents truly add anything to the story we already know.

It’s a shame, because beneath the frantic attempts to show the audience where the film fits into the franchise’s timeline is a solid if unspectacular standalone tale. Rogue One tells the story of the assorted individuals responsible for stealing the plans for the Death Star, and taken apart from the ways in which that narrative is relegated to being mere setup for what’s to come, it’s an interesting, hardscrabble slice of the larger Star Wars story.

For all its strengths, so much of Star Wars inevitably comes down to two warring factions: the Rebels and the Empire, the Republic and the Separatists, the Jedi and the Sith. What makes Rogue One unique is its focus on those who are outside of that dichotomy and its inescapable conflicts. Most of the individuals we meet are ready to buck up against the Empire when it suits them, but not so eager to thumb their noses at this overwhelming force in pursuit of truth, justice, and the midi-chlorian way.

There’s merit in that tack. The problem is that the film stumbles considerably in telling these people’s story, or any sort of complete story for that matter. Rogue One is less a full and robust narrative – one that, ideally, builds and progresses and culminates at the right time – than it is a mere series of moments which bear only a mild relation to one another. Some of those moments are cool. A handful of them are even thrilling. But they don’t amount to something cohesive and complete, and the film suffers for it.

The effort’s also hampered by the uninspiring qualities of the film’s major characters. Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), Rogue One’s protagonist, is mostly a cipher, whose informed attributes overwhelm any actual personality from the character. We learn her backstory – she’s a de facto orphan (why is it always orphans in Star Wars?); she has abandonment issues that have driven her to apathy; and she’s a survivor – but her emotional journey in the film is underdeveloped and Jones fails to breathe enough life into the role to overcome that fact.

Jyn reconnects, however briefly or ephemerally, with those she lost, and seems to learn something about a commitment and a love that transcends separation or apparent abandonment. But the connection between that mild revelation and her sudden commitment to the greater good is thin at best, and mostly serves as light texture for the major fireworks at the end of the film. It keeps Rogue One playing from behind from the beginning.

The same goes for other lead in the film, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), a hardened Rebel fighter. As written, Andor should be an interesting character, occupying a moral gray area that’s rare in this universe. In contrast to the purity exhibited by the members of the Rebel Alliance in A New Hope, Cassian is not above killing allies and bystanders when it suits his purposes. Early in the film, he blows away an informant who grows too panicky, as it was for his scruffy cinematic predecessor, the character’s introduction leaves no ambiguity as to who shot first.

But Luna gives a flat performance as Andor, to the point that the character comes off as a lifeless drone, lurching about simply to move the narrative along, but only feigning some deeper emotional drive. This type of performance can work for this type of character, who’s seen too much and grown detached and jaded. But Rogue One never really does the heavy lifting to sell his story in a way that makes this characterization meaningful.

Which makes the side characters the only genuinely compelling personalities in the film. Chief among these are Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) and Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang), a pair of force-worshipping monks, and K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) a reprogrammed imperial droid with a dry wit.

The former make for a particularly interesting pair. Îmwe makes an impression as a blind but true believer, who trusts in the force and demonstrates the strength of that belief in his effective use of a bow and in his acts of faith. Baze compliments his partner well as the lapsed adherent who’s quick with a futuristic chain gun. He’s a reluctant combatant, but a protective friend. And K2 is practically the exclusive source of the film’s humor, providing unexpected bits of heart as well. It may be the character quirks or the performances, but these individuals stand out as the only new personalities involved to make the audience invest in the results of this little escapade.

Nearly everyone else, from Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker, making some deliberate but odd choices in his performance) to Galen Ersa (Mads Mikkelsen who, for the second time this summer, elevates the shallow material his character receives) is lost in a sea of heavily underlined cameos and ham-fisted hints at what comes next.

CAUTION: The remainder of this review contains significant spoilers for Rogue One.

While it’s fun (if contrived) to see minor characters like Ponda Baba and Evazan pop up here and there, Rogue One is awash in nigh-pointless appearances from better known characters. C-3PO and R2-D2 pop up for a moment to deliver a quick dose of their usual banter. A scene with Darth Vader and the film’s antagonist, Director Krennic, serves little purpose beyond allowing the Sith Lord to show off his standard parlor trick and deliver a corny pun. Bail Organa (the only significant presence from the Prequels), also appears in order to participate in awkwardly-worded exchanges about Obi Wan Kenobi. Of all these cameos, only Grand Moff Tarkin (an impressively compu-revivified Peter Cushing) feels at all significant to the plot of this film and not just some sop to fans hoping to see their old favorites.

So the film putters along through clumsy exposition-ridden exchanges; stolid, eye roll-worthy scenes; and convenient but uninspiring developments. Little of it descends to the level of being outright bad. Everything is competent. Almost everyone has a clear motivation. *Rogue One * just offers little reason to be invested in any of it.

Then, however, comes the finale. It’s an epic battle that spans three settings – a raucous dogfight in space, a guerilla-esque battle on the ground, and a race against time to recover the death star plans inside an empire facility – and the film picks up considerably once it hits. In fact, that last gasp of the film, its extraordinary race to the finish, nearly justifies all the stumbles and flaws on the way to that point. There is a vibrancy and an urgency to the rigors of war, the thrill of the fight, and the weight of the sacrifice in the film’s final frame that is all but missing in the first two-thirds of the movie.

Those orbital dogfights live up to the best in the franchise’s history. While far busier than the famous run on the Death Star in A New Hope and more varied than the fight in Return of the Jedi, the interplanetary combat portion of Rogue One brings creativity and visual flair to the fore. The “hammerhead corvette” move to ram one star destroyer into another is not only a stunning image in and of itself, but represents the sort of desperation and lateral thinking that gives the Rebel Alliance a legitimate chance to overthrow the adversaries who’ll otherwise overwhelm and outmatch them.

Similarly, the efforts on the ground among the former monks and defecting imperial pilot Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed, who is fine but, again, feels underdeveloped and lacking in personality relative to his robotic and Jedi Temple-defending counterparts) against the invading stormtrooper army are unique among Star Wars action sequences. The beachside setting alone makes the battle feel distinct from any others in the franchise.

And it’s in that setting that Rogue One starts to feel like a war movie in a way that no other Star Wars film has. The images of the troopers storming the beaches, of firefights back and forth and explosions happening all around, create a visceral sense of the struggle here, in a film more committed to the realities and casualties of conflict than the high space fantasy of the original trilogy.

But, as with the rest of the film, the part focusing on Jyn and Cassian is the weakest facet of the finale. Their effort to obtain the Death Star plans amounts to a souped-up take on the claw machine and devolves into a standard cat and mouse game that lacks the immediacy or excitement of the other two elements of the battle. But even that segment of the film’s climax is saved by a cohesiveness and common purpose among the three distinct battle zones that makes each individual fight feel a part of the larger struggle.

In contrast to even George Lucas’s films, Rogue One does a superior job at weaving the various conflicts in the film’s climax into one unified whole. The quest to transmit the Death Star plans involves combatants at all levels. K2 seals the doors and holds off stormtroopers. Jyn and Cassian nab the data tapes and upload them to the Empire’s transmitter. Bodhi connects the comms-line; the monks throw the master switch, and the spaceships in the sky break the Empire’s big honkin’ shield, thereby allowing the transmission through. Everyone has a part to play, with a clear progression in how their actions impact the larger goal, creating a sense of place that’s missing elsewhere, in the film and occasionally in the franchise writ large.

But it’s what happens next that offers Rogue One’s boldest stroke, and which also shows its limitations as a spinoff. Rogue One is the first Star Wars anthology film, the first movie set in this universe not to be a part of the larger saga, not to carry an episode designation, and not to focus on the Skywalkers and their assorted offspring and hangers on. That gives it a unique opportunity to take stories in this expansive and wide open universe and tell them without the larger world- and franchise-building constraints that come with the main saga.

Rogue One takes that opportunity to do something that the other films in the Star Wars franchise wouldn’t, and in many cases couldn’t do – kill off the entire cast. It is a gutsy move, but one done artfully. One-by-one, every major character receives their moment in the sun, to engage is some act of valor or defiance in pursuit of the larger goal, and then to pay the ultimate price in it. These scenes are the most heart-rending in the film, and the ones that feed into the larger theme of Rogue One more than any other – the idea that smaller, harsher, and more personal sacrifices made the epic space opera of A New Hope and its successors possible. There is a power in the way that this film follows through on the stakes it lays out; in the way it embraces the hardship and devastation that had to happen for Luke’s triumphant moment to happen; in the way it closes with Jyn and Cassian, locked in a Watchmen-esque embrace, in the face of annihilation.

And that’s really where the film should have ended, with our heroes having achieved their goal but suffering the mortal consequences of doing so. It’s admittedly a bit of a down note, but also an equally triumphant one, where yes, people suffer for their cause, but also advance it in an immeasurable way in the process. Instead, Rogue One bends over backwards to tie the ending of this film to the beginning of Episode IV, messing with the pacing and punch of its closing parry in the process.

In fairness, the ensuing scene where Darth Vader remorselessly slays a room full of rebels, all of them powerless to resist and trying desperately to send the data tapes on, is the coolest and most menacing the character has looked on the silver screen since The Empire Strikes Back. There’s an awe-inspiring combination of ruthlessness and effortlessness in the way Vader attacks them, that comes through in the way this tremendous sequence is choreographed, shot, and edited.

The film’s actual closing scene is more of a misstep, with an unnervingly CGI’d young Princess Leia painfully underlining the film’s mantra in a strained attempt to end a dark movie on a positive note. In contrast to the aged Tarkin, whose weathered face hides some of the seams of the computerized facelift, Leia quickly drifts into the uncanny valley, already getting a clunky scene off on the wrong foot.

But that issue aside, her appearance still amounts to another pandering cameo, which speaks more to the other films in the series than this one. And to boot, it features another cheesy line about “hope” in a script that couldn’t be more obvious about sending that message if Director Gareth Edwards personally elbowed each audience-member in the side every time the word was used. It speaks into the ways in which Rogue One is constantly tying itself to what came before and what comes next, rather than Edwards and the creative team allowing the movie to stand on its own.

And to be fair, some of the justifications I offered for The Force Awakens’s familiarity – a point that’s been held against the film since its release – apply here as well. Rogue One is trying something brand new – a spinoff that is not a direct part of the continuing Star Wars * saga. Maybe Kathleen Kennedy and the powers that be at Disney and Lucasfilm felt that when wading into such uncharted waters, they needed to tie *Rogue One explicitly and loudly into the main story that even the most casual of casual moviegoers would be familiar with. That way, the film not only works as a recognizable introduction into this brave new world of spinoffs and side stories, but those shout outs also help to demonstrate that these films are still “real Star Wars,” as present and vital to the franchise as any movie fronted by a Jedi.

But these anthology films are also a chance for the cinematic side of the Star Wars franchise to do what its televised counterparts, The Clone Wars and Rebels have done – use this familiar backdrop to tell different types of stories, to explore characters and settings in ways that would otherwise clash with the spirit of the main saga, and to find corners of the Star Wars universe that are not beholden to the adventures of the Skywalker family or the story that started it all.

The core of these aspirations is present in Rogue One, with unique elements and bold choices that stand to distinguish this first anthology film from its episodic brethren. But too often, the film gives into fanservice, or shoehorned inter-film connections, or familiar beats, that make the movie feel more like Episode III and ½ than its own Star Wars story.

The galaxy described in that famous opening crawl stretches far and wide. Rogue One presents a number of very cool moments within that galaxy – waterside warfare, bow-ridden grace, and merciless Sith brutality – but they never transcend being mere disconnected moments outside of the film’s high-intensity third act. So often Rogue One is simply filling in the gaps of the story already told in that galaxy, rather than expanding it. The result is a missed opportunity and a film that, for all its merits, could have been, and almost was, so much more than a pitstop on the way from revenge to hope.

"The Force is with me and I am one with the Force."

Chirrut and Baze were my favorites. This film made me think i want more stand alone films then a continuation of Episodes. As someone who has only jumped on to the Star Wars franchise over the past year, watching all the films over the past few months..this has to be my favorite next to the original film and what a fitting place. I can't wait to re-watch it back to back.
It most definitely made up for the Force Awakens which as a new viewer almost put me off. People more informed in film might be able to pin point what Rogue One has done better. That last battle to get the plans, i couldn't blink. Both the space and ground combat really conveyed how desperate the Rebels were.
The C3PO and R2D2 cameo took me out of the film for a moment but the rest of the film felt seamless and pulled me right in. I would of liked to have seen more of the relationship between Jyn and Saw but i am sure novels and television will take that on for us (or already have). So many emotions in those 2 and so hours and i can't wait to watch again, at the theater! Perfect cinema experience and worth the outing. By the way, what an ending! Vader never looked so dominant.

Everyone is talking about the final third act of Rogue One. Few minor quibbles aside, the third act is simply incredible, easily worthy of top 3 Star Wars films.

The first half is a bit more problematic. Aside from Jyn Erso and Diego Luna, the character development is almost non existent. Most of the secondary characters are reduced to stereotypes. For me, the most disappointing is Donnie Yen, who could've been one of the coolest force sensitive characters. Instead Chirrut Imwe gets the Darth Maul treatment, uttering corny lines while looking as cool as he can. For me, only Alan Tudyk's K-2SO managed to rise with dry delivery.

Limited character development and pacing on the first half aside, the film does an impressive job setting up the atmosphere and introducing new worlds and new species of aliens. That is not to say the film doesn't pay a fair share of homage to the original trilogy, most rendered very convincingly in CGI. Some gave me goosebumps. But Rogue One is restrained and does not go overboard in "trying to fit in" like The Force Awakens. It carves its own style and solidifying "A Star Wars Story" as a franchise worthy of standing on its own legs, rather than playing a second fiddle.

The opening shot is almost shocking and when the title pops up, it screams confidence. Michael Giacchino's score blends in just the right amount of John Williams and his own signature style. And everything from the costume, set design, and dog fights look and feel convincing.

All in all, I am very impressed with Rogue One, much more so than The Force Awakens which I also enjoyed. I left the theater feeling extremely satisfied. I strongly suspect Rogue One will age well, unlike the prequels.