Star Wars: Rogue One is on! So, our editor couldn’t miss a chance and has already watched it twice. Now he can tell you his opinion about this movie.
Please, beware of spoilers. There isn’t a great intrigue in this movie, but a couple of moments are surprising. If you want to know whether it’s worth watching or not, but don’t want to spoil the 1st impression – it’s worth watching. Go to the movies and then compare your opinion to mine.
Unexpectedly I loved the movie. Trailers were not really impressive, and Episode 7 had a lot of weak points, so, I was really afraid to be disappointed by Rouge One. Luckily, the final edition has little in common with trailers and with any other Star Wars standard weaknesses.
The film is really dramatic and rough. Is Even if you don’t like Star Wars you might love the most epic battles in the series’ history. Both in space and on earth. This film shows the war as it is. With minimum of pathos speeches (with some, though), violent and dramatic. There was no example of such war in Star Wars series before. Dumb stormtroopers who still can’t hit the target, are a bit disturbing – they could teach them to should if they’d decided to show a realistic war.
It really pleased me, that in contrast to other SW movies, there’s no CHOSEN ONE> No lucky escapes and Mary Sews. All characters have their places by reasons. Even Jyn Erso, whom the trailers showed as something like Ray from EP7, in fact appeared a reasonable character whose role is provided by her father’s position, not because she is SPECIAL. Anyone else could be at her place. Also she has a proper motivation – she starts to share the rebellion’s ideas only by the end of the film, first, she acts according to her own interests. And it’s great, since here we see a nice example of complex developing character.
All other characters are interesting and bright too. Especially I was glad to see their ambiguity. The main male character Cassian Andor for example doesn’t mind to shoot the ally, whom he doesn’t need anymore or abuse orders. The rebellion council desperately argues and is afraid of action. Some members even prefer to surrender. And the main antagonist Orson Krennic really hates Vader and Tarkin since all he’s led by is his ambitions.
Yeah, there’re Vader and Tarkin! The latest is, of course made as a 3D model. A lot of people blame the movie for these poorly made models, but I think they are done this way intentionally – to show respect to the actor passed off. It’s not likely that the movie with such budget and such special effects would save on the model of such an important character. And yes, Darth Vader. He has about 5 minutes on screen, but they are perfect. The last one where he ambushes the spaceship full of rebels really made me go to the cinema for the second time. It’s SOMETHING.
And the final thing about characters is that all of them are mortal. Everyone will die. Absolutely. Everyone, whom you haven’t seen in the New Hope will dramatically die by the end of Rouge One, providing that Hope. And you really empathise them, see their motivation and development. Well, sometimes in small details, but it’s not a TV series. It’s no cinch showing so many characters during 2 hours. But it’s done well. More or less depending on the character.
The plot might be the most usual part of the movie. The first part is a bit boring. But it’s not the fault of the scenarists. We used to know the end of this story since 70s, right? However, there are a lot of new amazing places of the Galaxy, new spaceships, new weapons, creatures and so on. Isn’t that the thing we love Star Wars for?
The main advantage is that the movie looks solid. Everything is on its place. The humor is relevant, there’s not so much pathos, A rational relation between action and talks. Even fun-service and reverences to the Episodes are made more thoughtfully than in Episode 7. Even the love story is logical – characters who know each other for a couple of days don’t jump to bed by the end of the film. There’s only a sympathy between them, and they die together, holding each other by the hand, dashed by the explosion. Majestic!
Sure, there’re some reasons to blame this film. There’s no perfect movie though. And it’s a well-known fact that nobody hates Star Wars so much as Star Wars fans do. Rogue One is definitely a great movie and a decent part of the Star Wars universe. Maybe it would better to make films like this, showing the Galaxy from the other side, rather than the new trilogy?
