The biggest ripple in the Star Wars universe since The Phantom Menace first kicked off the much-maligned prequel series in 1999 came over a year ago when Disney released The Force Awakens, the first official sequel to the original trilogy. Its announcement and release reawakened a pop culture behemoth so great it was a bit puzzling to hear that Disney would be releasing a spinoff prequel to the original series entitled Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Its announcement provoked a mix of reactions from fans, many of whom saw it as little more than a fevered attempt to cash in on the buzz created by The Force Awakens. I was one of those fans. Was the studio actually trying to do artistic justice to the series legacy or were they trying to set and meet a very lucrative one-film-a-year quota?
Not only does Rogue One do more justice to the series than The Force Awakens, it also expands upon it in a satisfying, intriguing manner. Where the latter essentially cloned the structure of the first film of the original trilogy and colored it with aesthetics borrowed from the other two, Rogue One is bold enough to make a Star Wars film unlike any other in the series. This was evident from an intro that lacked the series' signature opening crawl to onscreen texts to keep track of the film's shifting locales.
Apart from a few quips courtesy of a droid more sardonic than C-3PO and R2-D2 combined, the film largely lacks the playful humor found in all of the Star Wars entries to date. At times, its tone verges on dark and even touching. Where The Force Awakens hashed out a rewrite of a New Hope, Rogue One spins out a more tragic, military-oriented interpretation of the underdogs vs. the machine story. As a result, it's the first Star Wars film that really feels more like a war film than an epic adventure. There are even scenes While the battle scenes hardly outdo the original series in terms of violence or gore, onscreen deaths of even new supporting characters warrant more emotion than ever before.
Like the other films, it's centered around a ragtag team of misfits who band together for the greater cause. Unlike the starry-eyed Luke Skywalker, the spunky royal Princess Leia and the lovable rebel Han Solo, however Rogue One's cast consists mainly of beaten-down warriors finding redemption in the greater good despite scheming corruption from both sides of the battle. In that sense, it's somewhat timely considering the currently volatile
political world. Where the line between heroic and villainous factions
were clear cut in previous films, Rogue One is the first to portray dark agendas within the Rebel Alliance.
While the two leads portrayed by Felicity Huffman and Diego Luna lack the same star power and charisma of Harrison Ford or even The Force Awakens' Daisy Ridley, they portray much more earthly characters with interesting moral dilemmas. The supporting cast follows this approach, straying from the template that endured throughout the series. While there are a few familiar archetypes present from the wise force-sensitive mystic to a trigger-happy sideman with the biggest gun, there are no definitive parallels to the Star Wars universe's most beloved characters. While it's unlikely that any of the characters will have the enduring impact of say Han Solo or Emperor Palpatine, they are entertaining and charming as an ensemble, not unlike a sci-fi version of The Untouchables.
Like The Force Awakens, the appeal of a film like Rogue One is built on the legacy of possibly the most popular franchise of all time. It's almost a basic requisite in today's backwards-looking industry to pepper a box office juggernaut like this with inside jokes and cheeky nods to the series' centerpiece films. The Force Awakens was built almost entirely on them. Rogue One displays its fan service more subtly, to its great benefit. The film's shift in tone and structure might make you forget that you're watching a Star Wars film, but there are some well-earned cameos from beloved characters that serve the plot as well as they illicit applause.
On that note, Rogue One isn't perfect. There are a few moments where director Gareth Edwards chooses to resurrect characters as we knew them in 1977 via Computer Generated Imagery and while the method is impressive, it is ultimately distracting and unconvincing. The film also lacks the same epic scope of the average Star Wars film which makes its relatively long run time (at roughly 2 hours and 15 minutes) questionable in terms of pacing.
Ultimately however, Rogue One succeeds where The Force Awakens disappointed. Though it's obviously best appreciated as an entry in the Star Wars saga, it is notably one of the few films in the franchise that plays well as a solid and scenic piece of sci-fi action in its own right. It boldly strayed from the series' familiar devices and was successful in that gamble. Though it doesn't make you think or add anything truly important to the series in terms of story, it does make for an entertaining and gloomily beautiful two hours of entertainment.
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