Rogue One

Walking into the theater for a Thursday night preview of Rogue One, I was excited but nervous, like every other Star Wars fanboy. We all knew we were walking into either the greatest movie ever, or the biggest disappointment since The Phantom Menace. Turns out we were wrong. What we actually got was something a bit more in the middle.

Rogue One kicks off in glorious fashion. The opening minutes pull you in immediately, and you’re quickly caught up in the story. After the first 5 minutes, it’s clear that this is going to be a much darker Star Wars movie than we’re accustomed to. The title card (which, truthfully, is one of the worst I’ve ever seen) flashes onto the screen and the movie is off at a breakneck pace. It truly doesn’t stop. In tone, it may be most similar to The Empire Strikes Back, but in pace, it’s a lot closer to A New Hope or The Force Awakens. This makes for a delightful combination.

We’re quickly introduced to the main characters. By quickly I do truly mean quickly. One scene after the other introduces them and then moves on. The plot quickly gets kicked off once the heroine, Jyn, is rescued from an Imperial prison transport and is sent off to find an old friend for information on a weapon the Empire is building. She finds her friend, but the planet she is on is a test target for the Death Star. She and her team escape, and this is when the plot truly takes off. There’s one rapid action scene after another, as the Rebellion races to capture the Death Star plans. And perhaps this is the movie’s greatest fault. Things happen so fast that there isn’t quite enough time for character development. There’s a little bit of development, sure. But not enough for us to connect with the characters as deeply as we possibly could. And that brings me to the good and bad things about this movie.

Let’s talk about the positive aspects of Rogue One first. The acting is all perfect. Every single performance felt genuine. The direction is also excellent. Gareth Edwards achieved everything he wanted to. Michael Giacchino’s score fits the film perfectly, and I may enjoy the score for Rogue One even more than I enjoy the score for The Force Awakens. It’s excellent. It manages to still feel Star Wars-y while also feeling fresh and unique. So bravo to him. The pace of the film is excellent. You won’t feel bored for a single moment. However, this also created some problems, as I noted above. This brings me to the negative aspects of the film. Its breakneck pace allows for practically no character development. Interestingly, if you watch closely enough, every single main character has an arc, or some obstacle which they overcome in the end, except for perhaps Chirrut. Every single one of the characters is likeable, however, and that’s more than the prequels can say. (*cough* Anakin *cough*) Ultimately, how likeable the characters are is enough to distract us, mostly, from the lack of character development. These are all solid characters, especially K-2SO. You’re just left wishing they’d been developed a bit more.

The first time I saw Rogue One, I was kind of disappointed. I’d waited for a year for this? My main problem with the film was exactly what I’ve mentioned so many times above. I didn’t feel a connection to the characters. They felt flat. I thought it was just a cut above mediocre. I saw it again a week later, in IMAX 3D. There was literally no 3D, but the IMAX part was nice. I liked it a bit more that time, though. I left feeling that it was flawed, but still good. A couple weeks later, I saw it one more time. This time, I liked it a lot. It had problems, sure. But for the most part it managed to overcome them.

I’ve had time to think about it for a few months now, and I still have mixed feelings about it. Is it perfect? Far from it. But this is still a good film. It has good characters, even if it doesn’t have a lot of development. I honestly think just one rewrite of the script would have fixed all of its problems. If the length could have been increased by just 10 or 15 minutes to include some more character development, I don’t think I would have had a single problem with the movie. The humor is on point, the ending is truly emotional, and it leaves you feeling fulfilled. The frustrating thing is that it fell just short of greatness and is, instead, just a pretty good movie. Do I recommend it? Absolutely. But just know that it has flaws that are made all the more frustrating by how good the rest of the film is. I’m going to give Rogue One 3.75/5 stars.

P.S. That Darth Vader scene though. It alone was worth the price of admission.