Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Review

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Last Saturday I saw Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in theaters and loved it.  Possibly one of the best movies in the series.  Everyone who's seen A New Hope knows how this story ends but this movie is very much about the journey and not the destination, which is literally moments before the beginning of Episode 4.  Here is a quick list of things I liked about the movie.  Oh, and...

Just in case

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• The cast of characters!  For a movie that would work as the prologue of a George R.R. Martin novel but where you never see most of these characters again, the cast is great.  
• Donnie Yen as Chirrut Imwe is great as a supporting character and was probably my favorite of the bunch.  
• .Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso is a wonderful, strong character and I was rooting for her to win at several stages of the journey.  
• Alan Tudyk of Firefly fame was perfect as K2SO, the sarcastic reprogrammed Imperial Intelligence Droid, and many of the movies best beats of humor came from him.  
• Jiang Wen redeemed his Star Wars Celebration gaff by being a lovable jerk most of the movie as Baze Malbus, Imwe's 'guardian' with a big blaster repeater cannon (I love men with big guns).  
• Diego Luna plays the anti-hero Cassian Andor, who comes across cold at first and makes a Solo style turn to true good guy (and gets the girl... for like five minutes).  
• Ben Mendelsohn plays a great villain as Director Orsen Krennic, the man behind the Death Star's completion.  You learn how much of a bad apple he is right away.
• Mads Mikkelsen plays a likable character for once as Jyn's dad, Galen Erso, the brains behind the Death Star and the reason Star Wars fans can finally stop arguing about why the Death Star was designed with such a huge and obvious flaw!  REVENGE!
• Darth Vader.  He's in the movie for all of five minutes and almost steals the show.  Also, One Sith Lord vs any number of rebel soldiers is not a fair fight, just saying.  It's good to see Papa Skywalker actually being the badass we know he is for once.
• Set course for Nostalgia, Warp Factor 10 (I know, wrong sci-fi universe.  Moving on)  So many little gems!  R2-D2 and C-3PO make cameos at Yavin Base.  There are several Clone Wars nods including Saw Gerrera (played by Forrest Whitaker).  Carrie Fisher (May the Force be with her and her mother) even gets an appearance as Young Leia.  So good.  I don't care if they're cheap ways to win over fans, I love nostalgia.
• This was a War Movie.  Saving Private Ryan and Star Wars: A New Hope had a baby named Rogue One.  And there are no Jedi to save the day, no Force Users making lucky shots when time expires, and no cocky freighter captains to shot down pursuing TIE fighters.  Just normal soldiers fighting and dying.
• The Death Star is a nuke.  Yes, it can blow up planets at full power, but dialed down to 1 and it's a tactical nuclear weapon, to be brief.  Need a city wasted, not a whole planet?  Boom!  We saw in Return of the Jedi that it can be dialed back to take out capital ships, but seeing that unleashed on a planet?  Damn.

And some things I wasn't sold on.

• Watching the trailers again after seeing the movie, and it's clear someone made a different movie somewhere between April and December.  Several moments that seemed important or exciting from trailers were either cut or changed.  I'd love to see the original final cut of this movie before someone decided to reshoot most of it.  It was probably darker and grittier, and if it involved more Vader, I want it more.  Maybe the Blu-Ray special features?
• The beginning is choppy and jumpy.  They're trying to set up who Jyn is and get her to the Rebels, but it was not smooth.  Movie gets better past the 15 minute mark.
• One and Done.  All the main cast are not coming back.  Why?  Well, firstly SPOILERS!
  
  SPOILERS!
  
  SPOILERS!
  
  Okay, you've been warned.  They all die.  Yup.  No Rogue Two.  No popping up in other Anthology movies.  They died heroes.  The Force is with them, and they are with the Force.  So bummer, but hey, it was fun.

If you haven't seen it yet and got this far, well, sorry to spoil it for you, but go see it anyway!  It was very good and I loved watching it.  Definitely worthy of the Star Wars sage.  A- in my book.