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.

The Force Awakens

There has been an awakening...

Have you felt it?

On Friday, December 18th, at around 9 o'clock in the morning, I found myself sitting in one of the most comfortable seats I've ever seen in a movie theatre.  I'm talking about lounge chairs that recline and have leg rests built in, and they're set up for couples!  So there is an arm rest in between the pairs of seats that can be folded up and out of the way.  So I had a great, comfortable seat for the showing, which of course was in 3-D.  (The movie doesn't have any 3-D gimmicks but it makes the movie much better).  So after a half an hour of previews for Captain America: Civil War and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and (the incredibly white washed) Gods of Egypt, the following came on screen:

I was so excited!  I was about to see a new Star Wars movie!  After Revenge of the Sith was released, the whole world thought that it had seen all the Star Wars it was ever going to see on the big screen.  We might get more video games, more books, more TV shows, but not movies.  It wasn't until 2012, when Disney bought Lucasfilms, that we all learned that, yes, there would be more Star Wars.  And not just any Star Wars, the original (Legacy) cast members Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Tony Daniels, and Peter Mayhew, alongside a new cast featuring Daisy Ridley and John Boyega.  And now that three year wait was about to be over!  And in the few seconds I had to consider all of this, those magical words: "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far way..." came and went, before John Williams epic score kicked in and those hollow yellow letters came on screen to spell out. . .

It was here.  I was watching it (with my lovely fiancee) and for the next 2 hours, life was good.  Space ships, monsters, lightsabers, aliens, good vs evil.  Star Wars was back and it was great!

Me (R2-D2) and my Fiancee (Yoda)

I will write a review after New Year's Day so people have a chance to see it without getting the spoilers.  I want to discuss all the aspects of the movie.  But for my non-spoiler review?  "It was good!  Go see it if you liked the original trilogy!"  There you go.  Short and sweet.

A Long Time Ago. . .

In a galaxy far, far away...

7 Days from the exact moment this hits the blogosphere, I will see "Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens," and I'm not sure if I should be excited or terrified.  With so much at stake with the original cast members being involved and George Lucas selling Star Wars to Disney, not to mention the last attempt at Star Wars movies being very divisive (and even destructive) among the fanbase, the possibility for disappointment is immense.  And yet, I will go and see it with baited breath and possibly a Lightsaber.

That being said, I have been playing "Star Wars: The Old Republic" frantically to feed my Star Wars fix before the movie comes out, and before I drive my fiancee crazy humming the Star Wars themes.  The game has been out for a while, but in October, Bioware, the makers of SWTOR, released what is literally the best expansion for the game since launch, and quite literally it is better than the original story (which was pretty damn good.)  Called KoFE by fans, Knights of the Fallen Empire turns the MMO into a Single Player Campaign, focusing a story around your character and how he affects the events of the plot completely independant of other players, allowing you to simultaneously play with your friends, while making all the important choices yourself (while your friends are making their own choices in their own continuity).  I have not played the expansions new content myself yet, but several of the game play mechanics have changed with the release.  I like all of them.  SWTOR has been a game that I put on the shelf, waiting for something good to come of it for a while, and I'm glad to be back into it.  The original content remains for players new and old to enjoy, while promising a reportedly amazing experience once you reach the newest content.  And what makes it even better is that Bioware is continuing to add to the expansions story, so there is even more to look forward to.  Bioware, who makes games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, has always made story telling the best aspect of their games, and they (finally) delivered an expansion that lives up to their past successes.

So, if you want to find me on SWTOR, leave a comment with a character name and I'll instead come find you!  That is, if you're on the Jedi Covenant server.  Otherwise, well...  Too bad.  

May the Force be with you.