My Magical Place: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Review

My original review on: http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/482/155629.html

23 Dec 2016

Last year Disney gave us JJ Abrams' love letter to the original Star Wars trilogy in the form of Episode VII: The Force Awakens for Christmas. It was frighteningly good. This Christmas they gave us the first stand-alone story in the Star Wars anthology in the form of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

It is frighteningly good. Rogue One is a proper Star Wars movie - it is a space opera and, mainly, it is a gritty war drama. It is a look at more everyday sort of people on the ground living under the imperial shadow, it is a look at normal soldiers fighting in the resistance. Rogue One is the story of people making good choices and bad choices at a time when things aren’t as black and white as they seem in the main movies. The Rebellion we see in Rogue One is not the one that we see in A New Hope and the means they use to get things done are questionable at times. This movie is the story of how hope is made possible for the story in A New Hope.

A different perspective

Rogue One is the story of how the Rebellion acquired the plans for the Death Star and you could watch it and almost seamlessly transition into A New Hope. We have always seen Star Wars from the perspective of the Skywalker family and the characters surrounding them and one forgets that both the Rebellion and the Empire are made up of more than just those characters and that both entities came about as a result of the intelligence, industry, courage and sacrifice of many people. The Erso family is at the heart of Rogue One’s story and it opens with Galen Erso, a brilliant scientist who once worked for the Empire, in hiding with his family. They are tracked down and he is forced back into working on the Death Star project as he is critical to its success. Our protagonist, Jyn Erso’s character is forged against this backdrop. She has grown up without her family and never really sure where she stands in the conflict between the Rebellion and the Empire. The rest of the characters are also quite amazing, even though you will not really remember anyone’s name the first time around, except for the droid, K-2SO. The other thing Rogue One does is a lot more exploring of a galaxy far, far away than any of the other movies. You visit more planets in the first few minutes of this movie than all of Force Awakens. It’s nice to be introduced to more parts of the galaxy.

Straightforward plot

The plot is quite straightforward in that this is the story of how the rebels acquire the plans to the Death Star. Our rag-tag team of heroes consists of conflicted Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), equally conflicted rebel intelligence officer, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna); the badass blind warrior Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) and his friend Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen), former imperial pilot Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed) and the lovably snarky droid, K-2SO (Alan Tudyk). Mads Mikkelsen and Forest Whitaker brilliantly portray Galen Erso and Saw Garrera respectively. Expect to see some other familiar faces as well. The immediate villain is Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), an ambitious officer in the Empire who heads up the Death Star project but working under immense pressure from his superiors to get the project complete on time. In the background you have the menace of the emperor being hinted at and Darth Vader making very memorable appearances.

Perfect tie-in with Star Wars universe

Even though this is a stand-alone story, it ties in perfectly with the Star Wars universe and if you are a fan, you will find Easter eggs for the prequels, the original trilogy and the expanded universe. I went to see Rogue One with a friend of mine who’s not seen the other Star Wars movies and he liked it but at the end he’s like, “Will they destroy the Death Star in the next movie?” I had to explain to him that they did that in 1977 already. So all-in-all, Rogue One is a brilliant addition to the Star Wars universe and director, Gareth Edwards and his crew delivered the goods in terms of story, visuals, pacing and the score. At times they try and force the connection to A New Hope too much but in a manner you can forgive. I will go as far as to say that Rogue One is right up there with Empire Strikes Back and that it is even slightly better than The Force Awakens.

2017 at the Movies

I won't lie, you guys, I have let life capture my nerd flag for the last few months. I have not even seen Dr Strange or Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them yet. The year 2016 shall go down as just the worst - seriously, just the worst. But enough of that, take my hand and let's look ahead towards 2017 and see what good things will fill our movie loving hearts with gooey goodness.

Here are some of the movies that we can look forward to:

1. A Star Wars Christmas

This is still a 2016 feature, but since it will be on circuit quite a bit into 2017 it warrants a mention. As you all know, Disney does not mess around when they take over a franchise. We will have Star Wars for Christmas in one way or another for the rest of our lives. As long as there are Star Wars fans and Disney can make money from us there will be Star Wars. 



Last year gave us JJ Abrams’ beautiful love letter to the original trilogy, Episode VII: The Force Awakens. This year, we get the first of probably one million anthologies that are meant to tide us over in between the main movies, of which we’ll get one every two years. The first anthology feature that we will receive is titled Rogue One and it looks brilliant. You know how you have always wondered how the rebels got the plans for the first Death Star? Or exactly how many Bothans died to get information on the second Death Star? No, you never wondered? Well Rogue One will answer the former question for you anyway. Just take a look at the trailer and get excited about more Star Wars. 

The cast looks to be pretty impressive too with Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything, 2014) in the lead role and cool people like Mads Mikkelsen (Dr Strange, 2016), Alan Tudyk (Firefly) and Forest Whitaker (Arrival, 2016) lending their support.

2. Marvel v DC: Comic Book Movie War

This war is rather one-sided with Marvel pretty much still dominating. 2016 saw them release their first entries in Phase 3 with Captain America: Civil War and Dr Strange, both of which received favourable responses at the box office and with the fans. 2017 looks like it will up the ante with Guardians of the Galaxy 2 set to drop in May (hopefully with another killer soundtrack); our favourite neighbourhood Spider-Man gets his time in the sun with Homecoming in July; and things get apocalyptic in Thor: Ragnorok in November.



The DC Extended Universe (DCEU) has had a rocky start with Batman v Superman being a hit in some ways and quite a miss in many other ways. With Suicide Squad, their heart was certainly in the right place, but it also failed to hit the mark in many ways (and you thought Deadshot never misses). What DC does have is some strong characters to work with and a good foundation for their Justice League venture. Batman and Wonder Woman were amazing in Batman v Superman and Harley Quinn became an instant hit in Suicide Squad. 2017 will give us the much anticipated Wonder Woman movie in June and the first Justice League movie in November.

Superheroes seem still to be a thing for the foreseeable future. Who knew?

3. A little nostalgia

You are over superhero movies you say?

Say no more, Fam. Say no more. 2017 knows that you are all about reliving your childhood and will hook you up with that good stuff. Remember watching Power Rangers before school in the morning and then ending up being late? Well, now you get to see the movie in March 2017. 

Baywatch? Hot bodies and slow motion beach running. May 2017 will have that for you and there is no hotter body to do the slow beach running for you than The Rock himself. Speaking of The Rock, you liked Jumanji as a child, right? 2017 will hook you up with that too in December and throw The Rock in for good measure. The whole The Rock thing probably made you think of Vin Diesel and 2017 is like don’t worry we know you didn’t like the XXX 2 movie with Ice Cube, so we will hook you up with XXX: The Return of Xander Cage in January and Fast 8 in April just for fun. You know how it is, The Rock, Vin Diesel, fast cars, hot women, family and not really eight characters. It’s like 12 people who are somewhat fast. 2017 is lit. It even has the live action version of Beauty and the Beast up its sleeve for you in March. All I will say is Emma Watson. Hopefully that means something to you (#heforshe).

4. Dropping names and all that

You always have to end off with that name dropping session, just to show that you know who’s who in the biz. In 2017 you’ll also have Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Kong: Skull Island, Logan (that’s Wolverine by the way), Transformers: The Last Knight, Alien: Covenant, War for the Planet of the Apes, The Dark Tower, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Ghost in the Shell (we’ll have to talk about Hollywood whitewashing when this hits), John Wick: Chapter 2 and Fifty Shades Darker.



There are many more titles scheduled for good ol’ 2017, but those are the ones scheduled to make some waves.

Here’s to a happy 2017 at the movies.