Review of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) by 43In2014 — 23 Dec 2016

Related media: The three prequels have been quite soulless, as the actors had to act opposite green screens most of the time, while The Force Awakens (TFA) was a great disappointment as it heavily ripped off A New Hope (ANH). Check out my review of the latter, if you can find it.

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What's Rogue One (RO) like?: Story-wise, it's like other past films where the protagonists had to risk their lives to infiltrate the opposite side so as to steal something, except that here, there are also spaceships and lasers... It was better than TFA, but it also has several problems. >.

Pros: >.

1. TFA broke many of the conventions and principles behind how The Force works and how things work in general! For no apparent reason, Rey knew how to pilot a complex spaceship and how to fight with a lightsaber without having been trained on either task beforehand. (This is all down to JJ Abrams. On Star Trek (2009) it was inspiring, but Into Darkness and TFA just made me question his destructive creativity. His earlier films were also quite unruly. I've decided to never watch his films again.) RO avoids this by not invoking the use of the force that often. Most events made sense. This film is a fitting addition to the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

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2. The battle scene on Scarif was nice. >.

Cons:

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1. RO is only slightly better than TFA. The story is less contrived than in TFA. However, it was still rather ridiculous that our heroes need to travel to so many places and to go through so many hoops to get the jobs done. Some parts seemed drawn out. >.

2. Apart from Jyn, the other main characters were not developed sufficiently, in the rush to show the action scenes. >.

3. The actor playing Commander Krennic seemed to be over-acting, all the time. He was unnecessarily angry and devilish all of the time.

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4. The CGI in this film has some significant flaws. The Star Destroyers look like Lego pieces when in front of a bright background, while the fully computer-generated Grand Moff Tarkin looked... computer-generated. The eyes! You have to sort out the problem with the static eyes! The production had $200m and these problems were not solved?

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5. I thought the destruction of Alderaan in ANH was the first time the Death Star fired its main laser and destroyed a planet? In ANH, Grand Moff Tarkin said, “Princess Leia, before your execution, I’d like you to join me for a ceremony that will make this battle station operational… In a way, you have determined the choice of the planet that is to be destroyed FIRST. Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the Rebel base, I have chosen to test this station's destructive power on your home planet of Alderaan.” Furthermore, Obi-Wan only felt the pain from the destruction of Alderaan and not from any moon or planet before that. The firing of the main laser in RO was not mere a test. Has this film created a continuity error? >.

6. The new musical score was a strange and horrible choice. The score rises to a crescendo in a haphazard way and then abruptly drops and goes all over the place. Which inexperienced composer was hired to do this? A Golden Raspberry Award is coming up.

> 7. There was no need to show Leia at the end of RO. (It is not a spoiler that she's coming up next in ANH.) The CGI was inadequate and the scene should have been left out.

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How would the different age groups rate it?

Children: Excellent.

Teenagers: Excellent.

Young adults: Excellent.

Medium age adults: Good.

Old adults: Average.

My rating: 4/5 (no half scores). It's worth it pay to watch it in the cinemas.