Review of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) by Odjento — 16 Dec 2016

Rogue One isn’t perfect, but it is a great breath of fresh air for the Star Wars Franchise. The direction feels very different at first, feeling more handheld at not super Star Wars-esque because of its grittier more grounded style, but this is great and works for the film. It ends up making it feel like a real war and struggle for the rebellion and it ends up changing later towards the end in tonal shift and direction to blend into A New Hope.

Pacing is a little odd at first, but the first section is interesting enough to keep you very invested, especially with all the character introductions. The second act is a littler quieter and a bit of a lull but still has enough going on and differs itself from the rest of the film to keep it fresh. The last section is an intense all out action masterpiece, and really gives a space feeling of something similar to the end battle of Saving Private Ryan. Characters are well enough written for you to enjoy and like them all, however they are a little underdeveloped for the most part and you end up wanting more from them. This ends up not hindering the film too much since the film is a standalone. This film does carry itself well, it knows when to be dark without over doing it and changes location at a nice rate with a clear understanding of where and what folk are doing.

This also the first film where Darth Vader is actually fully terrifying, he is almost like an insanely powerful sci fi MikeMyers. Even thoug he isn’t in it much, his presence is palpable.

The good thing about Rogue One also is that it doesn’t try to keep using nostalgia to interest its viewers (which TFA did a lot) but does have plenty of nice little easter eggs.

The droid K2SO in the film is also the comic relief of it, but whilst a few jokes hit the mark a lot are unnecessary and too forced in, and there is (like TFA) a lot of cheesy 2016 throwaway jokes just put in there. Disney need to learn to restrain themselves from certain jokes, and when they do put them in they need to understand when to end the joke and how to fully have them come across.

Last two complaints, the new score for the film is cheesy and doesn’t fit the film at all, and really takes away from it as a whole sadly. Dubbing John Williams over it would be very cheap, but to be honest it would probably make the film feel more epic and fit more. There is also some questionable CGI characters in the film which just look unnatural in the film but still don’t ruin it too much.

Overall, this film diverges enough away from Star Wars to make it feel fresh but also very nicely connects itself to the original trilogy. Action is awesome yet characters are a little underdeveloped, special effects are gorgeous but score is disappointing. It is a tragic war film set in the Star Wars universe, and Gareth Edwards did something brave with what he had.

Bravo to you sir.