Another Star Wars movie (yawn!) - but another Peter Cushing movie too!

Rating: 6/10 (17 December 2019)

"Rogue One" is officially a "Star Wars Story", which means we get many familiar elements: a rollicking (and explosion-filled) adventure in outer space, almost human androids, switches to pull, chasms to leap and weapons to destroy, and dehumanised stormtroopers to kill (the fact that stormtroopers are hidden behind protective uniforms including face masks makes them more frightening adversaries, but also removes any moral complexity associated with their annihilation). The original Star Wars movie was partially filmed in the North African desert, and a desert environment has also featured in some subsequent movies in the series; in this one, a substantial section seems more inspired by the experience of American troops attempting to police Baghdad. The film contains various other nods to previous films in the series, without recapitulating their plots as shamelessly as 'The Force Awakens' did; as an immediate prequel to the 1979 film, it also uses digital technology to resuscitate now dead actors to reprise their roles, including Peter Cushing (brilliantly) and Carrie Fischer (less successfully) - perhaps the fact that Cushing's character has aspects of the undead in the original makes it easier to bring him back to life. The ending is nicely judged in theory but marred by the failure to lift the digital Fisher out of the uncanny valley.
The film features a feisty female heroine, praised by many for providing gender-balance to the previously masculine Star Wars world, but she's a bit too perfect for my liking. One of the things that made the original work for me that none of the naÃ¯ve Luke, the money-grabbing Han nor the sarcastic Leia are obvious role-models. We also get one character who channels the force to become a martial-arts superhero; I much preferred the subtler demonstration of the force's power shown by Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original film (and indeed, the theme of the force is much stronger, to my reckoning, when presented as the power of self-control and focus than when it appears to confer mystical powers).
'Rogue One' is considered by many to be their favourite 'Star Wars' movie since the original trilogy; for me, the shtick has grown a bit tired (I loved 'A New Hope' on release, but I was seven years old at the time!). Still, the film mercifully lacks the over-busy aesthetic (and tedious dialogue) of George Lucas's later films in favour of something closer to the mood and spirit of the original; it works as entertainment, even if I suspect this fictional universe doesn't really have much new to show us beyond what has already been done.