"Star Wars" in name only

Rating: 3/10 (27 December 2016)

"Rogue One" may be "a Star Wars story", but it certainly isn't a Star Wars film in any sense that I associate with the genre. Instead, "Rogue One" feels very modern, despite being dutifully styled after the "New Hope" universe. The lighting, the conversations, the filming, the acting, and the dramatic sequences are all very 21st-century Hollywood. Thus, everything about this film is darker, grittier and more unsettling than any "Star Wars" film so far. I was expecting this to an extent, and I realized it could be used to advantage. Sometimes realism is cathartic and relevant, and can make characters stand out and plot lines more powerful. This was not the case here.
It might have worked had one of the main characters been likable and clever enough to carry the narrative through its many waves of moral dubiousness and violence. Yet while the protagonists were human enough to make you sad to see them go, they are not apt to become role models for its audience. Since most of the characters inevitably didn't make it to "A New Hope", then they are almost treated as disposable. Like the plot itself, they are simply a means to an end that we already know.
Disney seems lost in their vision here, and it's disappointing. While "The Force Awakens" was almost too safely modeled after the original films to the point of appearing to be a remake of "A New Hope", "Rogue One" is modern to the point of being nearly unrecognizable as existing in the same time frame as "A New Hope." For example, how did Jyn Erso exist in the same year and in the same organization as Princess Leia? Both reflect the varied advances of feminism in their respective film eras, which does not make sense when reversed in their canonical chronology. Leia was a strong woman for the 1970's, but Jyn is a very different lead woman representing the changes that have taken place into the 2010's. I know they're supposed to be from different planets, different backgrounds, and very different experiences. But they are both clearly products of their respective decades of creation in Hollywood. Setting "Rogue One" in the weeks or months preceding "A New Hope" reminds me of how "Dirty Dancing" was set in the 1950's. Technically, it COULD have happened, but the reality is that it probably wouldn't have.
While "A New Hope" was saturated with 1970's-era characters and Lucas's Baby Boomer nostalgia, "Rogue One" is saturated with Gen-X ambivalence and Millennial grit. "Rogue One" was clearly written in the "post-truth" age. This is a generation where a man of conscience is called a traitor, many would-be role models have failed to be anything but, and the paradigm of what it means to be a hero is constantly in flux. While "Rogue One" does tap into our generational uncertainties, it fails to give us much hope going forward.
Sadly, for a film wherein it is stated that "a rebellion is built on hope", the Rebels' attempts at heroism are often overshadowed by the apathetic absence of hope or integrity within the Rebel Alliance itself. The lines between the Empire and the Alliance are often disturbingly thin as well. Characters on both sides are having to follow their conscience against the dubious orders of their leaders.
Thus we have a Star Wars film, of all things, drawing thin lines between rebels and terrorists, traitors and heroes, evil empires and organized governments, all without giving us much to grab onto or go away with. The only clear message seems to be that the ends justify the means. That isn't very inspiring, especially because the same message is used by both sides.
At the beginning of the film, an Imperial leader is asked how the Empire can achieve peace by spreading terror. The leader laughs that it's all the same because, essentially, the ends justify the means. Likewise, one of the Rebel protagonists espouses the same thing by saying that as long as the Alliance achieves the freedom he's fought for, then all the horrible things he's done for that end will be justified.
This is, tragically and ironically, the very type of film that George Lucas first wrote "Star Wars" to counteract. In the late 1970's, he was fed up with the slew of films in which anti-heroes were the protagonists, the good and bad guys had been muddled into a gray mass of ambiguity, and ultimately it didn't matter anyway because they all faced some kind of tragic end in the name of "realism". Is there a hidden irony here in "Rogue One" having been created to be just this sort of film, set to be taking place in the events leading up to "A New Hope"? If so, I'm not sure anyone got the joke.
Overall, this was a rather joyless affair. A "Star Wars story" in name and imagery only, but the very antitheses of it in the story it tells.