Stand Alone Treat

Rating: 8/10 (16 December 2016)

I saw "Rogue One:A Star Wars Story", starring Felicity Jones-Inferno, The Theory of Everything; Diego Luna-Elysium, Open Range; Alan Tudyk- Suburgatory_tv, Serenity; Mads Mikkelsen-Hannibal_tv, Casino Royale_2006; Forest Whitaker-Arrival, Taken 3 and Ben Mendelsohn-The Dark Knight Rises, Quigley Down Under.
If you are a Star Wars fan, you are in for a treat. This is a stand alone film-I'm pretty sure there will not be a sequel because it leads right into Episode 4:A New Hope. It has all the elements a fan could want in a Star Wars movie. If you remember the opening scene in the 1977 classic Star Wars film where a scroll going across the screen tells us about some rebel fighters that stole the plans to the Death Star and gave them to Princess Leia. This movie tells that story. In case you might be wondering, there is not a scroll going across the beginning of this movie. Felicity is the daughter of Mads, the scientist that created the Death Star-under duress, of course. They were separated when she was still a little girl and she was raised to be a fighter by Forest. Mads was put to work for the Empire by Ben. Years later, the rebel alliance comes up with a plan to use Felicity to lead them to Mads and either rescue him or kill him to prevent the Death Star from being completed. Diego is in charge of the mission to rescue-or kill-her father and of course, he forgets to tell her about the killing option. Alan plays a robot called K-2so who was formerly an Empire robot but has been reprogrammed to be a good guy. FYI: They use motion capture technology for Alan to play the robot and he is fantastic in the part. There is lots of action, both man to man and space ship to space ship. There are lots of characters from other Star Wars movies that pop up. I won't spoil all of them for you here but if you have seen the trailer, then you know that one of them is Darth Vader. And they do use James Earl Jones for his voice-Thank Goodness. And a couple of the characters popping up were a little surprising-one in particular, since the actor that played him died in 1994! And then I read that they used CGI to fake it. It did look pretty good, though, I must say. FYI: Darth Vader does not have a lot of screen time but he does have a kick-ass fight scene including showing off his expertise with a light saber. If you are a fan then you should enjoy this movie-I know I did, immensely. It's rated "PG-13" for sci-fi action and violence and has a running time of 2 hours & 13 minutes. I loved 'The Force Awakens' and I believe this one is just as good. I would buy it on Blu-Ray.