An excellent addition to Star Wars

Rating: 9/10 (20 December 2016)

"Rogue One" is another addition to the Star Wars Universe, this time focusing on the events leading up to "Star Wars A New Hope" which involves the creation of the Death Star as well as the plans regarding the Death Star, how the rebels were able to obtain these plans.
We follow Jyn Erso played by Felicity Jones (I have only seen her in "Theory of Everything and Amazing Spiderman 2, in Theory of Everything she was very good), daughter of the architect for the Death Star. To begin with she is very standoffish, not wanting to be involved in any of the Rebels or Empires plans, now I have noticed several people complaining that this made her very unlikable, "why would people rally around her?!" etc, well, considering there is a very pivotal moment in the film where her outlook changes as well as simultaneously explaining why she is so standoffish (think abandonment issues) its fair to say people do not pay attention as well as they think they do. Her character does have a character arc, again she starts off not caring for anyone, pushing everyone away, fighting to survive rather then fighting for a better tomorrow to a character who actively looks to be a beacon of hope. The supporting cast were excellent, Cassian had great moments and yet again another character arc. Chirrut and Baze are two protectors, hired muscle if you will, these characters do not have much of an arc, however, they provide us with lots of great action sequence and some comedy relief and revelations. K-2SO is a reprogrammed imperial droid, I would say he is a cross between C3PO, Marv from Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy and Ethan from Infinite Warfare, C3PO due to his constant calculations on Survival chances, Marv due to his sarcastic nature and Ethan due to his general badassery, an excellent character. Then we have the main Antagonist Orson, who was excellent, a man with a lot of ambition who sees the world he believes he created fall apart around him. I will mention that Moff Tarkin and Vader also appear in this and are imposing as always, not only this but Vaders costume is pretty much identical to the one in "A New Hope" right down to the eyes being a burgundy color rather then black. His scenes although short leave an impression. There are also a few cameos here and there in the film, these happen again fairly naturally and don't feel forced these feel like they would actually happen. One thing that cannot be said enough is the skill of Gareth Edwards, I would imagine he had a lot of input when it came to the use of CGI, he comes from a CGI background and showed what he was capable of doing on the movie "Monsters", in here he took it a whole other level, the compositing of shots was damn near perfect, some shots were very hard to tell what was CGI and what wasn't. To me this was brilliant, as everything in the film felt organic and real. The shots within the various locations they filmed also felt very organic, compared with "The Force Awakens" the designs in here felt a lot more natural and thought out. It would also appear that face mapping to bring to life actors long since passed or actors too old to look like there younger selves has been brought to another level, it still isn't quite right, as you can still tell its CG however, it is very good. As another note, to me it is important that action scenes make sense, whether it be between individuals or between army's, what we see has to be coherent, in here I personally believe they nailed it. I will explain, in some films action scenes just happen, for some films this works, for others not so much, lets take Empire Strikes Back as an example of a action scene working, Battle of Hoth, we see the rebels trying out different tactics throughout the ground fight to prevent the AT-ATs from breaking through finally landing on a tactic that works. Now lets look at a film where to me it doesn't quite work. The Force Awakens, the final fight in this involves a very thrown together plan with help from Finn, literally the plan is thrown together in minutes, the action scene itself is basically about ace pilot Poe getting his killstreak up, it looked awesome but it just seemed incredibly dumb that they could come up with that plan that quickly and execute it that easily. I know that a New Hope had previously done exactly that, however, there were differences the key one being the planning. Rogue one to me falls into Empire Strikes Back territory as far as action sequences they not only look incredible but they also are well planned, a lot of thought went into the sequences beyond "what looks cool". The storyline in Rogue one to me is pretty simplistic overall, however, its the journey that makes films such as this one great, it had a lot of attention to detail with a lot of great characters. This is a companion film, think films such as Seven Samurai, Kellys Heroes The Fellowship of the Ring without all the overhead orbiting shots. Its an excellent movie that I will be seeing again due to its replay-ability. To Surmise, this is a brilliant film well worth seeing in the cinema, its well thought out and well executed is what to me puts it above other movies this year.