A triumphant prequel worthy of the Star Wars name

Rating: 7/10 (16 December 2016)

The hype has once again awakened with the next Star Wars film in Disney's latest entry. Rogue One, the backstory of how a brave group of rebels transmitted the evil Empire's Death Star plans aboard the rebel ship in what we know from the opening of Star Wars (aka Episode IV). I want to start off by saying I really enjoyed Episode VII last year, I thought it was a good spring board for Disney to find their footing in reinvigorating this franchise that was considered dead by the majority of fans. I can understand why they wanted it to feel similar beat wise to Episode 4. To really introduce us to that familiarity of Star Wars we remember. One of my biggest problems however with the film was knowing that the First Order, will never be like the Empire, Kylo Ren will never be like Darth Vader. It just didn't give me that feeling of a new threat, but rather a less interesting impersonator. My first positive about Rogue One is that there's a sense of warmth and familiarity seeing the original Empire again with their variations of armor like the classic white, or the scout troopers from Endor. Whether you enjoy this movie or not, you gotta give props to the people who designed the sets, the costumes, and whoever cast the old characters from the original trilogy because wow. All these factors felt like it just never left the 80's and it makes the world feel timeless and authentic, Garreth Edwards already gets a gold star for doing that. The performances are another strong point, the obvious standouts were Donnie Yen as Imwe along with his partner and Alan Tudyk as K2SO( holy cow was he fun to watch). However I have to say both the film's leads I feel like aren't getting enough positive feedback, Felicity Jones plays a relatable scoundrel in Jynn Erso who understandably has depth with the amount of weight on her shoulders. I don't want to spoil it here but it just goes to show how Disney isn't just giving us perfect female characters with no strings attached, Jynn has a lot of blood on her hands and understandably so. Diego Luna as Cassian Andor was a surprise for me because he brought an interesting spin on someone you expect to be this daring hero of the rebel alliance. There's a moment in the film that genuinely made me question if the rebels were always in the right, the Empire ruined the lives of many people and this movie did a good job of showing how much the alliance was willing to put on the line no matter what it took. It gave me a sense of truth that maybe these guys weren't always perfect and that they made decisions they weren't always proud of, especially through a character like Andor. My last major positive of the movie was indeed as everyone is saying, the third act. It puts the War in Star Wars and contains some of the best action in the series to date. It's explosive, it's exciting, it feels urgent even though you know what's going to happen. And the finale is just so well done it's almost alone worth the price of admission. Now unfortunately as the movie has a lot of good, the film is flawed but then again so is the original Trilogy no movie is without sin. The absence of John Williams is really noticeable here and I can tell Michael Giachino tried his best emulating the Williams sounds and beats, but it most of the time just lost it's way and didn't provide any really unique pieces like Episode VII did. The film's plot got a little muddy in the beginning because I was really lost in the first act with all the character introductions. We jumped from one planet to the next in a guardians of the galaxy like montage with a small title telling us what planet it was. This was just super distracting to me because not only was it moving too fast for the first act build up, the montage just didn't feel Star Wars like at all. They already got rid of the opening crawl and just gave us the opening title which was fine, but there was something off by introducing the planets through subtitles that seemed unfitting for me. Like "Yavin 4, headquarters of the Rebel Alliance." Like really? How could someone not know what that is if they've seen episode 4? Anyway, so where does this movie stand for me compared to the others? Well I would say it's fantastic and enjoyable enough to be in my top 3, better then 1-3, and I will say I liked it better than 6-7, but not better than 4-5. I think the hype might be getting to much to people, I'm looking at you Kevin Smith. Overall though Rogue One was one hell of a ride and the important thing is I felt the Star Wars, it had this emotional punch that made me want to go right back in and see it again the third act was unfreaking believable. Even with the absence of a Jedi hero, the Force was strong with this one. It just goes to show me Disney is continuing to give the fan base the good stuff, hopefully this movie will open doors for them to explore more characters and potential stories that go beyond the Skywalker family because it's such a magical world that always sucks you in no matter what movie it is. It's not a perfect movie, but it deserves that 10/10.