A Decent Addition to the Star Wars Saga

Rating: 7/10 (11 February 2017)

Star Wars Rogue One puts the "war" in Star Wars. It is gritty, dirty, and a dark trail that eventually leads to hope. It starts without a crawl, but we quickly meet Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) and her parents on a remote ring world. An Empire Officer known as Orson Krenic craves the power and grandeur behind the building of the Death Star and forces Jyn's father, Galen Esro (Mads Mikkelson) back to the Empire to help build it. Jyn was raised by Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) for several years. One day, he disappears, seeking to join an extreme wing of the Rebellion against the Empire, and she is now on her own. Another faction of the Rebellion liberates her from an Empire transport and she finds herself flung into the Rebellion. Her two allies, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and a droid K2SO (Voice of Alyn Turdyk) are on a mission to find an Empire pilot who has defected. He has knowledge of the Death Star. On their way to find him, they find two more allies, Baze Mallbus (Wen Jian) and Chirrut (Donnie Yen). A series of events leads our rebels to a lonely planet where Jyn is reunited briefly with her father, to find out he has a plan of his own. Once they return to the Rebel Base on Yavin 4, rebels contemplate deserting their cause out of fear. Jyn, Assian, Baze and Chirrut cannot walk away from it, though. Finding a group of rebels determined to forge ahead, they make a run at stealing the plans of the Death Star. First out, this has good action, paced with some character development and story development. It is a dark side of the rebellion that has soldiers who have gone to extreme measures for their cause. Moreover, they have been hardened by the gritty, dark side of war. And this is the troops part of war, lacking the Force, light sabers, and duels. the closest we get to the Force is Chirrut, a blind man who would rather chant his way with the Force instead of emptying himself. Of course, the sinister Darth Vader is back, with the voice of James Earl Jones. He did have ample screen time and a pretty good battle scene against some rebel soldiers. The best part was the epic battle between the Rebellion and the Empire in the effort to steal the Death Star Plans. And for all the nitpickers who griped about the design of the Death Star will find a very satisfying answer. The characters are not fleshed out as well as the original trilogy, and the CGI used for the return of Grand Moff Tarkin was used way too much and will likely kick an audience out of the story for a while. Still, overall, this has it all for Star Wars fans: fights, space combat, droids, and decent stories, decent characters, and the perfect cameos.