One of the Best Star Wars Stories

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 2016)

As I have long been a Star Wars fan, I've always been waiting for new films in a little bit of suspicion after Disney bought the franchise. And I was really happy that the first movie Disney brought us (episode 7: The Force Awakens) was inspiring in capturing the essence of star wars soul, may be even better than George Lucas's own prequels (episodes 1 to 3). But this time, with Rogue One, director Gareth Edwards along with screenplay and story writers told one of the best stories of star wars series. They told a story that truly reflects what we old fans like about the series, a story that took me to the day I went to the first movie with my father. And it was a great movie that I enjoyed with my son.
The story was in fact tense and dark. It offers some of the most notable underlying themes of original star wars such as hero's' (or heroine's) troubled relationships with fathers; losing him early, longing and hating him, and finding him, ...but losing him again. In Rogue One, Jyn Erso who is the daughter of an empire scientist (Galen Erso) who builds Death Star, adds to a row of strong female characters of Disney era. Felicity Jones takes the lead in her orphan role and brilliantly plays a beautiful and tough yet vulnerable character. Lack of trust between the characters make star wars movies dark, but this story is probably darker than others since most other characters have similar untrustworthy backgrounds. For example Jyn spent her childhood not trusting her father and turned to Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) for shelter only to be abandoned by him.
Hope is always the ultimate weapon of rebels to fight and succeed against a greater force. This gives them the reason to fight and makes star wars believable even if many unbelievable things are happening on the screen. We do not believe what we see, we want to believe that all sacrifice they have done could not be for nothing, it gotta work and it works. Like in first star wars movies, rebels find their way out of impossible situations. Their hope always wins.
The movie is tense. It connects sequence of actions with small reliefs that prepare audience for next sequence so well. As you watch, you immerse yourself into the story and really worry about the rebels. Disney made good casting choices to make the main team more colorful with addition of Donnie Yen and Wen Jiang. In his blind Chirrut Imwe role Donnie Yen brings choreographic martial arts style fighting to star wars while his ability to sense so strongly reminds us Jedis although no Jedi is in the movie.
Rogue One brings back the style of space wars of original movie, too. The white imperial star destroyers hold true to the original mock ups of George Lucas with their all-white surface without any significant touches of coloring & shading of modern CGI. Some scenes such as one in the communications tower on Scarif are direct reference to original movie. The final war scene on the tropical beaches of Scarif is one of the best war scenes in all star wars episodes and also reflects a taste of some old style Pacific war scenes of World War II movies.
The movie does very good as a prequel to episode 4. It connects to princess Leia and explains how she got the death star plans. But the true climax of the film is reached upon the charismatic entry of Darth Vader into the final battle scene. Again it was his daughter escaping unknowingly from father with something that would change the fate of galaxy with a new hope.
While we exit the theater with my son we were talking about probably similar scenes and having similar joy when I and my father had some 40 years ago. And I was thinking that one of the best stories of science fiction genre may be all about hope that is so great that can even fight Death Stars.