Rogue One

In many ways Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is a better film than The Force Awakens. Director Gareth Edwards understands the importance of scale in visuals and storytelling. Yet the characters of Rogue One pale in comparison to those in The Force Awakens. J.J. Abrams had the Herculean task of recapturing the trust of the movie-going audience after the underwhelming prequel trilogy while incorporating a new set of characters alongside Han, Leia, Chewie, and the rest. What Abrams’ film lacked in cinematic scale, he made up for in turning Rey, Finn, Poe, and Kylo Ren into characters that we care about. Edwards’ Rogue One is replete with suicide bombings, kamikaze attacks in space, and assassinations (attempted or otherwise), but not memorable or fully realized characters.

The first half of Rogue One reeks of reshoots and tinkering, leading to underdeveloped characters and a plot that moves ploddingly from planet to planet. Jyn Erso, the film’s protagonist, dramatically shifts motivations every few scenes. Following an introduction that seems to exist to establish her daddy issues, Jyn transforms from hardened criminal to loving daughter to spiritual leader of the Rebellion. To see the shifting nature of Jyn’s character just look at the film’s trailers, specifically her interactions with Mon Mothma at the rebel base on Yavin 4. In the first trailer (below), she’s a back-talking badass. In the second, the scene is played more softly with the “This is a rebellion isn’t it? I rebel” line removed. The third one introduces Jyn’s father as the driving force behind everything (also below). Were Lucasfilm and Disney afraid of having an unlikeable protagonist, so they shoehorned in some family drama to make her more sympathetic? Jyn has no identity apart from her father. She spends the first half of Rogue One looking for him and the second trying to fulfill his wishes.



The rest of the cast is painted in broad strokes. Jyn’s rebel handler, Cassian Andor is a battle-hardened soldier. There’s Chirrut, the blind monk, whose character relies a little too much on the cliché of the exceptionally disabled. Chirrut’s friend Baze has a lived-in exasperation from years of dealing with all his fiend’s Force nonsesne. Bodhi, a defecting Imperial pilot, has some unknown trauma, gets tortured, and then flies everyone around. Director Krennic is a social climbing Imperial officer. Saw Gerrera, a rebel leader and Jyn’s surrogate father (there’s those daddy issues again), has dialogue that is nearly incomprehensible as Jyn’s shifting motivations. It’s telling that the movie dramatically improves once Gerrera dies. The most developed character might just be K2-SO, a reprogrammed Imperial droid. Damaged by his experiences working for the Empire, he’s distrustful and sarcastic, but sacrifices himself for his friends and the mission.

Edwards succeeds in making Rogue One the darkest and most morally ambiguous of all the Stars Wars movies. These are not the clean-cut rebels of Lucas’ original trilogy. Differing Rebel groups battle the Empire and amongst themselves over the ideology of insurgency. In his first scene of the film, Cassian kills an informant to protect himself and his mission. Shortly after, he shoots a Rebel insurgent in order to escape an Imperial ambush. Later, a rebel general orders him to assassinate a key Imperial officer. A rebel admiral orders one of his ships on a suicide mission to ram one disabled star destroyer into another. The higher-ups at Lucasfilm and Disney deserve credit allowing Edwards to embrace the dark side of war. In this age of franchise movie making—of which Star Wars is undoubtedly the biggest of them all—no one of consequence actually dies, cheapening the dramatic stakes. Reflecting this darker view of the Star Wars universe, Edwards creates an ending that maintains Rogue One’s narrative integrity.



Edwards also effectively captures the scale of Rogue One’s story and the visuals of the Star Wars universe. He eschews heroes’ journeys and the galactic saga of the Skywalkers by focusing on the foot soldiers and middle managers of the Rebellion and Empire. Krennic, the ambitious Imperial officer responsible for developing the Death Star, learns a harsh lesson about just how replaceable he truly is. The film’s band of rebels are a very small part of a much larger war. Edwards carries over this understanding of scale into his visuals as well. He frames a Star Destroyer in the foreground with the installation of the Death Star’s super-weapon in the background. The Death Star passes in front of a planet’s star. Rebel fighters crash into the front of a Star Destroyer exiting hyperspace.

The film’s climax on the planet Scarif is the best staged battle in all of the Star Wars films. Edwards splits the characters into three groups and cuts between the three levels of the battle: the theft of the plans inside the Imperial Archives, the ground forces outside, and the Rebel fleet engaged in a desperate fight above Scarif. Edwards establishes clear stakes for each piece, building to a tense and tragic conclusion. The film’s final moments pivot directly into A New Hope and feature the most badass Darth Vader we’ve seen since Empire Strikes Back. By the end of Rogue One, Edwards has brought the true cost of war into Star Wars.