Rogue One – 8.75 / 10

I am torn between giving in a ten, which I initially wanted to do directly after the movie, and a lower score. A ten because, as a Star Wars fan, this resolves twenty year old questions and even cheekily solves an old joke about how easy it is to destroy the Death Star.

The joy of rectifying issues and at the same time visiting familiar characters such as Gen. Tarkin and Mon Mothma are mined deep and hard here, likely resulting in explosions of geek happiness to millions of ‘Wars nerds. Even passive ones like myself are thoroughly entertained.

However as a standalone movie without the benefit of watching any of the others, I doubt if I would have enjoyed it as much.

The second part of the movie involving the trip to a city, suddenly forming a team with a random group of strangers, Jyn Erso meeting Forest Whitaker, and the attack on the Empire base supposedly for Diego Luna to assassinate Erso’s father was tedious, and doesn’t it make him a bad soldier for not carrying out his orders? Orders that were made clear to him were crucial to their cause?

At any rate the third part of the movie was outstanding, and lived up to pretty much all of the requisites of a good action movie. Main players die, heroic actions were carried out, there is plenty of edge of your seat action.

I have an odd liking for movies where the heroes die. There is something genuine about it, as if its saying how it couldn’t care less about fan sympathy, not to mention the added excitement of knowing the main players are facing real risk. This is a giant leap away from the cannon fodder storm troopers of early star wars films who can’t shoot anything within two feet and are easily mowed down as well. This was real and it was fun.

After so many star wars duds I can’t say how happy I am to finally see something worth the lore of the early films. Star Wars has encompassed two or three generations now, and the fans are hungry for more. I am not yet familiar with the names behind this but whoever they are they are on the right track.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *