Rogue One: A few misgivings about a galaxy far, far away...

*MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR ROGUE ONE*





Misgiving 1: Characters

There’s a scene in Rogue One where Jyn Erso, our protagonist, cries while her dad gives her a message regarding the Death Star. The message was not sent to Erso, but most of it is addressed to her. He goes into extensive detail about the Death Star, its capabilities, and the weakness that he put there. Jyn is crying emotionally, the first time she’s seen or heard from her father in years, but his message is ultimately exposition. It’s telling us the set-up for the rest of the film.

This happens nearly an hour into the film. This is also the moment where Jyn finally receives motivation to assist the Rebel Alliance, which she’s been testy with so far.

If you can’t quite see the narrative issue on display, let me explain. This is the first time we ever understand how Jyn feels about her father since we’ve seen her as a grown up. It’s also the only moment that really justifies her being our protagonist being the protagonist.

I wish this was the only example of a character being rather empty in the film but it isn’t. The entire Rogue’s (one) gallery is introduced by means of a punctuated action sequence. Typically, you would expect them to be introduced with witty battle wrought dialogue, but instead, they’re usually introduced without even a lick of dialogue. Or what little dialogue they have is like Jyn’s dad droning away about the Death Star without betraying the idea of a personality.

The film recovers from this, but it's this first hour that set off my alarm bells. And I do believe it’s the root cause of a lot of other problems.

Misgiving 2: War Sucks (in a galaxy far, far away)

Much of Rogue One’s cinematography and scenes are obsessed with one image: people dying. Stormtroopers, extremist insurgents, the Rebels. War in the Star Wars universe is shown to be what it’s never been: dirty, bloody, violent, ridden with meaningless and meaningful sacrifices. The ending shot of the film is composed on this idea, with the action and drama continuing even once our heroes have taken their hands off the main element of the plot.

There’s something transcendental about this focus, and something about it that pays homage to what I once believed fantasy was best at; delivering realism by means of escapism. When you are confronted with the ills of racism in a fantasy novel, you can learn about real world racism without having to—for lack of a better word—“deal” with real world racism.

They start them young nowadays.

Rogue One deals with the little heroes. Jyn Erso, her father, and other players who are small in the world of Star Wars, but big in the possibilities it gives to the heroes.

However, I’m not entirely sure what this “does” for Star Wars.

In the original trilogy, I don’t remember the warfare ever being super privileged. Sure, the Jedi can’t get hit by blaster bolts, but just about everyone else could. Obi-Wan was the first sacrificial mentor I can remember seeing in a story. Dack in Empire Strikes Back was brutally killed in the Battle of Hoth in a way that I still remember being deeply surprised by as a kid. Star Wars has never featured overwhelmingly clean warfare.

Pictured: Not traumatizing

Furthermore, I really feel like the message they ultimately deliver at the end is very nearly lost as they scramble to make the characters work. Jyn Erso ultimately becomes what the film wants her to be, a tragic casualty, another number in the big picture of the Star Wars plot, and yeah, that feeling really works by the end, but it was not working for the first half. That’s an entire hour of character—potentially thematic character—that is missing from the film.

If you think I’m sitting pretty, and ignoring what works for what doesn’t, then I suggest you look back at the first films.

Imagine for a second if the first hour of New Hope was C3PO and R2D2 walking around Tatooine. Not saying anything to each other. Just walking. Along the way they sort of run into a few of the character’s we’ll see later, Obi-wan, Han, just background for now. Then imagine they get captured, we get one shot of them being decommissioned, and then they’re at Luke’s farm. They are quickly bought by Uncle Owen and sent to the garage for cleaning where we meet Luke, who doesn’t say anything and just starts cleaning them, then they find the message and the rest of the film continues but condensed into the remaining hour of run time.

That’s what Rogue One feels like, a film where the characters spend a very long time not talking to each other.

Misgiving 3: Maybe I’m being unfair...

Last year we got The Force Awakens and despite the complaints about that, it lived up to the original trilogy. It was a tightly plotted celebration of its primary influences and offered character driven and characteristic dialogue and plot. Okay, sure, they just HAPPEN to end up in the same bit of space where Han Solo’s ship is, but didn’t they just HAPPEN to wind up in the same bit of space that the Death Star was in the original film?

My point is that we just came off of what ended up being my favorite Star Wars film to date, so was I ready to sit down and see a less than stellar film on the big screen. Absolutely not.

But I do feel the concerns I have addressed are worth noting. Rogue One is not a perfect film, and its setting the stage for future flicks. I just can’t imagine Young Han Solo being anything other than a typical fun Star Wars flick, however, and it makes the choice of this dark and dour flick beforehand a very strange shade.

Still, go see it and see what you think. It’s looking to be a divisive flick.

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