Year: 2016
Director: Gareth Edwards
Christmas Eve, the BJB clan are staying at my mum’s. Usually we go to the theatre, but since Mary Poppins was booked up months ago we decided on a visit to The Pictures.
None of us are real Star Wars nuts. My daughters were more into Harry Potter. I was a little too old to surf the first Star Wars wave. In fact, Mrs BJB is the biggest fan in the family as she took her youngest brother to see Episode IV on its original release. Anyway after a bit of to-and-froing, the family decided to see Rogue One while it was still on a big screen.
I had caught up with Gareth Edward’s first film Monsters a year or two after its release. I enjoyed its noirish atmosphere but wasn’t entirely bowled over. So I wasn’t expecting too much from another chip off the old franchise. Hence, being bowled over by R1 was a real surprise to me.
First off, the cast are all proper quality actors and although most of the characters are off the shelf action stereotypes – the seemingly cynical soldier who hides his principles, amoral hustlers who find a cause to fight for, and the dad who who makes huge sacrifices to protect his daughter – they bring them to life. Felicity Jones in particular makes the film. Her character, Jyn Erso, is a real action hero – someone who you believe the band of rebels would follow into the Jaws of death.
There are surprises in the cast members, which don’t always come off and, yes, parts of the plot turn on blatant McGuffins. But that said, the last third of the film is pretty visceral and closer to modern war films like Saving Private Ryan than Disney’s usual fare. In fact, although R1 is a 12A, I think some younger Star Wars fans may find the end just too down beat to handle emotionally.
On the other hand if The Empire Strikes Back is your favourite from the original trilogy (and it should be) you’ll love this.
Might appeal to people who enjoyed:
The Empire Strikes Back, Saving Private Ryan, the middle Harry Potter film, or even Stranger Things.
Ooh, I’m going tomorrow – looking forward to it even more now 😊
Spot on re the younger fans. My 6 year old Star Wars mad son was in floods of tears at one point. Then again, he has sobbed at the demise of several characters, over the course of the series, and even sobbed when young Anakin left his mother in Episode 1. When a slow piece of music came on several minutes later, he asked me if it was “the lonely music”. He’s very soppy.
Rogue 1 was good though, although it didn’t blow me away like I was expecting. It was our first experience of IMAX too, which was gobsmacking, even if the 3D was a bit distracting.
Paul, I guess because I am not too much of a fan – and I didn’t have too much invested into whether it was good or not – I enjoyed it more than a aficionado.
I loved it. I will say though, I did not approve of what they did with Peter Cushing. I assume his estate gave permission, but I didn’t like it. I think they should have got another actor.
Also, we came out of the cinema, turned on our phones and found out that Carrie Fisher had had a heart attack. A loud FUCK YOU 2016 may have fallen out…
Hoping someone will take the mini-Wilsons off my hands for a few hours this week so I can go see this. Hard to believe after the dire prequels that Star Wars movies are must-see again.
I hadn’t known what to expect of this and was pleasantly surprised; a tough, bad-ass take on Star Wars with little of the sentimentality that cropped up in TFA. The leads were very good. BTW, I noticed how old most of the rebel soldiers are in this. Are they trying to tell us something?
3 generation Boxing day mini-tradition.
The Star Wars chronology (18 years since Anakin became Darth) made Jyn 21 when (the excellent) Felicity Jones is clearly a more realistic age for her character (30ish). The cgi reanimations were intriguing and off putting at the same time – the shape of movies to come.
I loved it. And K2-SO particularly. Touches of magnificent 7/samurai as well as star wars. A few rough edges but it even passes the Bechdel test (just)
Yes, superb. I haven’t had such a good afternoon at the cinema since, ooh, The Force Awakens.
Still, though — and at the risk of playing devil’s advocate — while both films are superb delivery mechanisms for the mix of nostalgia and sheer spectacle we’ve been craving since 1983, they’re both seriously flawed: The Force Awakens is a retread of A New Hope; Rogue One suffers from flimsily drawn characters and a succession of slightly shonky plot devices (our central heating master switch is less easy to activate than the Tonka-looking motherfucker in Rogue One). It’s common at this stage to say that all the TIE-fighter sounds and stromtroopers in the world can’t make up for the lack of blah blah blah…. but the fact is that for two films they really, really have. Only thing is, I’m not quite sure the makers can pull it off for a third time
It can only be a tribute to the sheer quality of the two Disney-era films that my expectations have now been raised. But next Christmas I’ll be looking for spectacle, the warm thrill of nostalgia, *and* something more rounded and less derivative. Not a lot to ask for.
Went to see it with Theref2409Jr. Loved it.
Everything LeicesterB says is right – you have to overlook certain plot holes. But I thought there was some nice character development, and it looks great.
The space battle at the end was just excellent, and I liked the specific name drop of “Captain Antilles” in a nod to IV.
All in all, really really good movie.
There were some great references. I loved seeing that guy from the cantina in A New Hope — causing more aggro.
Are we sufficiently far into the reboot to stop being grateful the Disney era is better than the prequels, and start judging what is clearly an annual event (something I feel will ultimately pall, circa ooh about 2025) on its own merits. As @leicester-bangs says, next year I think we’re looking for things to, in the words of the PL Manager Interview, ‘push on’ with ‘the project’.
The Force Awakens had so much ground to cover that it inevitably had to spend time ticking boxes. This one was much more focused – a good thing. I’m going to disagree with the pro-Felicity Jones and say she was given a pretty dull hand: the orphan searching for her father, who’s in jeopardy and who everyone thinks has done something bad, felt threadbare from the start. She was matched up with equally dull ‘the mission above everything’ Diego Luna. The fun was to be had around the edges: Ben Mendelsohn as an above-average baddie, Riz Ahmed offering something rather nuanced and opaque for the black and white world of Star Wars as the pilot in the middle, and excellent Marvin-style passive-agressive robot antics in K-2S0.
The two outrageous mcguffins that the plot comes to hinge on: one the aforementioned switch, the other a space manoeuvre that recalls WW2 naval movies, did really stretch even this fantasy universe.
So next year we’re looking for a bit more, to ‘go to the next level’ while ‘taking the positives’. Still ‘ ‘a lot to do’.
I enjoyed it, agree with some of the criticisms. Film was a good 20 minutes too long, all the planet hopping at the beginning felt superfluous and confusing. May be my age, but I also found the battle sequences at the end hard to follow and, I guess, the lack of character development made me feel little empathy for the danger the characters were in.