Thursday, December 22, 2016

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (a movie review post)

Before I get into the review itself, let me say up front that I loved this movie. I was very trepidatious about this movie ahead of time. It's not like Gareth Edwards, the director, has made anything prior to this worth watching: Monsters was the cliche of every indie movie out there, full of dialogue that was written to verbalize the personal philosophies of the director, and boring; and Godzilla was... well, it just was. That coupled with the fact that Disney took the movie away from Edwards back in June or July to do re-shoots because it was testing so poorly with audiences leads me to believe that the quality of Rogue One is due more to Disney than to Edwards.

But I did love it. In so many ways, it was like being a kid again and watching Star Wars for the first time. Not in a nostalgic way, which is what Abrams was going for with Force Awakens (and which didn't work for me at all, because I don't want to see the same thing again because I already saw that movie(s), and Lucas did it better than Abrams), but in that way of seeing something new and brilliant for the first time. Something that excites you. Rogue One did that.

Which is not to say that there aren't plenty of nods to the original trilogy, but that's the thing: They are just nods, not throwing the same story back at us.

Rogue One sets itself apart from the very beginning: There is no opening crawl. The lack of it was... weird, and I immediately went to a negative space of, "Oh, man, this is going to be bad." It went on from there to offer place name subtitles, which reinforced that initial internal groan. The movie, however, quickly overcame those initial misgivings.

So what is there that I can say about it that is not spoilery? Rogue One gives us a real view of what the Rebellion is all about. I think there is a lack of understanding about how much Luke Skywalker changed the Rebellion and what it was. The Rebellion grew out of the destruction of the Jedi. We see that at the end of Revenge of the Sith, normal humans witnessing the destruction of the Jedi Order, the protectors of peace and freedom in the galaxy, and determining to resist and fight back... on their own.

Fight back against the Empire, which includes both the Emperor and Darth Vader. With no Jedi.

That's the world we find ourselves in, and there are no holds barred. As such, this movie is... there's no other word for it than brutal.

And it's excellent.

The cast, also, is great. Felicity Jones, whom I was also trepidatious about after her performance in The Theory of Everything (which probably wasn't her fault; it just wasn't a very good movie, and her role was rather weak), performed admirably as Jyn Erso. There's not a moment when you don't believe she is not a strong, street-smart young person. You can tell she is trouble right from the beginning of the movie, unlike Luke.

In fact, there are so many great performances (from the most diverse cast of any Star Wars movie and, possibly, one of the most diverse casts of any movie (no, I haven't done the research on that, but, at least, on the rebel side of things, there are virtually no white, male cast members, highlighting the white male human supremacy of the Empire)) that it would take too long to go into them all. The only performance I was disappointed in was that of Forest Whitaker, an actor I really like, but I think that was mostly due to the very brief screen time the character of Saw Gerrera was given.

This next thing might be considered a spoiler, but it's something definitely worth noting, especially since, as far as I can tell, no one is talking about it. At least, no one is talking about it in any of the more mainstream reviews that I've seen.
Rogue One contains what I believe is the first homosexual couple in Star Wars: Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus. It's not explicit, which is what makes it beautiful. These are definitely two men who care deeply for each other, and I think anyone would be hard pressed to make the case that they are just "good friends." Not without some creative bending of the facts. They bicker like an old married couple and are just as affectionate. And I would really like to delve into this more, but I really can't without giving actual spoilers. Maybe I'll come back to it at a later time.

Unfortunately, I haven't had time, yet, to go see the movie for a second time, but I have a great desire to. I walked out of this one wanting to go right back in, and that desire hasn't diminished. At the moment, Rogue One is in my top three Star Wars films. It will hit you on a visceral level (my wife cried often during the movie) and leave you not knowing what to do with yourself. Other than seeing it again, that is. There's more I could say about that, but that, also, would be a spoiler. It shouldn't be (because no one ought to actually be surprised at the ending of the movie), but it would be. Just go see the movie. If you are at all a Star Wars fan, you will in all likelihood enjoy the movie immensely. If you don't like Star Wars, you might like it anyway.

It's that kind of movie.

13 comments:

  1. Did you take your kids to see it, or are you going to? I've heard varying reviews on whether kids should see it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shannon: I took my kids, but the youngest one is 13, so that wasn't really an issue.
      The suggestion not to take kids to the movie isn't really to do with the violence or anything like that. It really isn't substantially more violent than, say, Force Awakens and, I would say, is much less violent than Batman/Superman. That said, I think younger children would be upset by the movie.

      Delete
    2. Okay, thank you. Mine are 9 and soon-to-be 12. So he'd be fine, but I'll have to think about her.

      Delete
  2. Shannon, really young kids shouldn't see it.
    I think it was the best Star Wars film to date.
    And Disney did not take away the film from Edwards to do reshoots - http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/12/rogue-one-reshoots-gareth-edwards

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You know Edwards completely contradicts himself in that article. And says things that are actually just wrong.
      1. So he says they always planned to do re-shoots. This is a fallacious statement. You don't "plan to do re-shoots." That's like saying, "I planned to screw up chapter four so that I would have to go back and re-write a dozen times after I finished the rest of the book." You might leave time open in case re-shoots are needed, but you don't plan re-shoots.
      2. He says the movie ended up being way more epic and complex than he expected which, then, required re-shoots. If he had planned them, the epic-ness of the movie would not have caused them to be needed.
      3. He says the editing ended up being way more complex than he expected because of the unexpected epic-ness of the movie, which required re-shoots.

      Basically, the movie ended up being bigger than he expected and he couldn't pull it all together, so Disney had to step in and rescue him. But he's not going to say, "Well, hey, I got in over my head, couldn't do the job, and had to get bailed out." No, he's going to say what he did, that everything went as planned.
      And Disney isn't going to contradict him, because that would undermine the movie.

      Delete
  3. The Boy also said it was top 3. Makes me wonder if anything will ever crack the hammerlock "Empire" has on most Star Wars fans.

    Anyway, I skipped one paragraph because it sounded spoilery and I'm going to see this in 2 weeks, so this comment is mostly about "Monsters," which I loved, and which I wish I could rebut you more specifically about but I saw it years ago and other than a general feeling that I really liked it I can't recall specifics. (That shouldn't be held against the movie, as I'm that way about 99% of everything).

    I thought most impressive was the way he milked a tiny budget, and I liked that it was set after the action -- that the monster invasion had happened and it was old news. I think too few people explore what it would be like to actually LIVE THROUGH some of these things. Recent superhero movies have touched on government reactions to Superman or the Avengers or something, but nobody's done much of "oh, well see there was this Armageddon a few years back and New York is basically a radioactive swamp but other than that people are going to the mall."

    The ending, too, I thought was just great. Now I want to rewatch it and defend it scene by scene. But I'll probably finish "Shut Eye" first.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Briane: I can agree with you about the world building in Monsters, but the movie itself was plodding and mostly uninteresting. It's almost entirely the photographer and the girl walking around and talking philosophy with tiny bursts of things to nudge the plot forward. And the dialogue wasn't entertaining, either, so it bored me. I had to get up and do chores and things while it was on, because I couldn't manage to sit through it.

      Kevin Smith, so far as I know, has been the only one able to pull of this kind of dialogue driven vehicle.

      Delete
  4. I can't wait to go see it. I only know one person who really didn't like it. That is, based on actually seeing the movie and not just hating it as a concept.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jeanne: I haven't talked to anyone who hasn't liked it, but I can understand some people not liking it. It's definitely out of the box of the other Star Wars movies.

      Delete
  5. I really liked it myself, but can't say much more until I also see it a second time. My opinions of movies don't usually solidify until long after I've first experienced them. It just takes time for me to get over that initial reaction and settle in on an opinion.

    But I watched the first trailer (from early in the year) about 1000 times and couldn't help but notice almost nothing from that trailer is in the movie. I mean, not to dispute Alex on the reshoot thing, but it looks like they did some major tinkering to the story. Jyn didn't face down that tie fighter, she definitely didn't run through the beach with the data thing in hand while dodging AT-ACT blasts... I'll have to trust the movie I saw was a good as it could be, because I really wanted to see those scenes in the context of the movie itself.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rusty: I'm trying to go see it again, but I haven't been able to make time. I still haven't seen Dr. Strange a second time!

      I'd really like to see what the movie looked like before the re-shoots and the final editing.

      Delete
  6. So... I still haven't even seen The Force Awakens. There, I said it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ABftS: Fortunately, you don't need to see Force Awakens to see this one.

      Delete