Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Rogue One: A Star Wars
Story is an anthology film that takes place in the Star Wars universe and this
is an attempt to expand the Star Wars universe and show more characters beyond
the characters of the prequels, originals and sequel films and draw the
audience’s attention from the Skywalker storyline. Rogue One tells the
narrative of a group of rebels that planned to steal the plans for the Death
Star, and help bring hope to the universe and make sure that the empire from taking
over from the universe, so that the rebels can bring peace to the universe.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is directed by Gareth Edwards who directed the
remake of Godzilla and stars Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Mads Mikkelsen and
Forest Whittaker. There is quite a lot of things to discuss with this film
because there are some interesting elements.
There are some things
which people will like about Rogue One; the first thing would be the direction
of this film. Gareth Edwards is someone who has a style with his direction that
not many others can produce and this is a sense of scale. This is something
that Edwards did well in the Godzilla remake in 2014, where the focus was
mainly on the characters and not on the creature and the film was mainly shot
from the human prospective. The sense of scale has been transferred very well
in this film, and an example of this would be early on in the runtime of the
film. The Empire have decided that they want to test the Death Star on a
planet, but not use the full power of the weapon. This takes place in a scene
were the main characters are on the planet, when the weapon is activated the
destruction is incredible and this is something which is done throughout. In
the original film we only had the image of the Death Star blowing up a planet
but with this new style of direction we get to see the Death Star from a new angle
and perspective. The direction is something which is great about this film and
the direction is the best element of this film.
There are some good
elements about this film and this would be that all the cast in this film are
great. Felicity Jones holds this film together; she is great in this film
because she portrays her character Jyn Erso very well. There are some great
moments from her, and example of this would be the scene before the test of the
Death Star. Jyn’s character has been hiding away from the empire and the
character’s father has joined the empire to save his family. This is something
which has been done well here, during this scene there is a hologram that Mads
Mikkelsen’s character has given to a rogue empire pilot. This scene reveals
that the character has depth and some great emotion. The direction alongside
Felicity Jones’ acting is amazing here and is the best scene in this film, and
this is something which is great about this film. Also, Diego Luna is someone
who is like Han Solo as a character when he is onscreen in the original Star
Wars film, the character is the kind of character that will ask questions after
he has shot a Stormtrooper or someone who is being an antagonist at that
moment. Cassian Andor is not as relatable as Jyn in this film but he is a
likable character for the entire runtime of this film. The acting is good; it
is not great but the performances are strong enough for believability factor.
There are some more
positive aspects about this film, and this would be that the special effects
are some of the best that have been featured in a film this year and this
includes films such as Doctor Strange and The Jungle Book. Somehow Gareth
Edwards has managed to make the CGI in this film look very realistic, and this
the same with his Godzilla remake, like in that film he managed to incorporate
the CGI with the live-action elements very well. The CGI here has some great
depth and you can see the textures very clearly. The detail with CGI is
unbelievable, if you look at the Death Star from the original Star Wars film
and the Death Star from this film and you wouldn’t be able to tell the
difference. Another example of some great CGI would be the test scene with the
Death Star, the CGI here is excellent and has so much detail and some excellent
visuals. However, the CGI is not completely flawless and there some other
elements which don’t quite hold up compared the other elements of this film and
this might be because there wasn’t enough time to put enough elements of this
film.
However, no film is
perfect and this includes this film, there are some aspects of this film which
aren’t so good. The first thing that is a negative about this film would be
certain aspects of the films CGI, there are two characters which are recreated
for various reasons with motion caption technology. This is something which
lets the other visual effect elements down because for some reason the motion
caption here looks artificial and fake. The artificial special effects here are
something which lets the film down but it is only a small negative compared to
other elements of this film. Another aspect of this film which is a negative of
this film would be the characters, the film is very story based and focuses
more on the goals of the rebels and the characters are not explored in great
detail and the characters are one-dimensional compared to the characters that
were featured in The Force Awakens because the characters had more depth
compared to this film. If the characters had more depth to them in this film it
would have been a very enjoyable experience as a film.
There are some other
aspects of this film which aren’t that good, the action sequences are that great
compared to other action films. The editing during the films action sequences
in this film, while the action is not the typical shaky cam, the editing is
quite choppy and it is hard to follow the characters during the action scenes.
The action is hard to follow for two reasons, the first reason for this would
be that final action scene isn’t set up properly and this means you can’t see
where the characters are and were the antagonists are in the scene. The other
probably with the editing is during the final action scene, the editing takes
us from the beach action scene to the dogfight in space. The editors decided to
cut away from the beach action scene to the dogfight at a moment what seems to
be a crucial moment for the action on the beach. The filmmakers should have
waited until there was break in the action scene on the beach, and before more
Stormtroopers appear. The editing would have felt more natural and this would
have been a better choice.
The other negative aspects
about this film which is a negative would be that this film doesn’t really have
a reason to existence. The film shows us the narrative that takes the plans of
the Death Star and this will annoy the true Star Wars fans because this
narrative has been done already in Dark Forces video game. Disney has decided
to remove the existence of the extended universe and therefore remove the
characters that were in the extended universe and this something which the Star
Wars fan will be annoyed at because the studios are trying to cash in on the Star
Wars fans and this is something which will annoy some people but not everyone
will care about. The final negative aspect of this film is that first act of
this film is quite poorly done because the film decides to jump from planet to
planet and it becomes confusing and you won’t be able to follow the locations
unless the title card reappears onscreen, the first twenty minutes of this film
are the worst for this reason because of the film jumps from planet to planet.
Conclusion
This is a film which doesn’t
quite live up to the standard of The Force Awakens because of some aspects of
this film such as the action isn’t that clear and the characters aren’t that
great. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story isn’t re-watchable compared to other Star
Wars films. This is not a bad film but it is no were near the standard that the
film could have been and this film is a missed opportunity and the film could
have been better, but it is nowhere near as bad as the prequel films, and it is
a good watchable film and will keep you entertained for two hours and that is
all you need for this film.
Rating: 6/10.
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