Movie Review "Star Wars: The Rogue One"

Movie Review: 

Star Wars: The Rogue One (2016), dir Gareth Edwards

I have to do a finishing touch work for something for my little sister but I just watched Star Wars: The Rogue One and I can’t take it off my mind T_T

First, this’ll be a total spoiler review so you’ve been warned!

So as you all might have known, the story is pretty much a crucial ‘side story’ set up before the beginning of Star Wars: A New Hope in 1977. By now, most people who follows the movie industry must have known that Darth Vader is a jedi turned villain whom with the Emperor controls the galaxy through fear and terror. Jedi, a group of naturally born people who are strong with the ‘Force’ has extinct. And despite some people who call themselves Rebels or the Rebellion, regular people who still tries as much as they can to fight against this tyranny, there’s not much people left who are still in a fight against this. We know that Luke will come and together with Leia and Han Solo will save the day. One of the key for them winning as is the main plot for A New Hope (and then used again for Star Wars: The Force Awakens), is finding this flaw in the construction of the Death Star. Which requires a map of the arhictectural structure of the Death Star. This is a story of people who were able to steal the map and send it to the Rebellion.

from tumblr page http://thestarwarssith.tumblr.com/

for Star Wars Celebration Europe 2016

So my concern was, how do they make a movie out of something we already know what the outcome is?

Well first thing first, as I read in a post in tumblr, the Rogue One DOES NOT care to give a first viewing people ANY background story for the characters that we’ll see along the way which we know as a fan was important throughout. Senator Organa, Tarkin, Senator Mon Mothma, a glimpse of R2DR and C3PO, the Imperial Ships, the Death Star, a little implied mention of Obiwan Kenobi, and most beautiful of all, seeing that scene that started A New Hope, Princess Leia in her white dress ready to do some badassery against Darth Vader! All this wasn’t necessarily explained, and I can understand it’ll be quite uninteresting for a non-fan. You won’t get the easter eggs. And I don’t know how this movie feels for a fresh eyed viewer!

Next, the feel of the movie. When we watch The Force Awakens, we also felt along the movie, the freshness and newness of everything. The Force is displayed in such a cool (although emo) way by Kylo Ren, the new fancier robots, I mean, it is set some decades after the galaxy was saved by the original trio. They’re now legends being spoken from time to time by the locals. They have a new enemy and both the good and the evil parts have just been ‘re-started’. That’s why it feels lacking in how threatening the situation was. But it’s also something which we like because it’s kind of A New Hope v.2.0.

The thing that suprised me is how old the movie feels. It felt like it was made in a different time, Star Wars galaxy wise. The rebel fighters with their moustaches and I don’t know the background felt like how I used to remember the time Luke infiltrate the Death Star to blow it up together with the rebel pilots!

The fact that Darth Vader was also there and being his menacing self was also another thing that makes this movie so special. My husband’s main complain about the movie is how the villain felt like an emo boy. Well he is really young still. And compared to DV, he just didn’t have the background story (yet) to be so villanous and menacing. Darth Vader has always been this decisive villain, who always so sure about why he does the things he did. The fact that Anakin was being told as the first three prequels annoys the heck out of me. Old Anakin does feel like Kylo Ren. Darth Vader is a standout from the two (or one?).

And now to the main plot! What I love so much about the movie is that it’s a movie where you see people who are actual heroes. You meet Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor (DIEGO LUNA!!! with his sweet mexican accent!), Chirrut Imwe, Bodhi Rook, Baza Malbus, Saw Gerrera, and Galen Erso (MADS MIKKELSEN!!) all with their own background story. Jyn is so far the most heartbreaking for me. Well she’s the main protagonist here anyways :D She was a little kid when his father, Galen Erso, who is an architect of Death Star who decided that he no longer wanted to do this job anymore, and her mother, Lyra Erso, a brave scientist who tries to protect her husband and kid, got separated from her. Galen was taken back by the Imperials to finish his work. Lyra was killed that day. And after such shocking moment, she was taken care by her father’s friend, rebel turning to an extremist, played by awesome Forest Whitaker, Saw Gerrera. Fast forward few years ahead, Jyn seemed to be living her live alone. I was wondering where Saw Gerrera was. Apparently, she was abandoned by him when she was 16. When Jyn confronted Saw after those years, my heart almost broke. This girl must have left all her trust to this man. Just like Mako trusted Stacker Pentecost :’( When he told her that it was for her own good, she was softened by it. And when after such brief moment she had to be separated from him forever, despite her best efforts to stay or take him with her, she lost her guardian.

Not long after, she finally tracked down her dad who has been caught for betraying the Imperials. Usually some movies will give like 5-6 minutes of cheesy moment for catching up and all. But no, just when she felt hope once more, and met the man who was her only family, and someone she loved so dearly, he too was taken away. They only get to talk on his dying moments. Freaking 5-6 seconds dammit. And when Cassian tried to take her away because the place was attacked, she too had to leave her father’s body after decades not seeing him… HOW COULD THEY DO THIS TO HER T__T

So yeah so far the movie was already heartbreaking. But no worries, it’ll continue to do so.

Anyways, now they know what to do. Find the map for Death Star and send it to the Rebellion so they can plan an attack. But of course nobody’s willing to do this suicide mission. I mean it’s placed at the center of the enemy’s line. Oh by the way, creepy Darth Vader actually have his palace stationed at the place where he was butchered by Obi Wan Kenobi. That is just so sick.

Anyways, Jyn and Cassian’s team, agreed to go with her. And isn’t it so heartbreaking that Cassian told her, after her disbelief about finding people that would stick by her side ‘Welcome home’?? T__T I’m really like TT. So they went, and hello hello IT WAS REALLY A SUICIDE MISSION. When it was said that there’s no way for them to came out of the planet alive, that the only thing that matters now is to send the data of the map to the rebellion ship, I knew that they won’t survive. And none of them did. Not Jyn, nor Cassian, and all their friends whom they just met… not even the robot K-2SO who sometime ago said that he will survive if they were trapped in space cause he doesn’t breathe. Dammit… :(

We all knew that the map got delivered to the rebellion, but we didn’t knew that so many people died fighting for it… :(

So the movie is the literal Suicide Squad. It was beautiful because they didn’t sugar coat it. They don’t have to, there are other Star Wars movies with happy ending, so it’s okay to do this. When the file of the map got delivered to Princess Leia, I teared up a little. It is, a glimpse of hope. There might be a chance, finally for the rebels… but the sacrifice was not little. All the pilots who died fearlessly after helping Jyn and her team…Bodhi Rook who just tried to do good… The Ip Man guy who probably did his own stunt work and his friend… all of them fighting for the greater good in the time of war, just like Stacker Pentekost, Raleigh and Chuck Hansen… T_T

Anyways, I don’t know whether the movie is slow or not. I have to rewatch it to know. The guy sitting next to me kept on checking his phone while I was busy spotting all the easter eggs in the movie LOL. The noisy kids behind me is another reminder that parents really should TEACH THEIR KIDS MANNER or don’t take kids under the supposed rating age. How can they scar their kids by letting them watch people who died like this? Can’t relate.

But I like this movie. I bet the alt right men hated it. All the POCs as good guys. White men as villains. A female as the main protagonist. All the references to Nazi Germany. Well done well done. Such fitting movie for such a time! 

notes:

1. i spazzed so many times. mads showed up. whitaker showed up. the guy who always plays the villain showed up (Ben Mendelsohn). senator Organa showed up. he mentioned Obi Wan Kenobi. and most importantly, Princess Leia showed up (RIP Carrie Fisher... may the Force always be with you...).