Did you miss the Death Star? In retrospect, what I really missed was 70s space fashion … the flowing robes, the hip-holsters, the deviled-egg helmets … good stuff. Can we bring back white t-shirts with iron-on decals, too? Rogue One is indeed a Star Wars Story, specifically one that takes place during the construction of the first Death Star. Chronologically, the bulk of this story takes place after Annikin goes on his black knight instant weight-loss program and before Luke gives up his disturbing womp rat blasting obsession.
This begs several questions, of course –Did we really need another prequel to Star Wars? What do we hope to learn that would enhance our understanding of a film we already regard as a classic? Will this tale stand on its own or seem just like filler material? Did the Death Star have the necessary work permits? Was it over budget? Was it fully insured? And just how big are these “womp rats,” anyway?
I’m not exactly sure what Luke’s age is, but I think it’s a fair guess that as this movie opens, Luke is no longer just a power converter in his father’s eye. That all is tangentially relevant, but currently inapplicable as we view the Erso farm. Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) has been instructed at gunpoint that his Death Star engineering skillz are needed to complete the project. Meanwhile, his prepubescent daughter Jyn Erso (played as a young adult by Felicity Jones) finds a rock to hide under. Not sure why these farmers 
bother camouflaging anything … we know from several films that stormtroopers couldn’t locate Ursa Minor on a space map let alone locate this Erso minor in a space cave.
Because of her connection to the Death Star’s chief engineer, Jyn Erso grows up a highly sought property … or she would were she not in prison under an assumed name. This is a mistake; it’s freaking hard enough keeping up with the absurdly fabricated names in the Star Wars universe without asking me to recognize that character Obi Jean Quan also goes by “Terrence Trent Barbossa” or whatever. That doesn’t matter. What does matter is 1) Daddy just works for the Empire, honey. That’s how he pays the bills. He doesn’t believe in his work. 2) Every other rebel is a pilot of some kind. Follow the pilots and you’ll get the secret message everybody is looking for. Eventually, the action is carried by a team of rebels including Jyn and a mock-pilot, Cassian (Diego Luna), whose allegiance is as curious as his accent. While the objectives are clear in this movie, the motivations are not always – and the acting is fairly uneven.
As with Fantastic Beasts, I am left wondering if this film were not part of the Star Wars universe, would it garner the same thunderous applause my audience gave it? My guess is “not even close,” but there two things I loved about this film: The first is this film like few other sci-fi fantasies before it truly gave us some of the horrors of war – not necessarily graphic horrors, mind you, but certainly not hands off, either. The Star Wars world has a way of creating a mess o’ death and then shying away from it – those mothers blew up an entire planet in the original and on screen, Obi-Wan gets a headache; way to sell the horror. Rogue One actually showed some death and consequence.
Secondly, the personalities of the players were huge improvements over the last, what? Four? Five? Star Wars movies? I honestly forgot this franchise was capable of inventing great personalities – which is a shame because Yoda is one of the greatest characters in movie history—now clearly I’m not talking about the two leads; I could take Felicity Jones and Diego Luna and drop them off at the nearest mining colony without missing either. No, the two new characters I loved were the free-thinking former imperial droid 
K-2SO (voice of Alan Tudyk) and the Force-devoted blind monk Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen — movie fans know this guy as Ip Man). These guys made the movie for me.
You know what this film feels like? It feels like filling a gap in a collection. Like when you have every state quarter from 2008 except Hawaii and then you get Hawaii. That’s cool, right? Is it the whole set? No. Is it worth a rave? No. But it will feel uplifting and give you a partial sense of completion. Speaking of which, I now am inspired by the idea of creating sequentially-significant-but-only-slightly-related prequels.
Enjoy these tangential films currently in production:
The Crystal Lake Regatta – It’s Thursday the 12th, and the campers are all psyched for the big boat race, but are the counselors paying attention? (Rated PG, comedrama, 97 minutes, starring Jaden Smith and Hailee Steinfeld)
The Book of Zuul: a Ghostbusters Tale – Can evil be contained before it gets loose on American soil? (Rated R, horror, 105 minutes, starring Vin Diesel and Nicolas Cage as “Zuul”)
Late Afternoon – there are neither vampires, nor werewolves around as Bella struggles through her freshman year of high school in Phoenix. The supernatural-challenged folk around find her incredibly dull. (Rated PG-13, inaction, drama, 123 minutes, starring a poster board of Kristen Stewart)
Revenge of the Dwarves – The One Ring has been lost for decades and the orcs have long since fled, but now tensions flare among the victors. The Dwarves are sick of playing the fool to Elf House. Can they pull off the big Lothlórien panty raid? (Rated R, comedy, 189 minutes – director’s cut 247 minutes—starring Chris Pratt, Margot Robbie and a cameo by Orlando Bloom as the great, great grandfather of Legolas)
FWIW, John Williams did not score Rogue One … and it shows. Phoning it in or not, Williams produces superior work to just about everybody else in the history of creation.
♪Girl, you’ll be a rebel soon
You’re trouble so much can’t count all the ways
Stormtroopers want you to spend all your days
Stuck deep in quagmire
I’ll free you, sure, but I better learn
Some neat Jedi trick or something to earn
The wrath of empire
Take this attire
Don’t you know girl
You’ll be a rebel soon
Here, you have no fans
Soon, you’ll need those plans♫
Rated PG-13, 134 Minutes
D: Gareth Edwards
W: Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy
Genre: The neverending Cash Cow
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Star Warriors
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: How’s your tolerance for fantasy?
♪ Parody inspired by “Girl You’ll Be a Woman Soon”
