Rogue One a Star Wars Story (2016)

When my generation makes movies, we pull from our collective memories and nostalgia for our childhood and reinvent it in grown up ways. The franchise film, a staple we grew up on, has evolved beyond popcorn entertainment into something which delivers an emotional power, explores themes important to us, connects to a wider narrative, and entertains like nobody's business. One of the biggest beneficiaries of this movement is the Star Wars series, which has come into a glory no one expected. Rogue One takes what was started in The Force Awakens and runs with it.

The Force Awakens made an effort to revisit and reinterpret the motifs, themes, and choruses that make up the Star Wars universe. Rogue One, freed from the main narrative, gets to take those ideas into new directions. Director Edwards manages to make a film that is clearly a part of the Star Wars canon but feels like something completely new.

Rogue One is a war movie. There is no doubting that war is hell watching Rogue One. It also demonstrates the way war implicates us all. There are no easy lines between good and evil here. Lucas pulled from 40s war films for his dog fight inspired space battles but Edwards makes an actual war movie, one where people die, principles are compromised, heroes make questionable choices.

Part of the magic of Rogue One is how Edwards has not only made a movie which stands alone and takes the Star Wars themes in new directions, he has made a movie that is intricately linked with A New Hope in more ways than one would expect. It is a remarkable balancing act, but one which he pulls off masterfully. This film and A New Hope are both made stronger by being so linked. We live in an age where movies are being made to be connected to each other. Sometimes this is done in a clumsy manner but other times it is done in a way that makes the film offer more than it could on its own. Rogue One is brilliantly in the latter category. Characters which are familiar add a depth of consequence to the story we are witnessing, and reverberate in scenes which will happen in later films. Also the actions of characters here impact the way we see events in other films, series.

I heard someone say that after seeing Rogue One you will immediately want to rewatch A New Hope and you will see it with new eyes. I believe that is very true. Yes there are easter eggs (an intercom paging Captain Syndulla) which will make a fanboy's mouth water, but there are also fascinating relationships through which the experience of war is explored. Often it takes the fantastic, an "unreal" story, to get us to reflect on our real world. And Rogue One is that fantastic (both in the literal and vernacular meaning) story. It lives a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, but also in our hearts and minds today.

Rogue One
Starring: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Alan Tudyk, Donnie Yen, Wen Jiang, Ben Mendelsohn, Forest Whitaker, Riz Ahmed, Mads Mikkelsen, and James Earl Jones
Director: Gareth Edwards
Writers: Chris Weitz, Tony Gilroy