If it's not a good game or catholic...who do you call?...why Pokematic "hi."
So if you don't know yet, I'm a fan of Star Wars, and I enjoy expanded universe stuff like Battlefront, the Clone Wars cartoons, and some children's books. I don't like the chapter books, but that's just because I don't like reading. Also, after Star Wars Episode 7, I'm very happy with where Disney is taking things. But this is the first Disney stand alone movie that isn't part of the "main episode series." I'm going to not go into spoilers on this one, but that's because there isn't anything to "spoil" outside of callbacks.
What do I mean by "nothing really to spoil?" Well this is the story of the rebels getting the death star plans that are used in episode 4 to blow up the death star. All of us that are fans of Star Wars are familiar with the end result of this mission; the rebel alliance stole the plans to the death star to find the weak spot that Luke shoots to blow it up and many rebels died to get the plans. It takes place weeks before the events of Episode 4 a New Hope (or whatever the equivalent unit of time would be for a civilization that does not rely on rotations of a planet to measure passage through the 4th dimension). But like my dad said, "it's like Apollo 13 or Titanic; you know what the ending will be, but you go along for the journey, not the destination." Now as someone who enjoys the whole "universe building" thing, this was great. Did I or anyone else really need to know the story of the rebel spies that stole the plans? No, not really, and I know of some critics that will probably fault it for not being "main series." But do I want to know the story of the rebel spies that stole the plans? Well now that you mention it, yes, yes I do. It's not going to really ADD anything to the movies you know (and it kind of retcons some small details in Episode 4), but it's still a fun ride, and cool to see a little bit more into the inner workings of the death star and rebel alliance.
Now if the journey is the point and not the destination, then the companions you bring on the trip must be enjoyable. And these guys are. Now if you're expecting a new Luke, Anikin, or Rey, with deeply complex character motivations that we will care about for rest of the franchise, you will be mistaken. As a stand alone movie that takes place just before Episode 4, I don't see the new characters being main stays in movies to come. Most of these characters were introduced here, and their stories were concluded by the end of the movie. While I suppose there always could be room for new stories (I mean Episode 4 was meant to be stand alone, but then George made Episode 5 and 6, giving us a greater look into everyone), you don't really need it. I think it's worth mentioning that I am intentionally not using anyone's name, and that's because I don't remember anyone's name. I just think of them as "main character," "love interest?," "pilot," "droid companion," "blind force monk that isn't a jedi," and "heavy gun friend of blind monk." They're all great "travel companions," but they aren't "your best friends" like Luke and Han.
It is worth mentioning that since this does take place right before the events of Episode 4 there are characters that appear again, which brings me to the point about the special effects. This movie takes place weeks before Darth Vader captures the rebel ship and Leia sends the droids off with the plans to Luke. However, this movie came out 40 years after the original Star Wars was made. This isn't like Episode 7 where Han can show up looking 40 years older because the movie takes place 30 years in the future. This is further complicated when certain actors are dead at the time of production. Well, being the VFX masters that are ILM, they were able to bring these characters back to their age in Episode 4 ALMOST seamlessly. I admit, there is a little uncanny valley, but my ability to distinguish between practical and CGI is heightened due to all the videogames and movies I consume. But the level of detail that went into digitally sculpting these faces from 40 years ago was breathtaking. I won't go into who these characters are (those are the things that can get spoiled), but when you see it you might actually believe it.
And then there's the set design. As I said with Episode 7, they did a REALLY good job mixing the look of the original trilogy with the VFX capabilities of today while being able to hide behind the excuse of "well it's 30 years into the future, of course things are going to be a little different." But when you're a movie that takes place weeks before a movie that came out 40 years ago, the bar is set REALLY high to "make it visually appealing for modern audiences," while also "matching the feeling of a movie from 40 years ago." It was absolutely amazing. When there was a hologram projection, it looked like the same sort of thing from episodes 4-6. When they were on the death star, it looked and felt just like the death star from episode 4. The storm trooper and rebel suits looked just like they did in episodes 4-6. There was one bit with the construction of the death star that looked like it was a miniature, and it may have been since it would certainly be more authentic and cheaper to film a miniature with lighting and simple movements than make it all in CG. I felt like I was in the period of episode 4 while having the added believably of modern VFX.
There's one more thing I want to cover, and that's the writing. Now from the limited information I heard about Rogue One, it was "going to be more serious than other movies in the franchise." Which I'm not against; this was a pretty serious story with a lot of heavy elements. However, there was some GREAT comedy in this. Some of it was "Star Wars inside jokes," but a lot of it was just "well timed execution of funny lines and actions." Back to those other critics, yeah they probably will get angry at the inclusion of the easier humor. But you know what, with a story as serious as Rogue One, it needs the light hearted moments. I mean, this movie does earn it's PG-13 rating for action, and bits of comedy keep it from being overly dramatic.
So should you see Rogue One? Eh, it's polarizing and you will probably love it or hate it. It's not "a Star Wars film," it's "a film that is in the Star Wars universe." If you want "a Star Wars film" with Jedi, and learning the force, and opening text crawls, you won't find that here (yeah, no text crawl, guess all the backstory came from episodes 3 and 4). However, if you want more information of the universe building to get to Episode 4, you will probably like this. Please don't spoil the spoilers for people in the comments. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
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