Rogue One, My Generations Star Wars. *Spoilers*

Since 1977, we read the lore after seeing Star Wars the first time and lived on the fan fiction created by writers. Fan fiction and extended universe that now has been lost due to Disney wanting to have nothing to do with it. But this is not a review of what Disney did wrong or right, this is about a complete picture. So, for this review of Rogue One I would like to start at the end instead of the beginning. I can’t take credit for this next line, Kevin Smith on his show ‘FatMan and Batman’ said it best: “The last 90 seconds reestablish the iconic villain to his rightful place in bad movie villain history.” Ladies and Gentlemen, Darth Vader has returned.

Something else Kevin said that sticks in my mind as the movie ended tonight. If you took the credits off the very end and pasted it to the beginning of Star Wars, Episode IV ‘A New Hope’ it would be seamless. At the very end I think we get the biggest treats as die hard fans of the genre. We get to see everything that’s been talked about in how Vader is this bad ass Jedi/Sith that the galaxy fears and more importantly WHY the galaxy fears him. And we get to see a CGI version of Carrie Fisher as the Corellian Blockage runner jets away in the nick of time holding the Death Star plans.

Disney really went all out on this venture and I for one applaud them for that. After having the lore I grew up with stripped away and considered ‘Legends’ by the new owners of the ‘Star Wars’ name, Rogue One is a much needed film to make amends with the Fan Base. I really hope they do this again. I hope they fill in more gaps in the story and go to as much detail in the other stories as they did with Rogue One. From the iconic switches, scenes, ships and Stormtrooper armor. To the plans themselves that Princess Leia will place into R2, nothing was spared in bringing this story to life AND making it believable.

Personally, I caught several nods to the extended universe in this movie. And even though they only touched on it, we see the ‘Guardian of the Whills’ mentioned. A race of aliens that were bound to the Force, that actually heard it and recorded what the Force would tell them. It is mentioned by George Lucas when he originally wrote Star Wars and the Clone Wars cartoon pay homage to this several times by referencing it in several stories. Chirrut Imwe, played by Donnie Yen is one of the Guardians introduced in the story and though we don’t see him with a lightsaber, we see him use his ability in the Force to ‘see’ even though his character is blind.

This was much needed shot in the arm after the disaster that was ‘The Force Awakens’. If you read my last review you will note that I said Force Awakens is NOT my generations Star Wars. Force Awakens was written for a whole new fan base using the story from my era and turning it on its head to reset the genre. If Rogue One is any indication of Hollywood and box office interest in Star Wars I believe they will do many more films from my generation’s Star Wars and leave The Force Awakens to the noobs of today.

The story was powerful, gripping. It was more like a war movie than a Star Wars film. It showed the true side of the Rebellion, where we grew up seeing the fight for Galactic Survival through the eyes of Luke Skywalker, farm-boy turned Jedi, we now see the actual people who made the wheels turn. People like Red and Gold leader, who make a cameo in this film and who will go on to sacrifice themselves in ‘A New Hope’. The writers do a great job of making the audience invest themselves in these characters as well as the main cast, so that even going in and knowing that everyone AND I MEAN EVERYONE, is going to die, you still cannot pull your eyes away.

The story of Galen Orso the prime architect of the Death Star is the focus of the film and the situation his daughter finds herself in later in life as her father reaches out to her to help stop the weapon he created. Many jokes were told my whole life as to WHY the Death Star, this massive superweapon, was destroyed by one fighter firing a Proton Torpedo down a small thermal exhaust port was the talk of many a coffee room conversation. (Yes, that’s what us Star Wars geeks sit around and talk about). The writers keyed in on that and even that little tidbit was explained. Galen created that flaw so that he could have a way to provide the Rebellion a means to destroy what he created.

The primary focus of this story is ‘Hope’. And it fits perfectly into ‘A New Hope’. Even though all the people who we cheered and then cried for die in their mission to retrieve those plans, you do get the sense that something is on the horizon, that ‘Hope’ is coming and you are ready to see how it turns out. For us fans, we already know. This movie did so much for me in that regard. It restored my faith that Star Wars may possibly be in good hands now. If movies like this are going to start coming out of Disney I may have to stick around, even though I am presently on my last days playing The Old Republic and ending my own story that I have written for the past six years.

There were many nods to the fans in this movie, but nothing in your face or as blatant as ‘The Force Awakens’. You even get to see the two that confront Luke and Obi Wan in the cantina on Mos Eisley. Who you know in a few weeks of this movies time line are going to have the run in that will change both their lives. We get to see ‘Red 5’ as he explodes over Scarif in retrieving the Death Star plans, which sets up Luke to become the next ‘Red 5’ of Rogue Squadron. We see a flash of Bail Organa and again thank the writers and directors for bringing Jimmy Smits back to reprise his role as Bail. The actress who had a brief cameo in Revenge of the Sith reprises her role as Mon Mothma.

I was giddy like a school girl on several parts. I love that Mon Mothma asks Bail about his ‘friend’ in the desert. And with the mission to retrieve the plans underway, he looks at her and says. ‘I will contact him.’ Mon Mothma looks at him and says, ‘Only send someone you can trust.’ That was Leia’s mission, to get to Obi Wan, get him the Death Star plans and deliver them and Obi Wan to the Rebellion. The time is now and the stakes are that high that Leia must do this and Rogue One does an excellent job of portraying that feeling throughout. This is it. It’s all or nothing. The superweapon is online and the Rebellion must act now. It is time for Obi Wan to come out of hiding.

Attachment was something I fought in this movie. Going in I swore I was going to watch this with an observer’s eye. But as the Death Star is ordered to fire on Scarif and kill everyone on the surface I couldn’t help but sob seeing Jen sitting by the beach holding her compatriot as the blast wave came toward her.

Peter Cushing, who was Grand Moff Tarkin in the original Star Wars died in 1994. I heard a rumor going in that they were going to put him in the movie and I thought, ‘Well, we will see him from behind.’ It will be some actor who looks like Cushing from a distance and he will have limited screen time. I was dead wrong. Not only did they resurrect Cushing to reprise his role with the magic of CGI, HE WAS A MAJOR CHARACTER. CGI has come a long way, I am a believer. What does this say about the future of movies and not just Star Wars? It says that an actor who died many years ago can be resurrected to play a role in a series he or she was part of. That an actor digitally rendered can actually WIN an Oscar for that role. This could turn some heads in Hollywood, they should definitely take notice.

Last, but not least Vader. Up till the end, the Guardian of the Whills is the closest we have seen to someone use a lightsaber. Chirrut Imwe fights Stormtroopers with a stick, but you know the lightsaber is coming because we have already seen Vader. I can’t say enough about this. For years he haunted my nightmares with all of the lore and extended universe that I read. From, ‘Splinter of a Mind’s Eye’ to ‘Shadow’s of the Empire’ this movie definitely did him justice in showing why he is the baddest villain in the galaxy. This was not like the blocky scene where Darth Vader (David Prowse) is fighting Obi Wan (Alec Guiness) in the original Star Wars. This is a full on, full blown Sith fest as Vader makes his way from one end of the hall to the other after he lights up his crimson blade. The plans are literally being passed from one Rebellion Trooper to another as Vader makes his way toward them. In the last scene we see him literally standing out in space watching as Leia’s Blockade Runner skirts away. You forget that when we first see him in the movie, we see the scarred and tattered form that is Anakin Skywalker drain from a Bacta bath and start to don his armor. Kudos also for showing Vader’s tower. This is another nod to the fans. If you remember from other fan fiction and stories written by other authors, Vader’s Tower is his private refuge. He has several of them, the most famous on Coruscant as detailed in ‘Shadow’s of the Empire’

There were so many niceties in this movie I can’t even begin to list them all. It was overwhelming, coming from a fan of the original movie that saw it in a theater at 5 years old and I had high expectations. Rogue One delivers and it delivers big time. Sitting there I felt smothered in it all, I felt like I was five years old again, I felt like the first time I saw ‘Empire Strikes Back’ later on and got my first look at an AT-AT. The nuance that what we know IS real, that what we know is coming and why this movie has such a desperate feel is very, very real for me. Even now as I write this I am overcome with emotion of memories of my childhood. THIS IS my generations Star Wars, this is what I have written about in my own stories, this is the reality I have always striven for in the Star Wars universe. Heroes die, but the cause is forever….

A film triumph, a marvel of modern engineering. This Star Wars movie is worth seeing again and even three or four times. This is a movie made for all of us fans. Thank you, Disney….

Colorado is goofy...and heres why.

Opinion: Colorado, Yes they are Goofy.

And the reason is: The recent decision by the Denver Police Department to acquiesce to the demands of the Justice Department in allowing Non-US Citizens to become Police Officers.

Ok, before you freak out let me stop a moment…

What?!?!

Yes, you heard it right. NON-US Citizens are going to become Police Officers. Now this is wrong on so many levels but let’s look at this historically shall we?

In Ancient Rome, the decline of the Empire directly coincided with Non-Roman Citizens becoming part and parcel of the Military and Government establishment. Why is this significant you ask? Because, those inducted into the military and government force were following their own agenda and allegiance and NOT of the government they were hired to support and defend. And yes, a Policing Organization is a Para-military group, not to mention part of the hosting government’s establishment.

A simple oath is sometime all it took. And I know today oaths are taken and broken like taking off a pair of shoes after work, but for some that simple act means a lot.

That’s a historical reasoning, let’s look at modern society, but before we do that let me give a little bit of background as to where I am coming from with my own personal experience.

I served in the Military for over 20 years. During that time I was part of a number of Policing as well as straight Combat Actions. I was deployed over Eight times in major operations not to mention the innumerable amount of times I was deployed on small three to six month ‘excursions’. Was I Special Operations or some other elite force? No, I was just an ordinary Soldier, so that should tell you something about how much THOSE guys get deployed.

During that time, on many occasions I was in the midst of a language and cultural barrier. Communication was hard when we were in contact with indigenous or local populations. We had to learn the signs, the language on how to communicate our intent. There was no other way to do it, disaster would strike otherwise. What could be a mundane or innocuous gesture in our culture could spell doom in another. COMMUNICATION, any kind of communication was key. We had translators in some cases and that was our saving grace, but on one occasion my Translator was Kurdish and the people I was dealing with were Shia. Again…gesture, intonation and dialect came into play. They, meaning the people I was dealing with, knew immediately my translator was a Kurd. We nearly came to blows over a deal for some tires on one occassion. TIRES!!!

The point of all of this is, Law Enforcement is one of those jobs where not only does the person being hired need to hold and serve the public trust; i.e….be a Citizen, but he or she must be able to speak the language.

That brings me to the next part of Colorado’s goofiness; which I have alluded to in the above. Not only is the Denver PD acquiescing to the Justice Departments fine of 10,000 dollars and re-looking at all of the Non-US citizen applications they rejected, they are ALSO adhering to a ‘Law’ by the Colorado legislature that says they MUST produce all applications in various languages for these Non-citizens.

So let me get this straight. And I am exaggerating, by the way or maybe not depending on the circumstance: An Officer, who cannot speak the language, is responding to a crime or call for assistance: These are the various ways it’s going play out:

Officer (we will call him/her A) responds to a call of domestic violence. Let’s say (A) is of Eastern European decent. He/she speaks Czech or some other Slavic language. The people calling for assistance are Spanish speaking…

Now, before I go any further, let me go ahead and address the ‘nay-sayers’ that will say, “Why is this any different from Police today that can’t speak Spanish and are called to assist a Spanish speaking citizen?”

The difference is, A) Most departments have on hand a great number of officers who speak Spanish or have officers who are bi-lingual. And those that are not are making moves to do so. A perfect example is the San Francisco Police Department, who is so diverse in its languages that they often have Police Officers who represent the diverse background of that area patrolling said areas they represent. (If that makes sense) B) The officers are often part of the community they patrol, i.e…they speak the language, grew up there, know the people. CITIZENS!!! C) Have a vested interest in the community they serve. CITIZENS!! None of these are meant to be divisive or to ‘hate on’ immigrants. They are meant to state a simple fact of those that we trust to protect us DO IN FACT have vested interest in keeping us safe and ARE IN FACT from our community.

Back to the scenario…

So ‘Officer A’ shows up, knocks on the door and has to communicate to someone holding a knife to a woman’s throat that this person needs to put the knife down and back away from her or that he/she, ‘Officer A’, will in fact shoot him.

None of the various ways this could end have a positive outcome for either the Officer or the people involved.

And here is the arguments you are going to hear from the people who wrote this law or our ‘beloved’ president’s Justice Department:

“Well how often would an officer find himself in that situation?”

Answer: Every damn day. According to the FBI; in 2015 Aggravated Assault sat at 63.8% of all crimes reported. Robbery was second at 27.3% with Rape and then Murder following third and forth respectively. For the purposes of this model the FBI used I am assuming that Domestic Assault and Battery count into Aggravated Assault as a subcategory.

“Well, what if he/she is just an admin officer, I mean really…they don’t have to fight any REAL crime?”

So we just make someone who can’t do the job a drain on our resources; which prevents someone from actually doing the job from getting on the Force. As a matter of course, most military and police are trained in basic fundamentals of their craft. Meaning, they all can be cops, regardless if they are driving a desk or a squad car. At some point, he or she is going to come face to with someone breaking the law.

“We have to do this; I mean it’s only fair. To not do it would be discrimination!!!”

Ok, so if a cop WHO is a US citizen from the streets of say….Harlem, applies to be a cop and also happens to be Black, doesn’t get hired because he’s black; that’s discrimination. If this same cop doesn’t get the job because someone who is not a citizen gets the job over this same person; that’s not discrimination, that’s unfair. And the department in question is shooting themselves in the foot. More ways than one.

Let’s not forget, weak as our immigration policies are at the moment, there is still a vetting process. To become a citizen there is a series of interviews and an investigation that one has to go through. I know this because my wife was not originally a US Citizen, she is naturalized. It took us nearly five years to get the whole process done. And we were living in Washington DC at the time and I was in the service still. Weak as it is, the Immigration and Naturalization Service still does investigations into a person’s background and sometimes they find out if that person from another country did something illegal by the other countries standards. We need to make sure that those serving us and our public trust are NOT criminals. How do you do that if you are taking non-citizens off the street? Are we saying that the Denver Police Department is in fact going to find and run their own Immigration and Naturalization Service? They would have to, there is no other way to ensure that the person they are hiring is trustworthy or not. I mean, I don’t want someone convicted of murder in another country holding a gun and enforcing my laws in my city. And yes, they are MY laws; they are yours too.

Not only does the person who usually applies for these jobs come from among us and we trust them with the privilege of holding a badge and enforcing our laws; they have a vested interest in seeing us safe. Because our safety is their safety. We open a whole different can of worms in this day in age when it is tough to be a police officer by considering non-citizen worthy of the Public trust. Times are hard out there and lots of people are walking away from doing ‘the job’ just because of the politics, red tape and oversight associated with enforcing the law right now.

That’s not to say that some of the oversight is not justified, it is. Most definitely it is. But the rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement was Ferguson Missouri. A CASE that in and of itself should not have been a rallying cry at all. The cop was right and the perpetrator was wrong. Thank goodness for that oversight, if we left it up to the populace of that community they would have hung that cop in the town square just based off hearsay and innuendo.

There is also a liability aspect I doubt that the citizens of Denver have considered. And YES I mean citizens because guess who has to pay for it? CITIZENS!! So ‘Officer A’ feels discriminated against because no one speaks the language, perhaps he/she feels slighted by their fellow officers due to the language barrier or even cultural differences. ‘Officer A’ decides to sue. He/she has every right to as a sworn law enforcement officer. And most likely they would win.

There is an underlying, unspoken world in the law enforcement community, much like the Military. You don’t lie, you don’t betray and you never forsake your fellow officers. ‘Officer A’ coming in off the street is not going to fit in, will feel that they don’t fit in and the others on their squad are going to act appropriately. Now yes, that’s just opinion, but I can see it happening. That long blue line is really long and they don’t like it broken because someone can’t do their job or pull their own weight. Being able to pull their share of the load is big deal in both the policing and the Military community and if you are not doing it, they let you know very quickly.

We are playing with lives here. In this case the lives of every citizen of Denver Colorado.

Times are hard for the policing community these days. Not many want to do it and that begs the question as to why? Why would Denver try to recruit or hire non-US citizens for policing duties? It is because of this backlash nationwide against law enforcement that they can’t hire officers? Are there not enough applicants? Is something going wrong with the policing community in Denver?

Am I the only one that fails to see the craziness involved with what’s going on in Colorado?

Lets look at some solutions. I will speak on what I know and that’s the military. For decades we allowed foreigners to join the US Military, but there was a catch. You serve, you get to become a citizen. I can see that working in Colorado. Some form of government service associated with the desire to become a citizen. That would be a win/win for all parties involved. Here’s the thing, becoming a cop in order to get citizenship should be a reward for service, not your sole desire in wanting to do it. Also, these numbers would be small. I don’t see 20 or even 25% of a department’s force being non-citizens. That would be a number inconsistent with the community they serve. Which coincidentally was one of the gripes of the community in Ferguson; a mostly white government and mostly white law enforcement operation overseeing a predominately black community. There is a whole different argument to be made about the problems in that community of underlying issues, but I digress.

Finally, why do I care? Why do you? If you don’t live in Colorado you shouldn’t have any opinion what-so-ever. Wrong. If the US justice Department can do it to you, they can do it to any community who has a non-citizen applying for a job that serves the public trust. That requires a person to be a citizen for the reasons stated above.

At the end of the day, it breaks down to absolutes. Lives in my opinion are one of the biggest absolutes. Lives are precious. It is the one thing we come into the world with and it is the last thing we lose when we die. It is a commodity that can’t be frivolously played with and it is my belief that this move by Denver is playing with that life. Those lives, every citizen of Denver, Colorado.