Friday, December 16, 2016

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….

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