Review: Rogue One

I wrote in my last Links and Updates post that I'd hopefully have this review up by the next day – hah! I had to put off writing for a week or so, as my initial reaction to Rogue One was not complete and absolute positivity. I enjoyed it without being blown away or bursting into tears or feeling desperate to see it again, yet having mulled it around in my brain over Christmas, some of its choices and innovations have started to work their magic. Since then I've been pretty consumed by what it delivered. Call it a delayed reaction.

But first let me remind you that Rogue One has been surrounded by the usual internet discourse on issues of diversity, politics, feminism, sexism and so on, to the point where it's making my head spin. On the one hand there are those who decided to boycott the film because of some perceived "anti-white" agenda, and others that are annoyed at the lack of women of colour across the entire Star Wars canon. Obviously I'm vastly more sympathetic toward one of these points-of-view than the other (hint: it's the latter) but there comes a point when I just want to sit down and watch a movie.

So I'm going to do myself a favour (and perhaps you as well) by judging Rogue One strictly on its own merits. This is a review of the movie, not the drama that surrounds it. For the most part.

When it comes to its placement within the greater arc of the Star Wars saga, the most significant things to come out of Rogue One are twofold: the appearance of characters from the original trilogy whose actors have either died or aged considerably, and the (widely predicted) plugging of a plot hole in A New Hope that provides an entirely new context for why a giant death machine would have a single, fatal, difficult-to-see but ultimately easily-exploited design flaw.

Though he died in 1994, Peter Cushing appears extensively as General Tarkin thanks to a CGI face being imposed onto actor Guy Henry. The film's final shot, having taken us right up to the very seconds preceding A New Hope, shows a similarly rendered Princess Leia. This poses a few startling possibilities not just for the franchise, but movies in general: when deceased actors can be digitally (and increasingly convincingly) resurrected on-screen, will we even need real ones?

Edit: I wrote this before Carrie Fisher's passing, which now makes the question even more pertinent.

Granted, many feel that the illusion tipped into Uncanny Valley territory (especially with Leia) but you have to admire the sheer ballsiness of the move. It's up there with the decision to obliterate the entire cast of characters and – judging by all the Missing Trailer Scenes – extensively rework the ending.

And then there's the story itself, drawn from a few words from A New Hope's opening scrawl:

It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armoured space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.

This is that story: the who, when, how and why of those Rebels. Going in, I was under the impression that it would be a fairly straightforward heist movie: the Rebellion would investigate rumours of a new weapon, formulate a plan, assemble a team, and then attempt to improvise as it all inevitably went wrong. I was only half right.

To be honest, I found the first half of the movie a bit muddled, with a lot of bouncing from planet to planet without a clear idea of why. Heck, as late as the third act I watched one battleship crash into another – and despite all the fanfare, I had no idea whether it was meant to be a good thing or not.

I'm sure much of this will be cleared up upon a second viewing, but plot convolution is never a good thing in any film, and could have been easily overcome by either simplifying the early story (which relies heavily on important things happening off-screen) or making sure those crucial plot-points actually play out on-screen (which admittedly may have added another half hour to the entire run-time).

The narrative "gaps" include Jyn's strained relationship with Saw Gerrera, Bodhi's role as the informant sent by Galen, and any clear reason why Chirrut and Baze (I had to look up their names as I had no memory of them being spoken on screen) would chose to join Rogue One in the first place. In all three cases, the problem is that we're told things instead of being shown them in any compelling way, even though depicting it all would have fleshed out their characters and motivations. Instead, we're just meant to take it on assurance that these things are so.

Though this review is a bit harsher than my own, I agree with the sentiment that the film focuses so much on the deaths of the characters, it forgets to fully explore their lives.

But the first narrative misstep is the breakup of the Erso family in the film's opening minutes. It starts when their remote farm is discovered by Orson Krennic and his men, who have come to claim Galen for his technical brilliance in creating a weapon for the Empire. There's clearly a history between them, and the Ersos are prepared for his arrival: they contact Saw (establishing a Rebel connection) and have a hidden bunker waiting. So far so good.

But what exactly was Galen trying to achieve when he went out to confront Krennic?  Buying time for his wife and daughter? Given the vastness of the area and the inaccessibility of the hidden bunker, it's likely that all three could have made it there without being detected.

And despite what must have been an oft-discussed plan and the safety of her own child, Lyra Erso decides to go back to confront Krennic and a bunch of Stormtroopers armed only with a single blaster. Unsurprisingly, she dies almost immediately, not only leaving her daughter alone and defenceless, but sacrificing the chance to organize a rescue mission for her husband at a later date. It's one of the stupidest character deaths I've seen in a long time.

And yet it wouldn't have been so bad if they had actually used the nature of Lyra's death in building Jyn's character.

Okay, so I lied – I am going to have to talk a little about Jyn's role as a female protagonist, all the baggage that goes with it, and how it relates to the above statement on her character building. For the record, I thought Felicity Jones's performance was fine – that is, I found her rather flat at first but she improved exponentially as the film went on, till she absolutely crushed her last few handful of scenes.

Yet at the same time – and forgive me for making this comparison, but it's inevitable – the performance isn't as strong as Daisy Ridley's depiction of Rey. Despite some superficial similarities (profound loneliness, a missing family) the two characters are fundamentally different: Rey is Force-sensitive, Jyn is not. Rey has no idea who her parents are, Jyn's entire life is defined by them. Jyn is cynical and bitter and rough around the edges, Rey is gentle and innocent save when she's driven into righteous fury.

Rey's arc is based on her finding a place in the world, Jyn's is in safeguarding her parents' legacy. Ultimately their storylines are on vastly different trajectories: I think it's safe to say that Rey will get some semblance of a happy ending, whereas Jyn's life is a tragedy from start to finish.

But the biggest difference is simply that Jyn is underwritten and Rey is not. Remember that scene in The Force Awakens when Rey is tempted to hand over BB8 for a huge pile of food portions? It's a telling moment when we see her reject the offer in order to protect the little droid, despite the frugal conditions in which we know she lives.

Had Jyn been presented with the same choice, there's little doubt in my mind that she would have taken the food portions – but there's never any equivalent Character Establishing Moment to help define the character. Sure she gets the utterly clichéd task of saving a small child from imminent death (so sick of this trope) but if anything her defining moment comes near the end of the film in which she's climbing up through the archives and Cassian takes a hit. She watches him fall, but instead of going after him, she keeps her mind on the mission and continues to climb.

Had this been Rey, I'm sure we can all agree that she would have dropped everything to go to a similarly injured Finn – but it happens far too late in Jyn's story for it to serve as a way for the audience to get a quick-and-easy fix on who she is.

And it's frustrating as there are several obvious ways they could have grounded her character: like if Jyn is furious at her mother for stupidly getting herself killed, leaving her with the conclusion that it's pointless suicide to fight the Empire. Or if she dearly wants to help the Rebellion to avenge her mother, but lives in terror of what they'll do to her if they discover who her father is. Or if she plays along with the Rebellion's plans for her, though she secretly plots to use them to get personal revenge on Krennic. Or if she cynically hates the Empire and the Rebellion for how their conflict destroyed her family and left her grappling with abandonment issues.

That last one is probably the one they were going for, but what lies at the core of Jyn is never really made clear. So I read this review with interest, particularly this part:

One of the most derisive things you can say about a fictional woman character was that she doesn’t have agency. What almost no one says is that agency is the least interesting thing a woman can have. We’re in such a rush to have stories about women who do things that we haven’t thought much about what they should be doing. Kicking ass? Leaving bad husbands? Driving cars off cliffs? All of those can be great things, in the right story, but you can’t just sew bravery onto a character like a Girl Scout patch. If it doesn’t come from someplace within, it’s just a gimmick.

In Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, it’s a gimmick, no matter how well-intentioned.

Jones, as Jyn, comes at the material gamely. Her character gets to run around and discharge firearms, both wonderful things in theory. But they work only as signpost feminism: These may be things we want women to do in movies, but they aren’t necessarily more interesting just because women are doing them. (Charlize Theron’s one-armed renegade Furiosa, from Mad Max: Fury Road, is an example of how to do it right, a character whose tendency toward violence is the fabric of her vitality.)

Jones is a capable actress, but the movie asks her to strike a tough-girl pose she can’t sustain, at least not without flaring her nostrils excessively. When she gives a Saint Crispin’s Day-style speech designed to rouse the troops, they perk up their heads with mild interest, but you can tell they’re not buying it.

There's stuff here that I agree with, and plenty that I don't. For the most part, sure – a female character (or ANY character) needs to do more than just run around and shoot stuff to be interesting, and Jyn is never built up as a truly three-dimensional person. The first trailer had a great line from Saw ("What will you do when they catch you? What will you do if they break you? If you continue to fight, what will you become?") that seemed to suggest a transformative arc for Jyn that never materializes on-screen.

Yet a woman using a gun is no more a "gimmick" than if a man does it. It's just a thing that does or does not occur. And to say people don't buy her rousing speech is exactly the point. No, her speech doesn't convince anyone – that's why she and Cassian have to commandeer a ship and go steal the Death Star plans on their own. That's why they're called Rogue One. Because Jyn doesn't have the charisma and strength to convince the rest of the alliance that she's telling them the truth.

I've also seen other complaints that Jyn wasn't enough of a leader – but why exactly does she have to be a leader? The narrative never tries to place that role upon her; like all the other main characters in the film, she's a soldier and a spy.

It would seem that having spent all this time picking Jyn apart, I'm now compelled to mount a defence. There are so many male protagonists out there with the same level of development and characterization as Jyn, but we don't cross-examine them to the same extent as a leading lady, who has to be Doylistically perfect (not too much of this, or too little of that) and Watsonianly imperfect (or else she's a Mary Sue).

We put our female characters through ludicrous amounts of criticism and nit-picking: just look at the Mary Sue accusations that swirled around Rey, or the insanity that surrounded Ghostbusters. It's like nothing that male characters undergo, no matter how badly written they are; yet when it comes to women, everything about their agency, personality, motivation, appearance and morality must be scrutinized, judged and found wanting.

Bloody hell, let's just let these women EXIST before we start tearing them to shreds.

So bottom line: the biggest difference between Jyn and Rey is that Daisy Ridley simply had more to work with (though who knows what was left on the cutting room floor after the extensive Rogue One reshoots) which allowed her to claim the role as her own. I can't imagine anyone else in the world playing Rey but Daisy, though there are any number of actresses that could have been just as good as Jyn.

But ultimately Jyn worked for me. It's the story of a woman who loses everything, gets drawn into a cause bigger than herself, and sacrifices herself for it. I can't recall another recent story like that given to a woman in a Hollywood blockbuster.

***

Another somewhat controversial point is that the Rebellion/Empire conflict is no longer as black and white as it is in the original trilogy. Here we see our Rebel forces partake in some incredibly murky activities: Cassian shots dead his own informer, a Rebel leader orders Galen's assassination, and the Rebellion stages an attack in a heavily populated civilian area that endangers innocent people, including children.

I'm still not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, the original trilogy's very straightforward dichotomy of Light and Dark was part of its charm. It is, at heart, a fairy tale – of farm boys and princesses and evil kings. On the other, it's only natural that Rogue One would want to do something very different with its tone and content; this is a war movie after all, and by making its key characters morally grey, it can present the entire Rogue One mission as one of atonement for its volunteers.

I honestly can't make up my mind on whether this is a good thing or not – neither it seems can anyone else, with some for and some against the portrayal. I would only say that they could have mitigated the issue a little if they'd taken a bit more time to establish the threat of the Empire on a personal, global and intergalactic scale. (It's not that they didn't, just that they could have done more).

This was actually something I was looking forward to based on what I'd seen in the trailers, but the film coasts a lot on our foreknowledge of the franchise, and often expects us to root for our protagonists (despite some dubious acts) simply because they're doing it all in the name of fighting the Empire.

But to do that, we needed a stronger reason (beyond the weapon of mass destruction) and a greater "ends justify the means" context. I really wanted to see the Empire "on the ground" as it were; really exploring the human cost of what their rule meant. They never quite managed this, and the compromises made by our heroes exist in stark contrast to the innocence of Rey and especially Finn, who the script was at pains to point out had never actually killed anyone during his time as a Stormtrooper.  

But by this point it feels as though Disney is damned if they do, damned if they don't. People complained that The Force Awakens was too similar to A New Hope, now they're complaining Rogue One was too different. They can't win!

***

Okay, here's the part where I throw out any attempts at being calm or rational. If you're a long-time reader of this blog, you'll know I'm not a hardcore shipper. Every now and then I get swept up in a romance (as this Korrasami post will attest) but I could count my OTPs on one hand, and the fact that things like Shipping Wars and Die For Our Ship exist continues to baffle me.

So when I say that I came out of the movie theatre completely devastated – in the best possible way – by Jyn and Cassian, you'll know I'm being serious. I have a weakness for missed, unrequited or otherwise doomed love stories (if they're done properly) and these two hit me like a ton of bricks.

Knowing very little about the cast dynamics going in, I predicted what I thought Jyn/Cassian might be to my friend as we were waiting in line: that there would be a simmering, low-key attraction between them that would never be made explicit. At most, I imagined a scene in which a mortally injured Cassian stays behind to give Jyn the time she needs to get somewhere, and she gives him a parting kiss.

Obviously my prediction didn't come true, but it's a fantastic experience when you want something, and you get it in a way that far exceeds your expectations. The only other time that's happened in recent memory is Gwen's return on Downton Abbey and the canonization of Korra/Asami.

The interesting thing about these characters is that even though Cassian and Jyn's individual development is a little patchy, that development is dependent on each other's character in a way I don’t think I've ever seen before. In a film that can be a little jumpy at times, you can easily track its progress by the way Jyn and Cassian are looking at each other at any given point: from dislike (not the exasperated dislike of Han/Leia, but genuine anger and distrust) to appreciation and warmth.

About halfway through, THIS starts happening.

The stages of their relationship are clearly delineated: open hostility, getting the measure of each other, winning each other's trust, underlying attraction, open fear that the other will be harmed, and silent acknowledgement of what might have been – it's beautifully done, and with more subtlety than I'd have thought possible in a Disney Star Wars blockbuster.

Now, there is some debate going on as to whether or not they were "meant" to be shipped, or were just comrades from start to finish, with no deliberate Ship Tease inserted at all. For the most part I agree it's pretty platonic, up to and including their final embrace on the beach before their deaths (though I'd also argue that in many ways an embrace is more primal and intimate than a kiss). After all, they've got way more important things on their minds for the duration of the film.

But just after sending the transmission and right before their deaths is an entirely unexpected scene that plays out without any kind of attempt to explain it. It seems to exist solely for its own purpose: Cassian and Jyn simply looking at each other for the duration of an elevator ride, light falling and rising over their faces to the same rhythm as their breathing.

This close to the final credits, why would you insert a wordless, otherwise superfluous scene of two characters gazing at each other unless you were trying to convey something about how they feel? And sure, maybe they're grappling with the thought of death, or the momentousness of what they've just done, but – come on! SOMETHING is happening here, and though I concede it's deliberately left a little ambiguous, my personal interpretation makes it my absolute favourite scene of the entire movie:

I liken the situation to only feeling an injury after losing your adrenaline. You've heard all those stories about people who get so emotionally charged that they can do incredible things, and don't actually realize how badly hurt they are until afterwards. It's a similar case here, though instead of any injury asserting itself after the adrenaline rush dies down, what rises in each of them is a realization of what they are (or could be) to each other. For the first time they've been given the time and space to consider their feelings ... and they already know it's too late.

Obligatory overwrought GIF

Keep your space battles and beach melees and Darth Vader – the most heart-stopping moment of Rogue One for me was two people staring at each other in an elevator, sharing the expression of those who've realized they might love each other, but knowing they'll never get the chance to find out.

God, I LIVE for this stuff. And the funny part is that if the movie had been more overt in depicting a romance between them, or gone for a Final Kiss on the beach instead of an embrace, I wouldn't have been even HALF as invested as I was without it. That agonized Held Gaze between them said everything it needed to. If there was a kiss that was cut, either in the elevator or on the beach, I never want to see it.

If they had gotten away and lived happily ever after, it just wouldn't have had the same effect. We're all writhing in glorious agony because they were doomed. And if they hadn't had that moment in the elevator, we would have been reasonably content with the fact they gave up their lives to fulfil the mission – it's that they die just as they've found something to live for that makes the whole thing that much more painful.

In the final scene between them on the beach, the entire film finds its humanity – doing away with all the FX and explosions and just concentrating on two people holding each other in the face of death. It showed remarkable restraint, from both the characters and the writer/director, who could have very easily gone full Pompeii. Heck, I'm inclined to wonder if the precedence of Pompeii is what forced them to keep it simpler, with the happy side effect that it was more powerful as a result.

Miscellaneous Observations:

Yikes, am I really relegating Darth Vader to miscellaneous observations? It would seem so, though Rogue One does a LOT to return him to his original status as a terrifying spectre of evil. It wasn't so much the heavy breathing or the red light of his saber that chilled, but the panic-stricken reactions of the Rebels when they realized just who was in that confined space with them. Their desperate attempt to get the door open and pass the plans to the next Rebel in line damn near stopped my heart.

The biggest laugh from my theatre came when Jyn automatically shot the battle droid, only to realize it was probably Kaytoo – right before he steps out and asks: "you knew that wasn't me, right?" There was a shocked gasp followed by a huge wave of relieved laughter.

There weren't many featured aliens, which was understandable at the same time it was disappointing, though I loved the late addition of Admiral Raddus in much the same role as Admiral Ackbar.

For my money Diego Luna gave the film's best performance, with a character that embodies the question: "how much of your own humanity do you have to sacrifice for the greater good?" It's he that describes the Rogue One mission as an act of atonement, and fitting that his last act on earth is the simple act of offering and receiving comfort from another human being.

The use of "Stardust" as an Arc Word was handled well; showing father and daughter still communicating even after death.

It was nice to see Mads Mikkelsen as a good guy for a change, and when you think about it – what a hero! It's down to him and him alone that the Death Star is designed with a fatal flaw, one that dominates the story in the movie trilogy to come. All those years working undercover, mourning his family, quietly plotting, knowing the risks he was taking and the fear he was engendering – it all comes to a climax when Jyn shouts: "He put a fuse in the middle of your machine, and I've just told the entire galaxy how to light it." What a fantastic line.

The DVD deleted scenes are going to be fascinating, as it's more a matter of what trailer scenes were in the movie than weren't. I don't think I've ever seen promotional material that ran so counter to a finished product before, and it's clear some major changes were made pretty late in the game. It's this scene I'm most intrigued about, as I was most looking forward to watching it on the big screen:

And yet it was nowhere to be found in the film itself (and note that Jyn is carrying the Death Star plans).

Um, what was up with Forest Whitaker? He made some rather bizarre acting choices in his short amount of screen time (yup, in a movie were almost everyone dies, the black guy still goes first). I get that his character is pretty unhinged by this point, but the performance felt off somehow, and his delivery of "save the rebellion, save the dream" was just awful. Of course, so was the line, so perhaps it wasn't his fault.

Still, his cyborg body parts made him an interesting reflection of Vader – it's a pity they didn't build on it more.

There's apparently a bit of official trivia floating around out there that Chirrut isn't Force-Sensitive, which sounds insanely wrong to me. How could he not be?

I thought the reappearance of our two prequel characters were handled well: Mon Motha appeared extensively in the trailers, but it was touching that they gave Bail Organa something of a weighty entrance: stepping out of the shadows to the strains of John Williams's score. There are going to be some casual viewers who have no idea who he is, but he came across as significant nonetheless.

As for the rest of the Rogue One team... well, the actors are imminently likeable and charismatic, but they still felt a little underwritten. I hate saying that, as I wanted them to be a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits à la the Firefly crew or the Guardians of the Galaxy, but the film never manages to create a team dynamic between them. Some of them don't even interact. As was said above, I think the film got so wrapped up in their heroic deaths that they forgot about their lives.

Of all the deaths, Bodhi's was the most unsatisfying: they were no doubt going for the sudden, somewhat meaningless and inglorious death that all combatants run the risk of facing, but I always felt that at least ONE member of the Rogue One team should have made it out alive, and in hindsight, he was the obvious choice.

Hope is naturally a big theme of the film, and it opens up some interesting questions about its worth, especially when coupled with faith. As it happens, none of the Rogue One team ever know that their mission was successful; they're left only with faith that their lives were not spent in vain. And it was a close call too, with the Rebels only just managing to keep the plans out of Vader's hands.

So in that sense, perhaps the best part of the film is how it expands on this particular corner of the Star Wars saga. Until this film, we never knew that directly prior to A New Hope the Rebel Alliance was on the brink of collapse, demoralized and fractured. It took a tiny group of rebels within the Rebellion itself to give them that essential shot-in-the-arm, their "first victory" as the original opening scrawl describes.

And it's a powerful conceit to see how hitherto unknown characters – a delinquent and an engineer and a blind man and a reprogrammed droid; all overlooked and underestimated – changed the entire course of this saga with a last ditch effort when the Empire's victory seemed imminent.

From now on, Star Wars exists in a whole new context. The lives of Jyn, Cassian, Kaytoo, Baze, Chirrut and Bodhi will hang over A New Hope forevermore.