Film: Rogue One

Well its been a little while since I’ve done a film review, but I felt motivated enough to do this one.

Telling the story of how the Rebel Alliance got the Death Star plans this is a stand alone film set in the Star wars universe.

I wondered if it’d stand up to the behemoths of the ongoing story (the original trilogy and the start of the new one).

It does so very well.

The style, aesthetics and props all tie (!) in with the main films seamlessly. The plot is a good one and as others have mentioned is more of a war film than a space opera.

I’ve watched it a couple of times now and really enjoy it, in fact its main drawback is that all the main characters die – I’d have loved to see more of them ! Even the supporting characters could have had a longer life IMHO.

Minor quibbles – the opening ten minutes or so has a few too many new locations and jumps around a lot so repeat viewing is a bonus.

There’s a lot of new Imperial Stormtrooper types that aren’t seen in the original trilogy (maybe in the next trilogy ?) so a bit of a discontinuity error. That and the whole “Bothan spies” comment in SW:ANH.

Stand out supporting character was the droid, K-2SO. At first you think he is just a pale imitation of C3PO, but it soon becomes apparent that while he is a pedant, he is also much more cynical and perfectly capable lof a bit of direct violence.

Criticism has been levelled at the CGI of Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing) and Princes Leia (Carrie Fisher). Whilst I have not watched in HD, the former is easily part of the scenes and does not jar. The later is slightly more “plastic” but as it is towards the end and very limited not a major problem for this film.

Go get it, and watch it a couple of times, its a keeper.