Rogue One
Andy:
I’ll volunteer to take the opening for this one, ‘cuz it’s the film that I was most vocal about avoiding when it first came out- and is also the film that has surprised me the most so far in this project.
But first, travel with me to a long time ago in a small town sorta far away. I was spending a summer home from college. I was too young to drink but too old to be satisfied sitting at home watching reruns of Gunsmoke with my parents. Most of my friends from high school were still coming back home regularly and there was a Barnes & Noble 30 minutes away. And that’s how I started GM’ing a game of Star Wars: Saga Edition, a tabletop RPG from Wizards of the Coast.
During that summer I absorbed more Star Wars lore than ever before. I owned about ten books worth of material for the RPG and regularly scoured Wookiepedia for story ideas. Disney hadn’t purchased Star Wars yet and the idea of more Star Wars material being on the horizon felt like a pipe dream. The lore was what you made of it- the books you read as a kid, the exciting parts of the video games you played as a teenager, and the late night discussions you had with friends over just how the Empire fell apart so quickly at the end of Return of the Jedi.
During my time as a GM my party covered most of the original trilogy. We hit the pre-A New Hope era of the Galactic Civil War where my group was a shadowy unit of saboteurs sent on dubious missions by Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice. We played through most of The Empire Strikes Back, with several of my party members using the Battle of Hoth as an excuse to die heroically so they could try new characters. We even inserted moments from the EU, such as the events of Shadows of the Empire and The Force Unleashed. We visited numerous planets that only appeared in such video games as Galaxy at War or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
And over the course of our fantasy travels we nudged those stories along in ways we thought were interesting- even if it wasn’t canon. My bounty hunter saved Han Solo during a shootout at a bar on Nar Shadaa. Our group’s Jedi told Luke how to find Yoda, ‘cuz he had already been secretly training on Dagobah. One of our force users turned to the dark side and willingly followed Emperor Palpatine as a secret apprentice. And our ranking soldier became a general in the Rebellion who engineered the strategy of several major canonical battles that we played out.
It was, simply put, one of the most magical periods of collaborative storytelling I’ve ever participated in. And with few exceptions, not a single bit of it was remotely original. It was almost all completely mined from existing material and repurposed to create a vision of Star Wars that made sense to us. Star Wars was our playground and we were satisfied to treat it as such.
Our final arc took place post-Return of the Jedi, in a murky part of the timeline sometimes called the New Republic Era. In this timeline, the Empire never truly surrendered, the New Republic is fighting a multi-front war and all of the major OT cast members are still out there tearing it up. The final campaign, which we sadly never played out, would have seen the players taking on the roles of members of an elite stormtrooper unit that is on the verge of defection during a particularly brutal campaign in the Outer Rim- and yes, there was a quirky wardroid written into the plot as well.
Sadly, our group stopped playing and the story ended. Years later, we would try to revive it, but by then, the Disney Era was in full swing, and the universe we had created for ourselves was now directly at odds with what Star Wars was becoming. We moved on.
I share all this to say that when I first heard about Rogue One, a film more interested in looking backward into Star Wars history than forward, my initial thought was “ha, been there, done that, this is pointless ‘cuz the stories I made up in my head were probably more fun.” And after finally seeing the film, I feel a bit vindicated in that. But, surprisingly, I also am forced to admit that this might be the one Star Wars film that is for fans like me who dedicated so much time to filling in the gaps of the Star Wars universe.
In this discussion the question will inevitably arise asking why this story needed to exist. And the answer, of course, is that it didn’t. Not only has it been told in several different ways before (pour one out for poor Kyle Katarn, who was cruelly left out of this heist despite decades of holding the distinction as the guy who stole the plans first), but its ultimate purpose does little beyond bridging two movies that were already contentiously linked at best.
But I’ll contend that sometimes the need of a story isn’t as important as all that. Sometimes, it’s okay to have a story that simply exists in a world we’ve all daydreamed about. Sometimes, just seeing more of that world is justification unto itself. I’ll fully admit that despite being a grown man, it can still thrill me to watch a filmmaker approach a story with all the enthusiasm and complexity of a child mashing their action figures together.
In that sense, I consider Rogue One to be a resounding success. It does not need to exist, but it does, and it is, in many ways, the Star Wars I imagined when I was spinning all those yarns for the tabletop RPG. It is gritty. It is occasionally funny. It is thrilling. We see old faces- but we add a few new. It answers questions that don’t need answered- but are fun to have answers to regardless. And while it is easy to take shots at it for not coming up with its own original premise, I would argue that finding old stories in the EU and making them better beats whatever the hell JJ was trying to do in the mainline films.
Ryan and Nate, I know you guys will likely be coming into this discussion feeling a bit cooler on Rogue One than I. I’d love to know if this most recent viewing has shifted your views at all- or if not, what you saw that convinced you to double down.
Nate:
You know what’s a great movie? Like, without caveats? Star Wars. The original. I don’t even like using its apocryphal subtitle. Don’t sully the purity of the original thing. One of the things that movie pulls off better than maybe any other movie is making the world that movie inhabits feel both huge and real, both through set design and tossed off parts of conversation between characters. Star Wars can honestly look cheap and small at times but we never think about that because of all this stuff going on just outside of the frame. (And also maybe the revolutionary effects helped paper over budget limitations too idk.) “Whoa, there was a clone war? What was that about!” “I have no idea what a Kessel run is but it sounds incredible.” “Dang, the old republic got swept away? What was that! How did that happen!” It’s magic.
Andy you actually did the thing and thought about these teases and crafted your own stories and answers for what those teases could mean. That rules! This, to me, is where the true joy from those teases comes. And part of me wishes Star Wars wasn’t the world conquering hit it was so those teases and references could have been preserved and we could just think about them forever. Not one of them was essential to enjoying that original story. Unfortunately that didn’t happen and almost everything that has happened to the franchise since at least 1983 seems to be hellbent on stripping that original film of that magic, especially in the last seven years under its new ownership. To me the simple act of depicting what these teases were lessens the original Star Wars. And yes, the EU made a lot of hay by doing this, but the stakes were way lower. Even though that was all blessed by George, I never took the EU as seriously as I took the movies. Which, again, was a good thing to me. Thinking about who stole the Death Star plans and how that went down is very fun. Being told by the new owners who are also the largest corporation on the planet exactly how that happened is much less fun. I never have to think about this again because I know. The world of the original Star Wars gets that much smaller and less magical.
But even that’s not where I turn on Rogue One. The story they tell depicting the heist of the Death Star plans has plenty of qualities and pleasures even, which we’ll get into. It’s certainly more artfully done than some of the similar things George did in the Prequels.
Yes, I know this hangup I have is so very nerdy and seemingly a nitpick but I also think it’s emblematic of a much larger issue with how most pop stories are being told today. The real reason the Death Star has a weakness is because if it didn’t we wouldn’t have the trench run aka maybe the single greatest scene in blockbuster film history. I’m probably inferring this, Rogue One probably didn’t intend this to be a slight, but I kind of resent Rogue One on a big picture level for even possibly suggesting that the Death Star’s weakness is a flaw that needed to be retconned and fixed. It absolutely is not and does not. And now I’ll climb even higher on my soapbox and yell at anyone who will listen that people should stop caring so much about logic and lore and instead start caring more about story and maybe even themes in movies. Well I wasn’t planning on starting with the big picture stuff but I did. Ryan at some point we should actually talk about this movie but I’m sure you’d like to respond to things Andy and I said.
Ryan:
I’m going to take this in parts.
I think Rogue One is two thirds of a good movie, viewed entirely on its own terms. If you had never seen a Star Wars film before, and all these inside jokes and references flew over your head, I suspect you would find the film strange, maybe even off-putting in places, but exciting, often beautiful, occasionally awe-inspiring. Look at how gorgeously rendered that fight on the Sandals Resort planet was. Watch the land rise a mile into the sky after the Death Star makes its first strike. The story is very paint by numbers, but at least Cassian and Jinn have motivations (THAT CONFLICT WITH EACH OTHER SOMETIMES). Dirty dozen set in space, with heists and guerilla warfare and sabotage and murder? Hell yeah! The first act of this movie is capital G good, right up to the moment Jinn calls out Cassian for, you know, trying to murder her dad behind her back. And then four minutes later Jinn gives a rousing speech to a roomful of people who have never met her and all is forgiven and the action begins.
It’s almost like someone butchered the second half of this film on purpose.
But no matter, seeing Imperial Walkers from the perspective of soldiers is still glorious. Spending time with the Galaxy far far away’s version of red shirts is fun. Donnie Yen is actually allowed to do martial arts. There’s a lot to enjoy.
The original Star Wars invited general moviegoing audiences to expand their imaginations. The Disney properties almost exclusively try to shrink that world. We’re not making new characters. We’re explaining where the old characters came from. We aren’t fighting new threats. We’re exploring the minutia of the old one. This film wants the audience to cheer about 30,000 times at, “That guy from that one scene!”
So what’s the middle ground here? Is there a middle ground? Or do these two halves just exist side by side, the nature of modern blockbuster filmmaking—on one side filmmakers who grew up worshiping the original films, ready like Andy with the RPG to put their own stamp on this mythos; and on the other, corporate interests desperate to work in as much brand synergy as possible? Do we choose not to listen when our senses are thrilled because we hate the larger motives? Or do we consume what’s put in front of us, just have a good time, demand nothing more even though a little more isn’t that hard to give.
Fuck man, I dunno.
Andy:
I think we are all, unsurprisingly, a lot closer to being on the same page than we might think.
Like both Ryan and Nate, I was extremely resentful of Rogue One’s premise when I first heard it. We have had several attempts to explain the Death Star plans heist over the years. It is admittedly one of the most interesting questions of A New Hope. We hear that many Bothans died- which is an incredibly dark insinuation in an otherwise feel-good story. Video games would tell us that Kyle Katarn, who was basically an alternate Luke who could do cool Jedi things without messing with the major story- was deeply involved. But for most of my life it never went beyond that.
And now we got someone here to tell us exactly how it went down- which of course means chucking out all those theories- and in some cases, Lucas approved stories- that we’d grown accustomed to. And that definitely still annoys me.
But, not to be my own devil’s advocate here- but Star Wars retcons itself ALL THE TIME- even within the films themselves. And as I get older- and more tired- I find myself caring less and less when Star Wars casually tramples over established lore for the sake of entertainment (I reserve the right to change this take after I see The Rise of Skywalker).
So what made this particular retcon sit well for me?
I think it’s a combination of originality, enthusiasm and competent filmmaking.
Now, I’m not saying the story itself is terribly original- but this film does introduce a handful of characters that I actually cared about by the end- characters I didn’t know at the beginning of the runtime!
The team behind this clearly gave a shit about Star Wars- the art direction of the worlds, the small details on things like the military gear and the ships, or, hell, the way they chose to depict the Force- that all comes from folks who gave Star Wars a ton of thought and had a very specific way they wanted to depict their idea of the saga.
To my final point…it’s just a very tightly constructed film. At times, too convenient, yes. And there are at least a few points that get chucked right out the window ‘cuz the writers have to break into a sprint to kill everyone off (I could go on for some time about how little sense the Guardians of the Whills or the Holy City made, but we’ll save that for another time). But overall? Good momentum. Writing that doesn’t make me groan. An ending that doesn’t feel cheap. Awesome acting. And, perhaps most controversially- a successful bridge into A New Hope that kinda worked for me?
I really wasn’t expecting to say that last part. But here we are.
Nate:
I’ll take the last point first. I would be a bigger fan of this movie if the last shot was Jyn and Cassian getting nuked on the beach. The last minute, giving us the literal minute before the original Star Wars opens, is too much for me. Also I hate what is contained in that last minute. The Vader murdering the redshirts scene sucks. It sucks! It is the most empty, stakes-free, masturbatory thing maybe in any Star War which is saying something. If you’re gonna have Vader go on a murder spree why not include at least one of our heroes? I hate it. Although, I will give it this. We get a comparable scene in the season two finale of Mandalorian with Luke and this scene here in Rogue One is several orders of magnitude better than that one. At least here Vader does in fact murder those redshirts real good. Okay. I think that covers all of the granular problems I have with Rogue One that I make way too big of a deal about. I watched this movie again today and prior to that, Andy had mentioned that he appreciated it as someone who ran a Star Wars RPG. I feel kinda silly needing such an explicit tip off to have realized that yes this is clearly a tabletop RPG story. And I think in that context a lot of this works. Like Ryan said, it’s Dirty Dozen in space and occasionally characters have conflicting motivations. It moves along at a nice clip. Pretty good, can’t complain too much. I definitely took issue with some of the conveniences of the story, like the pilot being insane from the empathy space octopus and then all of a sudden not being insane and suffering no long term consequences from that, Saw Guerrera deciding to die for…reasons, and also there being a very clear point in the script where it goes “okay, time for everyone to start dying!” I think my biggest issue with the script though is that third act. This is when the movie becomes a full on heist and they just skip the whole planning the heist scene. Because they have no plan. Like yes, rebellions are built on hope, but heists are built on plans. Why is there no plan! We clearly need a Rogue Zero where it’s all about getting the map of Scariff and then inserting a planning scene into this movie. Instead they just get in there, make things up as they go along, then the entire rebel fleet instantly shows up when they need to be there, everyone dies but somehow it works out. It’s a mess. It also stands in stark contrast to the direction, which I think is remarkably clear and legible. Here’s a possible hot take, but I think Gareth Edwards is Spielberg’s equal when it comes to directing spectacle and making big things feel big. He is Spielberg’s equal in nothing else, but this is something! Edwards is constantly juxtaposing large objects against way larger objects and is also pretty restrained about keeping things being shown from a human perspective. This dude introduced the Death Star for the first time in two simple, effective shots, first by tracking a TIE fighter streaking past a way bigger Star Destroyer, which looks huge in comparison, then cutting extremely wide and revealing the absolutely massive Death Star coming out of shadow behind it, again dwarfing the Star Destroyer. Simple stuff, stuff that everyone should be doing, but they don’t and so I have to appreciate it when it happens. It’s great.
Ryan:
I want to dig into something basic for a second, maybe so basic it’s off-putting.
One argument that keeps circling around these films and around popular filmmaking in general is what role should popular entertainment play in society. Reduced to its most basic, it’s Scorsese vs Marvel. Does art have an obligation to challenge or somehow inspire the audience, or can it just pornographically trigger nostalgia and excitement to no end whatsoever because life is hard and who cares? And you can probably guess where my sympathies lie based on how I worded that, but I think so many of my complaints about both movies we have discussed so far (and my love for the movie we are about to discuss) comes from my disappointment when a movie shows it’s not interested in anything other than hitting the right beats to get a familiar response. And I want to be careful, because of course nobody is saying watching or enjoying that is bad. It’s not! People should watch literally whatever makes them feel good–or maybe a better way to put that is what serves them–but some of us think film, even big Disney space film, has the potential to get under your skin by getting you inside a character’s head or challenging how you’ve watched movies before.
And what I most dislike about Rogue One is that it feints hard in this direction—it’s literally a movie about the concept of collateral damage in war in a series that always downplays that element—while pursuing the opposite instinct with every decision. Sure we are along for the ride with these nobodies, but also look, Darth Vader! Look, Tarkin! Look, the guys Obi Wan murders in the Cantina! Instead of hinting that not everything can be known or controlled or addressing war in any serious way, the film repeatedly reassures the audience that every question has an answer, every problem has an easy solution, every death is heroic and purposeful. It’s a movie about the fog of war with zero nuance that trots out big heroes and personalities because they are cool and repeatedly argues that good intentions are always sufficient and there’s always a right answer to every problem.
Nate:
CG Tarkin is an insult to life itself and the cameo of the Cantina guys sucks so hard, why are these clowns on a planet hours before it gets nuked? Dumb. Anyway, yeah those are great points you made. I was going to defend the movie a bit and say I appreciate that Rogue One is going for a different tone and storytelling method than every other movie in the saga and even if it’s not fully to my liking, I respect that, but you’re right, it’s still very much in that same mold. I think the movie you’re asking for is a rated R movie though and that ain’t happening pal.
Ryan:
You’re mostly right, but also, know what movies do a great job of this? The recent PG-13 Planet of the Apes. That third movie includes a long sequence in a concentration camp and I wasn’t there looking over the MPAA’s shoulder for sure, but so much of the nuance I would settle for is present there.
To this point, there was a particular scene that bothered me this watch that I never even noticed before. The rebels land on Jinn’s father’s planet, and right before that whole scene, they do a crash landing. It’s just a bit of chaos to keep the audience awake before the next bit of chaos. It’s like three minutes of completely forgettable, arguably bad CGI, ship crash landing footage we’ve seen in 97 other movies and shows at this point. What if instead there was just like, a scene of Cassian and Jinn bonding, forming some degree of trust before the fallout. Give me some dramatic tension, please. Set up something so that turn around after they return to Yavin 4 feels earned at all.
Andy:
I’ll backtrack just a tad here but then also try to push things forward a bit, but Nate and Ryan both bring up some great points here, especially about moments where the story really falls apart when looked at too closely.
I forgot how they killed off Saw for…reasons(???), or how the Pilot was also insane from the brain tentacles or whatever, but then just sorta got…cured…(probably because no one in the writing room could agree on how to write a person with brain damage and just…gave up). And of course the turn going into the final act of the film, where Jin and Cassian just magically make up, felt…unearned, to put it kindly. I think I mentioned this before, but I absolutely agree that at some point in the writing process, the writers got cold feet as they realized “oh hey, we really gotta start killing people!” which is weird to me, ‘cuz it wouldn’t be hard to have these nobodies just sorta…disappear at the end of the film. They didn’t have to kill everyone. Unless that’s what they were promising to start with. Was that what they were promising? I don’t even know.
I also agree that many of the moments of nostalgic callback felt unnecessary, especially when the film otherwise does such an awesome job of world building without them. The woes of CGI Tarkin…and apparently Leia, too (???) are well documented. The cantina guys coming back got a groan. I’m sure there’s more that my brain blocked out.
However, one point of nostalgia I will disagree with you guys on is the appearance of Vader. Now, bear in mind I was watching this alone in the comfort of my own home. I didn’t have to contend with the hooting and hollering of fanboys. So when Vader shows up in that dark scene, lit with his red lightsaber, it felt really damn ominous! The fear in the redshirts was absolutely palpable. And while yes, the stakes are low- obviously the plans HAVE to make it off the ship, cuz, canon- I really don’t feel like that moment was intended to be mastubatory. It felt like it was intended to be terrifying- and for the most part, I think it works! It kinda felt like a reality check to the fanboys, more than anything- like, oh, you wanna cheer Vader being back? Well here’s your reminder that Vader is a fucking monster. Have fun.
Finally, totally agree that if you look at this particular Star War as a video game/rpg, it works much better. The original story of the Death Star plan heist started in video games, with Dark Forces, and I think the EU in general informs a lot of how this film looks and feels. So I give it a lot of points for taking the good stuff from the stories that already exist.
Unless we have more to say on those subjects, one thing I’d really like to talk about is how this film portrays the force, because it’s an idea that really excites me, and I wish more Star Wars media tried to portray it the way they do in Rogue One.
Ryan -
Oh man, I kind of want to dig into what the force represents in the original films too but this could take a while and my phone is about to die and I have to remember the code of the house I need to get into is saved on said phone and I have a memory like a sieve. But yes, I think that topic is very interesting. Maybe the simpler way to address it is that I like Donnie Yen in this movie and think he’s the first martial artist I’ve seen in a Disney produced film in a very long time who actually gets to do some stuff. You remember my feelings on Chow Yung Fat in Pirates. These movies have a way of wasting that talent and working some force abilities into balletic martial arts works will and I like his character. I wish he got more to do (or that they had been braver about the romantic nature of that relationship) but all in all they could have (I would expect them to have) done it so much worse.
Andy-
The way they choose to approach the Force in this film feels much more in line with the scale of the OT. Fans have been arguing for years about why the Jedi in the prequels/sequels are absolutely ludicrous while Obi-Wan and Luke could barely lift rocks. And of course, in the prequels we got that ridiculous explanation about something something the force being cut off etc.
But the real answer, in my mind, is that the series simply lost its way as the special effects became more complex. It’s a shame, because that smaller scale Force has always been more interesting to me than the bigger stuff the films would go on to do. The idea that the Force CAN do those things, but only in rare bursts- and that more often the Force is simply this quiet power that can often be mistaken as good luck or intuition? That is the good shit. That’s what makes the death scene for the blind guardian work on a level that isn’t purely manipulative BS- you’re left wondering- was he just really lucky that he found that lever after walking through a firefight unscathed? Or was the it the Force? The film never answers- and it’s better for it.
I hope future Star Wars films take note and try to tone it back on the high jumps and lightning.
Nate:
I have nothing to add, I fully agree with all of that. It rules.
Today was my third viewing of Rogue One and this is the most I have liked the movie itself. So that’s something. Still have my problems on the macro level mostly but it’s good to remind myself that my thoughts on this movie are not as binary as I may have thought previously.
Ryan
Yeah I would say this rewatch made me bump this past Force Awakens in my official ranking.
Andy:
This film surprised me, which is nice! It’s nice to walk into something you think you’ll hate and then find out hey, that was not bad, actually. In fact, it was pretty good! Just goes to show you can’t make all your assumptions based off of Twitter and some spoiler reviews. You’d think that would be an obvious lesson, but I’m tellin ya…Star Wars discourse makes you feel like you’ve seen these films before you’ve even walked through the door.
Anyway, if I had to rank these Star Wars films so far, I’d say TLJ is probably the best original film, but Rogue One is probably my favorite based purely on my own background and interaction with pre-Disney Star Wars. And Force Awakens is terrible just terrible and looks worse with every new film I take in- and yes, that includes Solo, which we will be discussing…soonish.