As a long time Star Wars fan I was upset that one of 2016’s last victims was the legendary Carrie Fisher. She was such an engaging and honest personality whose contribution to the Star Wars story shouldn’t be underestimated. There was some consolation in the release of another Star Wars film though. Rogue One kept the roster of old characters to a minimum, giving a new generation of stars a chance. I’m sure the ever generous Fisher approved.
Chronologically, the film is set just before the first Star Wars film, A New Hope. The Rebel Alliance learns of the building of the Death Star – a powerful weapon central to the Star Wars movies. This places it in familiar enough territory for even the most conservative-minded fans to accept.
Character wise, however, we have a brand new group. Much of the first part of the film is introduced in setting up the new characters, especially lead character Jyn Erso, played well by Felicity Jones. It’s fair to say it takes a while to get going and is a bit over-complicated at first. I was a bit nervous that my 10 and 9 year olds wouldn’t follow it. They were fine in the end and enjoyed it, though I wouldn’t recommend for younger age groups. It would appear that in the final edit they cut out much of Jyn’s adult backstory, which may have been quite interesting: instead we get the rather predictable tragic opening sequences, which have been done to death by Star Wars, let alone the wider genre. A strong supporting cast is added as the film goes along. Personally, however, I didn’t find these characters quite as engaging as in the original movies or the more recent outing, The Force Awakens. There certainly wasn’t a totally unique character added, although K-2SO, a sarcastic ex-imperial droid with a wiped memory, came the closest.
The plot centres on an attempt to locate a weakness in the Death Star which could be exploited by the Rebel Alliance. Once it gets going, the film moves along at a good pace and has a great climax – the last half an hour or so is the best. It is certainly dark in places, but then this is nothing new. The familiar Star Wars world is recreated effectively, with enough new additions to keep us interested. Quite a number of older characters do return for brief cameos – this is generally well managed and not intrusive. One method I was less keen on was computer generated characters rather than the use of actors – this was too techie for me and ‘broke the spell’ somewhat.
All in all this was a good addition to the Star Wars canon and recommended viewing if you’ve somehow avoided it. If you are allergic to Star Wars, there is nothing here to cure you of your terrible affliction. The film does point the way to future projects. One-off stories such as this are already in the pipeline. Eventually, I hope, film-makers will be able to go off in new directions within the Star Wars universe and this film helped people to see that they can enjoy a Star Wars movie without the Skywalkers and other familiar faces in it. Not that I or many like me will ever forget that first time they fell in love with Star Wars – and the role that a certain princess from Alderaan played in that.