![]() The main Rebel Alliance character, Captain Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), murders his own informant in his very first scene. ![]() While there’s no one right answer, here’s what it comes down to for this child of the Star Wars generation: In all previous Star Wars movies, one side wore black hats and the other white it was always clear, not only which were the bad guys, but also which were the good guys. Watch how he dodges blaster fire before anyone pulls a trigger clearly he has the “Jedi trait” of “seeing” things before they happen, even if he can’t see with his eyes.Īll this raises a question: When is a Star Wars movie not a Star Wars movie? Except, of course, that this is a Star Wars movie with no Jedi, so it’s really like if The Magnificent Seven featured Toshiro Mifune and no Western gunslingers.Ĭhirrut goes into action rattling off the mantra “The Force is with me. I am one with the Force.” Is there room in Star Wars for mystical warrior-monks who are devoted to the Force but aren’t Jedi? What are they then? Some sources claim that Chirrut isn’t actually a “Force sensitive.” This seems absurd. The effect is a bit like if you were watching Seven Samurai and suddenly John Wayne strolled in. Also funny, and pretty cool, is Hong Kong superstar Donnie Yen ( Iron Monkey) as Chirrut Îmwe, a blind warrior-monk who is basically a Star Wars version of Zatoichi, the blind swordsman.Ĭhirrut Îmwe is an odd presence because he embodies the Asian mystical warrior-monk archetype that inspired the Jedi in the first place, but he’s not a Jedi and uses a cane instead of a lightsaber. Much of the humor comes from Alan Tudyk as a deadpan robot named K-2SO, a reprogrammed Imperial droid who’s so tough and effective in battle that it’s unclear why the Empire doesn’t replace their incompetent battle droids and stormtroopers with K-2s. There’s nothing wrong with that, I guess. ![]() Much like a typical Marvel movie, Rogue One is diverting enough while it’s unfolding, with a canny blend of action, humor and fan service, to send crowds away with smiles, perhaps debating the implications for canonical continuity, but neither greatly disappointed nor much changed. Whether an art or a science, Disney seems to have it down: this process of crafting competent franchise films that are good enough. Like Disney’s first Star Wars outing, The Force Awakens, the protagonist of Rogue One is a tough, capable young woman - but where Rey was unusually strong in the Force, Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is not Force adept at all. There are no lightsaber duels indeed, no lightsabers at all, until a brief flash of red at a critical moment. What doesn’t feel like Star Wars? Rogue One is the first Star Wars movie with no Jedi, the Jedi order having been destroyed in Revenge of the Sith and Yoda and Obi-Wan now AWOL (while Luke is presumably bullseyeing wamp rats in his T-16 and wasting time with his friends at Tosche station on Tatooine). The last act resembles the finales of the least-loved entries of each of the two finished trilogies to date, Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and Episode I: The Phantom Menace, intercutting between coordinated space and surface battles but this, at least, feels like Star Wars. There’s a Death Star, of course - the original - and a lot of familiar hardware, locations and faces, some more surprising than others. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is the first big-screen Star Wars movie without an opening crawl or an episode number, because Episode III.IX would look rather strange, don’t you think? It doesn’t pick up where Episode III leaves off, or anywhere very familiar, but the destination is very well known indeed, which is an interesting dramatic challenge for the filmmakers.
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