2.5 passable-returns-to-a-far-away-galaxy out of 4
Director Gareth Edwards has devoted quite a bit of press time to explaining that his Rogue One is different from other films in the Star Wars universe, because his film is actually a war movie.
According to Edwards, the film is a throwback to movies where a band of soldiers fight together to take on impossible odds, an imposing totalitarian state, and a far more powerful military force.
In many respects, Rogue One bears resemblance to those great war films of the past, but while its effects and direction are superb, it fails where others succeed: themes and character.
Chronologically, Rogue One takes place between the third and fourth Star Wars episodes. For all intents and purposes, it tells the story of a group of rebel soldiers attempting to dismantle the totalitarian Galactic Empire before the Empire is able to finalize their work on their greatest monstrosity: a space station—not a moon—named the Death Star.
I say for all intents and purposes, because the film isn’t so much about the ragtag group of rebel soldiers, led by Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor and Felicity Jones’s Jyn Erso, attempting to locate blueprints capable of destroying the Death Star, as it is about the general cultural milieu produced by the presence of a galactic superpower with a weapon capable of wiping out an entire planet.
This is a film that some critics have referred to as the “darkest entry in the cinematic Star Wars saga.”This is a true analysis, because the film’s overall tone is more harrowing than in previous outings. However, much of what creates Rogue One tonal maturity is not the Rebel Alliance’s struggles for legitimacy or even the difficulties associated with taking down the Empire, but how the film attempts to explore the day-to-day routine of living under a totalitarian regime.
For the first time, we see examples of the Galactic Empire’s work camps; we explore their monotonous bureaucratic structure; and we even see engineers and scientists toast the completion of a superweapon. Make no mistake, Edwards is no Kafka and Rogue One is no In the Penal Colony, but the film is nonetheless often quite dull.
Further, Rogue One is a film less concerned with its story than it is with its overall themes and delivery. That being said, it encounters a thematic problem almost immediately. “War is hell” is a powerful tagline—indeed, it might even be a quote that one can transform into a functioning thesis statement.As the glue necessary to create a feature-length film that runs a hefty 133 minutes, “War is hell” as a thesis simply isn’t powerful enough.
Of course, Rogue One isn’t a film entirely concerned with pain and suffering; the film is about hope and every character makes no small effort to constantly remind other characters, and therefore the audience, that the flower of hope can bloom in even the most arid desert.
Thematically, the focus on hope is equally problematic, however, because the characters are so paper-thin that it becomes quite difficult to really care if they live or die.
This problem is further compounded by the fact that most audiences know how this story ends and most audiences know that none of these characters appear in any other Star Wars movie. This wouldn’t even be an issue, except that Edwards places substantial emphasis on Rogue One’s place in the Star Wars chronology, with constant references to the previous (and therefore subsequent) films. Rogue One tries so hard to signify its own importance—its own necessity—that it becomes a constant reminder that it truly is a film that never needed to be made.
And then we get to the last half-hour of the movie, and everything starts blowing up.
No, seriously, Rogue One’s final act is full of a loud, bombastic score; jaw-dropping special effects; soaring aerial and land battles; and all of the “war” promised in Star Wars.
As the Rebel Alliance does battle with the Galactic Empire, Edwards amps up his direction, transforming what was a relative slog into a fast-paced cavalcade of sound and energy. It is here, on the tropical planet Scarif that Edwards taps into an entire generation of war films and emulates that harrowing sense of impossibility—that feeling that war is a pointless endeavour for all parties.
It is also on Scarif where the film’s story comes to a close, and the audience is spared from enduring any more of Rogue One’s frequent monotony.
Photo courtesy of Disney.