Rogue One - It's all about the Death Star, baby!

Rogue One – A Star Wars Story is, after Fantastic Beasts, the other inevitable major movie-franchise event this winter. Although this iteration of Star Wars disguises itself as a spinoff, it follows pretty much the well-established routine of Rebels vs. Empire with quirky robot sidekicks, dogfights and vast battlefields thrown into the mix.

The Empire seeks to destroy all opposition. Source.

One year after the release of The Force Awakens, which felt like a minute reenactment of Episode IV but set after the events of the first six movies and with a predominantly female cast, the story focuses this time on a period shortly before the events of Episode IV. The protagonist, a Leia-like young woman named Jin Erso (Felicity Jones), happens to be the daughter of Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), the architect of – you guessed it – the Death Star. Oh, Star Wars. You will never get over this thing, will you? I do hope that the next Star Wars movie comes up with a different plot, but probably in vain.

Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) wants his Death Star finished. Source.

Put on the sepia filter, darling, things are getting serious

 

The movie starts on a vast, green field, but the grey sky, heavy wind and the arrival of Shadowtroopers lead by sinister Empire-Commander Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) sets the uniquely sinister tone for this movie. They abduct Jin's father to make him finish the Death Star, but his main function is to look sad and humble - a terrible waste on such a terrific actor as Mikkelsen. His daughter manages to escape. We meet her again during a fight between the Empire and the rebels. Soon afterwards, we witness an ambush against Empire forces in a pretty Arabian-looking place on some desert moon, reminiscent of the news coverage on conflicts in the Middle East. 

Jin Erso (Felicity Jones) and her rebel friends. Source.

Rogue One puts a great emphasis on the depiction of bombastic battles and cuts down on the humour. A striking example for this change of tone is K2-SO who used to be an imperial droid but was programmed to be rebel-friendly. Robots are typically comic relief characters in Star Wars, but K2-SO’s comedy predominantly relies on the ridiculous robotic precision and sarcastic tone of C-3PO and combines it with a rather dark and uncanny design far from the quaint ball named BB-8 and, in addition to that, is a lot more violent than harmless R2-D2. K2-SO is, nevertheless, a rather sympathetic character. 

 

K2-SO doesn't trust Jin. Source.

This leads me to another typical Star Wars dilemma: I cannot empathize with most characters. Jin Erso is not particularly charismatic and half of the cast seem to be surrogate fathers to her, but there is no such thing as (fatherly) love to be felt anywhere. I can live with that, but I did not know whom to side with in particular (apart from the obvious mantra: Rebels = good, Empire = bad!). Even some of the more interesting characters such as the blind, mysterious Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) seem underdeveloped. Among all these empty shells, we get a little glimpse on Darth Vader, and it feels like a friend coming to rescue you from a lame party where nobody bothers to acknowledge your existence - but he won't stay for long, and you are on your own again in less-than friendly territory. To put it politely: I think that the runtime of the movie (133 min) could have been used more efficiently.

  

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story offers action and spectacle, but not a whole lot more, and hardcore Star Wars fans will be perfectly fine. Everyone else may skip this one, it's alright, but it's not a must-see.