Thursday 26 October 2017

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

I find it almost impossible to give a truly critical appreciation of this film (or perhaps any Star Wars movie). The amount that's been written about it already makes any comment I might have either inevitable or insignificant. After all, even the trailers for new Star Wars films are analysed over agonisingly (see comments about the trailer of The Last Jedi for proof). There is something in particular about Rogue One, however, that makes it difficult to assess. Although I'm sure the writers/director aimed for the film to be able to stand on its own in some way, it can never really do so, and certainly not for someone who's seen the original films many times. Rogue One is so inextricably bound up with A New Hope that you can't pull them apart. Yes, the plot sort of makes sense on its own, but from the bigger picture of the Death Star, the rebellion, Darth Vader himself, right down to characters glimpsed on the street, games played in the background, and homes built in the same style, you can't escape the original Star Wars here. Even the word 'hope' becomes the key theme of this film. So, I would like to say that the acting is not brilliant, that some of the speeches are poorly written (particularly Jyn's speech before battle), and that the CGI characters are unnecessary and distracting. Nonetheless, the interweaving with the original film is so cleverly done, and in a way that it adds to but does not detract from it, that none of these criticisms seem to matter. The film is almost like an annex to another book. It gives you all the information you wanted, but leaves you wanting just enough more, and leaves you wanting to return to the original again. Give that this, I guess, is what the creators of the film intended from the start, then we have to say they've done an amazing job.

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