Rogue One

           Whelp, I saw Rogue One early. It was entertaining, but nothing special. I liked a lot of the characters. The acting was really decent. What killed this movie was the writing and fanfare. There were five writers for this movie, and I think all of them failed to reach the expectation this movie deserved.

            The Director, Gareth Edwards, tried his best. He had a lot of really cool shots. The action scenes were very well done, but I can’t take a war zone serious when everyone’s guns are going PEW! PEW! PEW! Stormtroopers drop like flies, literally. Twenty troopers are standing one second, and then dead on the floor the next. Gareth Edwards also tried to add his own creativity to the franchise, which makes sense because all of the other Star Wars directors have added little things, but Edwards’ additions don’t make any sense. One scene, there’s an army of stormtroopers with a tank. A tank! Not an AT-ST, but a clunky, wide, slow, and wasteful tank. It made no sense except for the scene. What’s worse is when the tank is destroyed an AT-ST comes in and does the tank’s damage to the rebels ten fold. Edwards added another type of Tie-Fighter, which makes no sense because there are already three different types. He also adds a bunch of useless aliens with boring home planets. Am I the only one who doesn’t like how every planet in this galaxy can support life?

            Felicity Jones is pretty good, she plays a strong role but not as important or effective as Ray or Luke. The guy character that is with her is pretty forgettable. Most supporting characters were way better than him. There’s a blind monk that is pretty fun, and his trusty big-gunned comrade is interesting as well. There’s a sarcastic robot, and the bad thing is that he was the most round character in the entire movie. A robot outperforming critically acclaimed actors is pretty upsetting.

            The writing was terrible. They wrote it like a playwright, not like a movie. If one single person was talking, even if they were an extra, not a single thing could interrupt them. The movie goes on and it’s like some lines were added in post as voice over and it does not fit at all. The blind monk gets a bag put over his head and he screams, “Are you kidding me! I’m blind!” Yeah it might have been funny if he said it on set with normal audio, but it’s blasted into your ears with a voice over feel.

            The last qualm I have is the fanfare. It’s all over the place. C3-PO is in this movie and that scene deserves the opposite of a ‘pat on the back.’ The two criminals that attack Luke in episode four, one of them gets their arm sliced off from Obi-Wan, bump into the main character on a completely different planet. This movie is supposed to take place a week or two before A New Hope, so why are all of those characters on these boring planets? Fanfare. That’s the only reason.

             What this movie did best, and I am praising this, is that they explained a lot of stuff that was iffy on A New Hope and The Force Awakens. There were several tie-ins with the death star and how it was built because it was actually the plot of the movie, and those tie-ins I really liked because they added something. I don’t want to explain them because they have a lot to do with the plot, but they were really well done. Darth Vader was in this movie, barely, but he’s in it. What a powerful guy he was too, he mopped the floor one scene and it was awesome. There is one scene where he’s force choking the main bad guy, because he’s a mopey wimp, and Darth Vader says a pun. I hated that line, but other than that Darth Vader was spectacular. I already referenced the action scenes being great. Several ‘turning points’ in the action were kind of dumb (look out for a hammer ship), but nothing too big to rant about.

            Over all, this movie was good. The only reason I would see it again was because I had front a row seat in the theater and had a bad view of the screen. 6.5/10 stars because they should have hired different writers. What is most notable about this movie is it makes A New Hope and Force Awakens that much better, and that’s great!