A Quality Prequel
Rogue One is the Star Wars prequel fans have been waiting 17 years for; not because it's a story that absolutely needed to be told, but because it is a solidly good film (George Lucas' own prequel films are rollercoasters of quality). It has its issues, but Rogue One is an exciting addition to the saga that opens the door for more variety in the cinematic Star Wars universe.
Set in the days leading up to the original 1977 Star Wars, Rogue One follows a team of rebels sent to find Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), the chief engineer behind the Empire's super weapon, the Death Star. Galen's daughter Jyn (Felicity Jones) reluctantly joins the mission by the Rebel Alliance, and soon finds herself at the center of the struggle that would result in the heist of the Death Star schematics; the very plans R2-D2 carries throughout the original Star Wars. Though this story is one with an ending we all know, placing fresh characters like Jyn and her fellow rebel spies at the center of the narrative keeps their fate an open question throughout the film, and helps make the whole enterprise a worthwhile one.
Felicity Jones is a strong lead, especially with the range she's afforded with a character whose father is part of such a devious regime. Jyn is the emotional center of the film, and Jones does an excellent job playing the reluctant soldier who comes to believe in the cause she's coerced into joining. Diego Luna does a fine job as Rebel Alliance intelligence officer Captain Cassian Andor. He's serious and lives in the moral gray area populated by Daniel Craig's James Bond, the kind of hero we haven't quite seen in Star Wars before. Alan Tudyk and Donnie Yen, as the sassy droid K-2SO and Force monk Chirrut Îmwe, respectively, are both charismatic and scene-stealing members of the team, while Jiang Wen's Baze Malbus and Riz Ahmed's Bodhi Rook round out the main ensemble as fine, if unremarkable good guys.
Ben Mendelsohn is terrific as Director Orson Krennic, a ladder-climbing Imperial officer struggling to receive credit for, and control over, his Death Star project within a bureaucracy ruled by more powerful individuals. Unfortunately, his arc feels underwhelming by the film's end—though Mendelsohn's performance is that of a fully realized character, he constantly struggles for progress, and that stop and start is felt in his scenes—although that may be the point, given that Krennic jockeys for power with another character. That person, a figure from the original Star Wars, is someone I'll leave unnamed for those who haven't seen the film. The actor who played the character in question has been dead since 1994, and has been resurrected here through a mix of recasting and digital makeup magic. The computer generated face of this man is good enough to pass as real, though those who know in advance will likely spend more time looking at this face (which I did) than paying attention to what he says.
And in case you're wondering, I'm not referring to Darth Vader. The Dark Lord of the Sith is alive and well in this installment, once again voiced by the incomparable James Earl Jones, and is used judiciously, though he gets a brutal showcase scene that will remind you why he's one of cinema's most iconic villains.
In that scene and throughout the entirety of Rogue One, director Gareth Edwards demonstrates that he knows how to shoot Star Wars iconography in a way that's both fresh and familiar. The spaceship dogfights still feel like a soaring throwback and the Rebel base on Yavin 4 looks just as it did in 1977, but the ground confrontations between troops have a grit not really seen before in this space opera series. Zero Dark Thirty cinematographer Greig Fraser lensed Rogue One, and he and Edwards do a terrific job of blending the color and more polished technique of George Lucas and original cinematographer Gilbert Taylor with a desaturated and rougher look that suits Rogue One's darker tale.
The final piece of the Star Wars puzzle that Rogue One largely gets right is the music. Composer Michael Giacchino—who made you cry in the opening minutes of Up and had you cheering in the latest Star Trek adventures—captures the John Williams Star Wars sound and style, crafting a handful of leitmotifs that are weaved throughout the string and horn-heavy score. Given only four weeks to compose following the departure of composer Alexandre Desplat, Giacchino does have moments in his score that sound like first drafts, but they're very few and and far between. It's a score that is overall very much at home in the larger Star Wars canon without disappearing into it.
I've now seen Rogue One three times*, and its flaws have faded more and more on each viewing. It has a hectic first act and a moderately muddled second one. The action jumps around from place to place very quickly as we're introduced to many of the new characters early on, and the transitions from scene to scene are a bit jarring (gone are the traditional screen wipes used in the main saga films). Title cards with the names of planets are included to quickly introduce new locations—a technique that cuts down on verbal exposition but which is very much outside of the norm for Star Wars—and it never feels quite right for this series. What works throughout are Rogue One's solid pacing and intriguing characters, who keep things entertaining before the film launches into its truly spectacular third act. Like the ragtag group it features, Rogue One is shaggy around the edges, but it congeals into something quite good, becoming a Star Wars prequel you'll want to revisit along with the rest of the saga for years to come.
*I highly recommend seeing this film and any future Star Wars films projected from actual film when possible. Seeing Rogue One on 70mm IMAX film lent it a softer look with a bit more film grain than is present in standard digital projections of the movie, and that extra visual texture truly made the film look like a precursor to the original Star Wars, especially as all of the new digital techniques were given an old fashioned veneer not found in most modern films (let alone blockbusters).