‘Rogue One’ (2016): A Star Wars Rough-Cut

Directed by: Gareth Edwards || Produced by: Kathleen Kennedy, Allison Shearmur, Simon Emanuel

Screenplay by: Chris Weitz, Tony Gilroy || Starring: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Riz Ahmed, Jiang Wen, Forest Whitaker

Music by: Michael Giacchino || Cinematography: Greig Fraser || Edited by: John Gilroy, Colin Goudie, Jabez Olssen || Country: United States || Language: English

Running Time: 133 minutes

If you ever wondered why the Star Wars (1977, 1980, 1983) franchise was so deliberate in its feature-film release schedule (e.g. 16 years between Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace [1999], ten years between Revenge of the Sith [2005] and The Force Awakens [2015]) despite its overwhelming cinematic influence and unmatched brand recognition, the answer to that riddle is George Lucas himself. Lucas could never seem to decide whether he wanted to treat the property as a product or a personal “auteur-project” first, and much of that artistic indecision and insecurity led to the industrial commodification of Star Wars in terms of merchandise, but veritable peaks and valleys in terms of box office visibility.

With the acquisition of Star Wars by Disney through its purchase of Lucasfilm, the franchise is in more stable, albeit more industrialized hands than ever. If non-comic book fans like me have to put up with years’ worth of marketing, discussion, and mainstream legitimization of properties I otherwise couldn’t care less about (e.g. Marvel), then it’s only fair I get to have a yearly Christmas celebration of new Star Wars movies, even if none come close to matching the franchise’s peak, The Empire Strikes Back. All I need is good, not great.

Top: Donnie Yen (center) prepares to school a host of Stormtroopers. Bottom: A follower of the Dark Side(?) kneels before You-Know-Who.

And that brings us to Rogue One, the first in the proposed line of Star Wars spinoffs, or anthology films, separate from their primary line of “episodic” installments. Rogue One follows the untold story of how the fabled Death Star plans first made their way into the hands of the rebellion’s Princess Leia and later, R2-D2. It is also arguably the first Star Wars film to be “plot-driven” rather than character-driven, relying on world-building and atmospheric conflicts to drive its narrative forward. Each of the main characters here, from quasi-lead Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) to Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) to baddie Director Krennic (an effective Ben Mendelsohn) to Chinese-pandering characters Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen to former Imperial pilot Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed), are in service to the main plot, not the other way around.

Much discussion has already ensued concerning the depth, personality, and likability of this ensemble cast in comparison to the franchise’s unforgettable classic characters in past installments (we’re ignoring the Prequels [1999, 2002, 2005], of course), but I feel these debates miss the point of the film; Rogue One plays more like a guerrilla warfare espionage-thriller than your standard science-fantasy adventure story. Rogue One (henceforth, R1) checks all the necessary fan-service and “used-future” aesthetic boxes it has to, but is otherwise uninterested in replicating, beat-for-beat, the same blockbuster formulas of previous films and most box office-friendly blockbusters in general, and that’s what I like about it. This change in storytelling style works because, unlike George Lucas with his infamous Prequels, director Gareth Edwards and screenwriters Chris Wreitz and Tony Gilroy (… as well as many uncredited contributors, I’m sure) are competent at designing an intriguing story, staging interesting battle sequences, and creating effective characters, even if they aren’t the stars of the show.

The problems with R1 have to do with its somewhat inconsistent, somewhat muddled editing and overall story structure, which may have to do with the much gossiped reshoots and alleged leadership arguments that took place this past summer (2016). Screenwriter Tony Gilroy is alleged to have had much influence in the final cut of the film, particularly its ending, and is said to have led the reshoots in lieu of Edwards. Reshoots in and of themselves are rarely a big deal, especially with big-budget studio films like this, but for someone other than the director to have that much (again, alleged) control on re-edits is unusual and, in my opinion, reflects in the theatrical release.

R1’s main weakness is its disjointed story and obvious re-edits. Forest Whitaker was featured prominently in the film’s marketing, but is barely in the movie itself, and both his subplot and relationship with Jones feel ancillary at best to the main plot. It feels like there’s an entire backstory missing here, given how much weight is placed on his character through expository dialogue, but never shown. Additionally, R1’s final act consists of the tropical island set-piece where the titular squad steals the Death Star plans, but their mission is intercut with an extensive space battle that is has little to do with our principal characters. None of our main cast is directly involved in this space battle, its action and choreography aren’t as interesting as the shootouts on the ground, and feels like it could have been excised from the final act altogether.

To that end, brief cameos throughout featuring classical Star Wars characters are inconsistent. Some are harmless, while others, including CGI re-creations of Peter Cushing as Gran Moff Tarkin and Carrie Fisher as a young Princess Leia, are distracting. Like the final action-scene with Darth Vader, they feel mysteriously shoe-horned into the the final cut. Meanwhile, the principal ensemble cast feel serviceable at best and forgettable at worst. They’re nowhere near the dull bore of the Prequels’ casts, but they lack the heart of the Original Trilogy’s and the spunk of The Force Awakens.’

Run, run, you rebel scum.

In the end, Rogue One is yet more proof that even a corporate owned Star Wars spinoff milking the series’ brand name is superior to a wannabe-auteur George Lucas project. For all the alleged Disney executive meddling, attention to storytelling basics and Gareth Edward’s penchant for grounded action-scenes see this first Star Wars anthology story to the finish line. It’s not exactly the raw, visceral franchise expansion that The Empire Strikes Back was and that some are making this out to be, nor is it the smooth blockbuster throwback that The Force Awakens needed to be, but it works well enough on its own terms. Put another way, that last scene with Vader kicking ass is more than a little hokey and sure isn’t necessary, but it sure does look cool. I’d say that sums up the film as a whole. It’s a better “franchise-expansion” than Doctor Strange (2016), in any case.

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SUMMARY & RECOMMENDATION: Where as The Force Awakens was a solid sequel instead of the glorified fan-fiction that franchise devotees feared, Rogue One is big-budget fan-fiction done right, expanding on established iconography with stylistic changes where appropriate and a sense of scale that stays grounded, for the most part. 

— However… Rogue One’s story feels truncated in certain sections and with regards to certain characters, namely Forest Whitaker as an anti-Imperialist revolutionary whom we never get to know. The finale echoes Return of the Jedi’s three-way cross-cutting to the point of borderline incoherence. CGI reenactments of Peter Cushing and Princess Leia, as well as other cameos, are on-the-nose.

—> ON THE FENCE

? Any chance of a fan-edit?