Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is a mid-quel, if you will, set juuuuuust before A New Hope and starring Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Alan Tudyk, Donnie Yen, Wen Jiang, Riz Ahmed, Forest Whitaker, Ben Mendelsohn, Mads Mikkelsen, and Jimmy Smits. Possible unpopular opinion: It's the best Star Wars film.
The Empire, in the personage of Krennic (Mendelsohn) comes to collect Galen Erso (Mikkelsen), a former Empire scientist-turned-rebel, in the process killing his wife (Valene Kane) and sending his daughter Jyn (Jones, as an adult) to live with a crazy-paranoid rebel militant Saw Gerrera (Whitaker). Fast forward a bunch of years, and Erso has been browbeaten into completing his work on the Death Star, Jyn is a criminal on the run, and Saw has just taken custody of a defecting Imperial pilot Bodhi (Ahmed) and is torturing him to get information that he's happy to give up (told ya, kinda crazy).
Anyway, Cassian Andor (Luna), a rebel spy and guerrilla, gets hooked up with Jyn, as well as a couple of rebel hangers-on, Chirrut (Yen) and Baze (Jiang), and together they go to first free/kill Galen, and then steal the plans to the Death Star from a giant Dropbox planet. The movie ends with the plans getting uploaded and given to Princess Leia, and then on we go into A New Hope.
I said before that this is the best Star Wars film, and I stand by that, but there are a few caveats. The premise of the movie is basically to fill up a plot hole (to wit, why does the Death Star have an Achilles' vent?), but since it's still a Star Wars film, it opens up a few new ones (like, once the rebels were clearly so keen to get their hands on the plans, don't you think Tarkin would wonder why? Maybe not, actually, he's pretty arrogant). The dialog is worlds better than the original trilogy and, obviously, the prequels, but it's still pretty cheesy a lot of the time.
Beyond that, though, the movie hits a lot of the right notes. The costuming and feels hearkens back to New Hope without looking outdated, and it avoids the problem that the Alien films have where the ones set way in the past looking much more futuristic than the original films. Jyn Erso starts the movie as a fugitive and trusts no one, but I like that she doesn't take forever to get over the Refusal of the Call and join the Rebellion (and that her combat prowess is addressed; she was raised by Saw to be a soldier and then abandoned).
On that subject, the fact that these characters are at war comes through, mostly through Saw (during his brief screen time) and Andor. Andor is quite willing to kill a dude to avoid compromising his mission, and Saw I kinda mentioned already. But then the idealism of the Rebellion gets to come out, too, not so much in the council (who are mostly thinking of saving their own butts), but from Yen's Chirrut and Ahmed's Bodhi.
There's a kind of freedom in storytelling that comes with knowing that all of your characters are going to die and you don't have to hold anything in reserve for the sequel, and I know this is wishful thinking, but I wish Disney would embrace that a little more often. Not killing off the whole cast, necessarily, but just focusing on making one movie without always considering the franchise, because there's room enough for some standalone stuff (and hey, maybe weave that into the ongoing franchise later if necessary?). But, as long as I'm dreaming, I'd like a space-pony.
My Grade: A-
Rewatch Value: High
Next up: Romancing the Stone
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