Rogue One review: this is the first Star Wars movie to acknowledge the whole franchise is about war

[rug]

It’s often incoherent and messy. But it’s also beautiful and has a strong central theme.

by Todd VanDerWerff
Dec 13, 2016, 12:00pm EST

People die in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. A lot of them.

They die horrible deaths in spaceship crashes. They’re cut down by light sabers. They’re obliterated by giant explosions. They die brutally and nastily and quickly. They die, as most of us do, with unfinished business. In one terrible sequence, whole swaths of people are mowed down by an advancing enemy, as they try desperately to accomplish the one thing they need to do to get the Death Star plans to the Rebel Alliance.

Oh, yes, this is a Star Wars movie — the first of Lucasfilm’s new “anthology” entries to the franchise, which will tell stories in and around the established Star Wars universe. Rather than picking up where last year’s The Force Awakens left off, Rogue One tells the story of how the Rebels got the Death Star plans in the first place, the one that set the plot of 1977’s Star Wars in motion and kicked off this entire saga.

As such, the movie is caught between the artistic impulses of its director, Gareth Edwards, and its corporate masters. Sometimes, it’s a beautifully constructed antidote to years and years of fake, digitized movie destruction, with precisely crafted frames and genuinely groundbreaking cinematography. At other times, it’s a bumpily edited mess that was too-obviously assembled in post-production from a variety of possible outcomes.

http://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/13/13928900/rogue-one-review-star-wars

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. There was me thinking "Wars" in the title meant something about the franchise

Or "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened" in the first film was war-related in some way.

[rug]

2. I thought it was about squabbling robots.

[NWCorona]

5. ...

[NWCorona]

3. Right? You can't get more violent that blowing up an entire planet.

[rug]

4. It underscores the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek.

Not to start trouble.

[NWCorona]

6. Agreed!

[erpowers]

7. George Lucas Said

George Lucas said the story was originally about the relationship between father and son. That is supposedly why he left production of the show after he sold his company to Disney. He claimed Disney wanted to take the movie franchise in a different direction away from the father/son relationship; he opposed that idea. As a result he cut ties with the franchise. It seems he does not like the recent movies.

[rug]

8. That's interesting.

I remember reading a review of the first one where the reviewer was drawing some overwrought parallels to classic Greek tragedies.

[47of74]

9. Saw it this evening

I thought it was a good movie.

I've got my Star Wars fix until next year (assuming Cheetopatine hasn't destroyed us all with his flailing around).