“Rogue One”: A Darker but Fresher tone to Star Wars
The Star Wars saga has always been a crowd pleaser. After the resurgence of the series last December with episode seven, “The Force Awakens”, LucasFilms studio will continue to rake in the money. No matter what, any Star Wars movie will be very highly anticipated. The first stand alone film out of the series, “Rogue One” is no exception. What makes this story different is, it’s fresh and darker than usual.
Coming into this, I really wasn’t all that excited compared to others. I have always been a huge Star Wars fan and have watched all of the movies, but this just wasn’t catching my eye. I became a little more optimistic when I noticed that the film received an 84 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. With a new director in Gareth Edwards as well as a new cast, I felt like it may be worth the watch.
As much as I enjoy JJ Abrams as a director, I was excited to see a different filmmaker at the helm. I thought that it would be nice to see another perspective when it came to the direction of this stand alone movie. Being that Edwards’ last directorial project was “Godzilla,” it was pretty evident that he knew how to shoot a movie. His ability was shown masterfully in this installment.
What I really enjoyed about “Rogue One” was, the fact that it wasn’t formulaic. I feel like the problem sometimes with the Star Wars saga is, the fact that there aren’t many twists and turns. Most of the time if you are a huge fan of the series, it is pretty simple to predict what may happen in the next movie based off of the last one. Being all by itself, “Rogue One” luckily didn’t have that attribute.
Despite the fact that we had a totally new cast, it didn’t take long for everyone to be integrated into the Star Wars family effectively. Felicity Jones as Jyn, Diego Luna as Cassian Andor, and Mads Mikkelson as Galen all had superb performances. It seemed like they had been a part of the franchise forever and were pros at their characters. Every character in the film represents something as well.
It’s tough to really talk about the plot and storyline because a lot happened. With that in mind, if I did talk about the story, I’d probably accidentally spoil part of the movie. So I’ll shy away from that for now. I will say this though, this Star Wars takes a lot of darker turns that the other seven never really went through. Despite it being Science Fiction, some of the movie can be related nicely to what is going on in our world right now with corruption, and standing up for something you believe in.
One thing that must be noted is the fact that there is another female actress who plays as the star in the movie. We saw this last year with Daisy Ridley playing Rae. We now see Jones take her spot as Jyn. It’s nice to see that progress is being made with regards to cinema now, especially with one of the biggest franchises of all time.
Once again, Edwards ability to shoot a movie is on full display here. He utilizes CGI intelligently, and as a result, some of the scenes were actually quite breathtaking. With all of the technology that we have today, it’s intriguing to see what filmmakers can do to create a whole different perspective on the Star Wars story.
Overall, “Rogue One” was an important stand alone in cinema history. By being able to utilize all of it’s resources with a new cast and director, fans were able to see a fresh and darker path in the franchise. The future continues to be bright for Star Wars.
