When Disney acquired Star Wars from George Lucas, they decided to release one movie each year at Christmas. This started with Episode 7, The Force Awakens. In addition to the main movies (the “episodes”), we would also get movies that touch up more on the mythos of the franchise. Rogue One was just the first of these. Because it is the most recent Star Wars movie released, I have chosen it to end my retrospective. I don’t think I’ll be able to see The Last Jedi before the end of the year, so I will wait for the DVD.
Rogue One takes place before the very first Star Wars movie and follows a team of rebels attempting to retrieve the plans for the first Death Star (because Return of the Jedi has a Death Star too).
While I did enjoy this movie because of the score, I could not enjoy it as much as the others. I have three problems with the movie. First, there’s not enough action. All the other movies, even the prequels, were action-packed. But this has too much story, not much action.
The second problem is the cameos. We see Princess Leia, Darth Vader, and other characters we’re familiar with. The cameos felt like the writers weren’t confident in the characters onscreen, so they thought if they threw in the characters we knew, we’d overlook the flaws.
My main problem is that I kept wondering why I’m supposed to care about the characters. While the story did draw me in, I didn’t feel a connection to the rebel squad. The story went too fast and didn’t balance itself correctly.
I don’t understand why people want George Lucas back on this. These same people were the ones who didn’t like the prequels because George Lucas didn’t rein himself in. And now they want him back? He’s basically doing what Andy did in Toy Story 3. Andy grew up, but didn’t want to his toys destroyed, not when he could share them with someone else. So he gave them to a little girl, and the toys had a new home and a new child to love them. This is the same situation.
Aspie Catholic 