Gareth Edwards 2016 Rogue One: A Star Wars Story lives up to its expectations in the Star Wars franchise, with an incredible narrative with character development and editing that allows it to fit into the main narrative of Star Wars. However, I will also be looking at Rogue One: A Star Wars Story by itself and what a non-Star Wars fan would think of it.
Firstly, we will look at Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as an addition to the overall narrative to Star Wars. This film answers a lot of questions as to how the rebels struggle in the fight against the imperial empire, filling in the details before the start of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. We meet new characters who join the fight against the empire and see how they pass on the death star plans to the characters in Episode IV. We also have a side story where the character Jyn Erso’s (Felicity Jones) is in search of her freedom and her father, Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen). As the narrative goes on, we see Jyn Erso struggle against the empire and any freedom fighters who want to use her for bargaining against the empire. We see other characters like Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen) and Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen) had everything taken from them by the empire. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story presents a darker tone in the franchise, a feeling of hopelessness that characters carry throughout the film, presenting that it is useless to resist the empire, or should I say dark side?
The editing in the film is more defined compared to the other Star Wars films, with the blaster bolts and the space scenes look more realistic. However, as I researched about the production of the film, most of the sets were filmed in different locations instead of relying on the green screen, like the islands of Gan and Baresdhoo, Wadi Rum and London. The explosions on ground battles were real, and the aliens that were in the film were people in masks. Gareth Edwards just shows how you do not always need to use CGI for an action scene, I am seriously impressed with the production of the film, as this is also how George Lucas filmed Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back and Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, going out to locations to film a real set. However, Guy Henry as the infamous Wilhuff Tarkin was good for the voice acting, but the use of CGI to recreate him just did not work, as the detail on the face was obviously special effects that were not human, this is the only downfall of CGI in the film.
The acting throughout the film in my opinion was just right, nobody seemed to go over-the-top or doing a shabby job. Felicity Jones does an impressive job as she presents a strong woman who develops from just looking out for herself in an aggressive way to a team player, which also goes on to try and save the galaxy where nobody else will. Donnie Yen did a great job as he had to pretend to be blind, while trying to see through the contacts he used was said to be irritating to wear for him. Jiang Wen also had some difficulty acting, as English isn’t his first language and struggled with pronunciation, even then, I think he said his lines well and presented his character the right way for the tough atmosphere. The fight scenes were impressive as well, whether it was shouting in a x-wing or shooting on the beaches, the fights looked intimidating to go up against, where the fear of dying but the need to carry out the mission is presented to be real, where we see how terrifying it would be as a ground troop.
So far, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is an intriguing film with a lot that goes into it, but looking at this as a non-Star Wars fan who may not have even heard of it (I know, there are people who are like this, unbelievable), the film is not good. The film just jumps into the story of Jyn Erso and how she was separated from her father, and then jumps the present day where she is grown up. The film is not structured for an audience of non-Star Wars fans, because there is no proper explanation of why there are rebels or what the empire does to upset the citizens that makes them go rogue. We get some vague explanations of what the empire does, since we never see it from the empires perspective. I hate to say it, but Rogue One: A Star Wars Story cannot stand by itself to an audience that has not seen the rest of the franchise, especially when the big characters like Wilhuff Tarkin and Darth Vader (James Earl Jones, Spencer Wilding and Daniel Naprous) turn up and not really explained of how important they are. Not to mention, the use of CGI to create Wilhuff Tarkin would not be understood by the non-Star Wars fans, unless they know about Peter Cushing as the original actor who passed away on 11th August 1994, obviously not able to make the role in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Another small issue to this film is the lack of trailer shots that were used in the final product. The Star Wars fans could not guess fully of how the film would turn out, as most of the trailers were just for advertisements, although this can be good as it does not give the story away and keeps the audience wanting to watch the film. This shocked the fans when they wanted to see the scenes from the trailers in the final product, though the film was still a massive success without the trailer shots.
Overall, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is a good film as Gareth Edwards used character development, more details to fill in the overall Star Wars narrative, use of filming locations and editing of CGI to attract Star Wars fans. However, there is a problem with how the film is structured towards non-Star Wars fans, as the story does not explain itself to them. In my opinion, the film was successful and fits in the Star Wars franchise well.
Jack's film reviews co 