Rouge One Review: The Expansion Pack
Spoilers Ahead!
Author's Note: I don't feel particularly adept at doing movie reviews. Oftentimes my feelings towards a movie are complex and ever-changing. There are people who do this professionally. I do it as a hobby. SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How do I feel about Rouge One? Conflicted. My cinematic movie experiences are usually two sided; with a light and a dark side. The light side draws strength from the movie's ability to appeal to my inner 13-year old.. The dark side draws strength from the movies ability to appeal to my inner film critic (his age is around 57). The two sides often debate each other, and a movie is truly excellent when they are in consensus. Sometimes the light side breaks rank and declares a movie great despite showing numerous cinematic flaws. (Step Brothers) Sometimes the dark side seizes control and declares a movie good even though I have to admit I had no fun watching it. (There Will Be Blood)
The Light Side
The movie was a LOT of fun! I felt like it was truer to the originals than any Star Wars movie so far. Which is weird because it lacked Jedi, the force, and lightsaber battles. The sequels were just hot CGI messes, and TFA was just a repackaged version of the originals. I liked Rouge One because it introduced us to so many new things. Things we neither expected or demanded.
The movie gave us to not one, not two, but many planets! (I didn't count how many, I think like 3 or 4 maybe). Each world was unique and contributed to the overarching story in its own way. There was a lot of action in this movie and by spreading it over several planets it gave itself a big enough stage to pull it all off.
The movie gave us a lot of new characters. After 20 minutes of TFA I just wanted to tell the movie, "I get it. These are the old characters, these are the new ones. They're literally passing the torch. I get it, I get it." A lot of the new characters die and I love that. It means they served their purpose and moved on. They left it all on the field. They were momentary flashes of brilliant light, and once spent, they moved on. Death done correctly in movies can add a lot to the story.
The movie gave us a number of new ships and vehicles. It even gave us a new harrowing perspective on classic vehicles. All the familiar craft were there as well and it I would say the dogfights were amazing. Yes there were plenty of little crafts that bit it but at one point, two Star Destroyers crash into each other and punch a hole in a planetary shield. Very cool.
I started writing this right after watching the movie but I didn't finish. It's been too long now for me to continue writing a faithful review. I will tie this one off by just giving it my new rating system for movies.
| Story | 6 - | It's a side story to a larger one and not super well expanded on. |
| Character Development | 6 | - Lot's of characters, too little development. They focus on the star but not enough on the other characters which are oftentimes more interesting. |
| Cinematography | 8 - | Disney's customary polished look. |
| Acting | 8 | - It wasn't bad acting, but no chills and no particularly quotable lines. |
| Fun | 9.5 - | Lots of space battles, didn't think it looked too CG. |
| Score: | 7.5 |
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