Well, Happy New Years everyone....albeit 16 days late. So I did see Rogue One back in Late December with my family while visiting for Christmas, and yes I might be in the minority once again with my perspective on Star Wars films post George Lucas, but I did enjoy and like the film better than The Force Awakens. So I had high expectations going into this film, and perhaps that was not a good thing, as I didn't think it was a great Star Wars film.The plot is about how the Rebels steal the death star plans to the first Imperial battle station, and all of the various characters that were a part of that endeavor. Felicity Jones plays Jyn Erso, the main character of the film. She is the daughter of one of the designers of the Death Star, and has sort of sailed the galaxy causing trouble after she was removed from her parents. Ms. Jones does a pretty good job with the character most of the time, but she ran into a problem that most of the characters ran into, Diego Luna played Cassian Andor, a very interesting and fascinating character that was a rebel commando captain of sorts from what I could gather. He was one character that more depth or focus on would have been great. Alan Tudyk played a droid K-2SO, and was single handedly the one of the best parts of the film. Humorous, clever, and interesting; he had all of the elements of a great character, but once again suffered a flaw. Donnie Yen played the blind man who was a Jedi wannabe, and Wen Jiang played Baze Malbus who protected him. Both were completely irrelevant and shouldn't have even been in the film at all. Ben Mendelsohn played Director Orson Krennic, and he was indeed my favorite character. He had the look, the command, relatively good dialog and story, but he should have been the primary and only villain. Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin crowded him out of the top spot, and his ending wasn't really that great. Forest Whitaker as Saw Garrera was another pointless character that shouldn't have been in the film, although they could have re-worked his character to make it better. Riz Ahmed as Bodhi Rook (the defecting Imperial pilot) was another pointless character unfortunately. Mads Mikkelsen (Galen Erso), Jimmy Smits (Bail Organa), and Genevieve O'Reilly (Mon Mothma) were all fantastic to see in the film and did amazing jobs, although it would have been nice to see more of them, and perhaps see the Imperial Senate at work rather than just hear about it.
The major problem of this film was it had too many characters at the forefront all vying for screen time which made it all come across rather weak and pointless at times. It was all entertaining, but not necessarily put together the best possible way. Gareth Edwards did great as a director with Godzilla (2014 version) and I thought he would knock it out of the park with this film, but not really. The screenplay was mediocre at best, which was written by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy; it could have been much better. Michael Giacchino disappointed me greatly with his score for the film. I thought he would be a perfect fit and channel the creative might of John Williams, but the score for the most part is just a cacophony of brass with no really notable themes or motifs, which is an insult to Star Wars as a great score is highly important for any film in the franchise. The cinematography by Greig Fraser was pretty good at capturing the grittiness of the young rebellion, and the imperiousness of the Galactic Empire. The costume design was amazing, and I have to say that the Death Troopers and Director Krennic's outfits took home the gold for me, which were done by David Crossman and Glyn Dillon. The special effects by Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) were incredibly impressive, and notably bringing Governor Tarkin and a young Princess Leia to life will forever be burnished in people's memories. The 3-D was negligible, I don't even remember anything impressive about the fact that it was in that format. The action of the film was mediocre; nothing really overly cool or exciting really, or even new and dynamic, aside from seeing Darth Vader brandishing his lightsaber.In essence, Rogue One was a commercial success for Disney, and thus many more films relating to Star Wars will be made until they have sucked the very life out of it. Oh, by the way, the ending of the film sucked; I'm not a fan of everyone dying, literally. It was like watching the Titanic sink. Once again, I will be in the minority when I write this, but I believe the single element that is missing that would have made this film and The Force Awakens great is George Lucas. Now maybe not at the director's helm, but definitely as executive producer and story writer and have someone else direct but have it be his vision. He created Star Wars, and thus he is the only person who knows what characterizes the franchise and what does not, although there might be one other individual who has that ability as he was trained by George (Dave Filoni). It should be interesting to see how the next 2 "saga" films are like and then the subsequent "anthology" films. In regards to news and what not happening in the world currently, I think everyone should gird themselves and prepare for a very interesting year. If there is one thing an enemy loves seeing in it's foe, it is chaos and seeing them divided rather than unified; and I assure you that is something that will be taken advantage of unless the citizens of the United States of America come together and push on as one. God protect us all.
How Tarkin and Princess Leia were created for Rogue One
Rogue One trailer
Interviews with Mads Mikkelsen & Ben Mendelsohn
