The Force is strong with 'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story'

Star Wars, nothing but Star Wars...

A friend of mine once forever changed the way I think about Star Wars movies. He suggested to me that the best way to understand them is to replace every instance of "The Force" in dialogue with "the plot." He believed that the Force, whatever its pseudo-/quasi-mystical qualities, was also always a way to ensure that whatever needed to happen in the story happened, and that people and events important in the narrative got the attention their writers and creators thought they needed. Thus, to say one character is "strong with the Force" is to say that he or she is "strong with the plot." When Ben Kenobi, in A New Hope, says that "the Force is what gives a Jedi his power," he actually means that "the plot is what gives Jedi his power." When Yoda, in Empire Strikes Back, says that "my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is," he's really saying "my ally is the plot. And a powerful ally it is." And so on.*

I bring this up not to cast fundamental doubts on the soundness or enjoyability of Star Wars movies; the fact that I have an entire category dedicated to them on this blog suggests that I do, in fact, like and enjoy them. I mention it because the circumstances that have given us Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the most recent Star Wars movie, have put me in mind of this sense of compulsion and willed obligation. For, as I wrote last week, Rogue One is the first Star Wars spin-off of the property's new era under the ownership of Disney. It is a prequel, but one that does not focus on the Skywalker family,* or directly advance the story continued most recently with last year's The Force Awakens. The entire purpose of Rogue One is, in fact, to make money--oh, and also, to explain in film length the following lines from A New Hope's opening crawl:

It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire.
During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.

Rogue One, then, is not only a property willed into existence mostly by the profit motive, based on a few throwaway lines from a nearly 40-year-old movie, but also a movie with a known outcome. We know how Rogue One has to end: the Rebels will get the Death Star plans. Rogue One's very existence constrains its storytelling possibilities, as much, if not more so, than the fact that it has to make a bunch of money. From all this, you might think that Rogue One is a remarkably cynical enterprise, doomed to mediocrity for lack of risk-taking but destined for success because of its brand. Well, the latter may be true (though the prequels indicate that creative success, at least, is not guaranteed for the Star Wars brand), but, remarkably, the former is not. For Rogue One's creative constraints paradoxically free it to become one of the best entries in the Star Wars canon to date.

Despite stiff competition. 

It does not do this, however, by creating compelling characters on par with Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, or Kylo Ren. The main cast of Rogue One consists of a Dirty Dozen/Great Escape-style ragtag ensemble; most of its members, aside from one or two distinguishing traits, are forgettable (with the standouts being Donnie Yenn's Chirrut Îmwe, a blind, plot--I mean, Force-believing mystic, and K2 [Alan Tudyk], a sassy robot). Even Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), the leader of this motley crew, is hardly compelling, with her character alternating unconvincingly between apathetic thief and idealistic rebel, albeit undergirded by an admittedly pathos-laden relationship with her father, Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen, fresh off a villainous role in Doctor Strange in November). No, the Rogue Squadron itself is mostly forgettable. As is Director Krennic (Ben Mendelssohn), the striving, not-really-all-that-evil, mid-level Imperial bureaucrat who serves as their primary antagonist**.

The movie also succeeds in spite of a story and some action scenes within that bite off a bit more than third-time director Gareth Edwards (of 2014's Godzilla reboot, on which I had some fond words here), is quite ready to chew. The narrative is relatively straightforward, and moves quickly--so quickly, in fact, that we sometimes don't realize why some things happen, or why certain characters are doing what they're doing, except that the Force and the plot demand it. And sometimes, there is simply so much going on in front of us that we can't quite follow it, though we know we're still supposed to be impressed by the ambition thereof.

Yet the genius of Rogue One is to be good enough in its execution and overall atmosphere to render these complaints minor quibbles. For while the action can at times be confusing, when it is not, it is easily the most brutal and visceral of anything we've seen in a Star Wars movie. We've never had as full an immersion in realistic, extensive, ground-based infantry combat in this universe before (though it has happened in bits and pieces). Rogue One promised to deliver on this front, and, at its best, it does exactly that (despite my concerns), even breathing new life into the classic aerial dogfights with some fresh visual and strategic approaches and innovations. And it creates, as a backdrop to that gritty combat, an appropriately nuanced view of the struggle between the Rebellion and the Empire. The Empire doesn't definitively win, and the lines are still clearly drawn, but there is a lot more violence, death, and setbacks, and there are a lot more gray areas. Rogue One proved that a Star Wars movie can still make its action and drama interesting, even if nobody has a lightsaber***.

"Excuse me, I believe you're forgetting someone..." 

The most impressive feat of Rogue One is its simultaneous fitting into and distinguishing itself from the larger Star Wars universe. Though it links itself to the movies we all already know and love many times***, it brings enough novelty into its tone, its action, its settings, and its approach to story and characters to be appreciated on its own. Where some might have seen only constraints and limitations imposed by everything it had to accomplish, and all that it could not do, the creative personnel of Rogue One saw an opportunity to create something new out of something familiar, and they seized it. While it may not rise, as a whole, to the heights of the best Star Wars, it contains plenty of individual moments, images, and general merit to earn a proper place in the franchise family. And, more important, it has proven that the Star Wars universe, now approaching its 40th anniversary, is not old and creaking, but young, vibrant, full of possibility, and may only be just beginning to be explored. May the Force--and the plot--be with us as we see where else we go in this galaxy far, far away.

*Even The Force Awakens works: It becomes The Plot Awakens, which makes perfect sense. It was the first live-action Star Wars movie of any kind in 10 years, and the first to move that universe's narrative forward in 35.
**You could also argue that Grand Moff Tarkin, played by a CGI-resurrected Peter Cushing, is also a main antagonist. But the most interesting thing about his character is that the actor who portrays him has been dead for 22 years, and Rogue One was able to return him to life in mostly convincing fashion, which means that we now have the ability to resurrect long-dead actors (I want to know how many people who didn't know he was dead thought something was off about him; I knew, and I still impressed, though it wasn't perfect). Ponder the possibilities and the ethics of this.
***Actually, somebody does have a lightsaber. It's Darth Vader. And, just as I predicted last week, he shows up and absolutely brutalizes people in terrifying fashion. It's awesome, in both senses of the word.
****Rogue One has many Easter Eggs, and ends up being almost a direct prequel to A New Hope.