Will's Rogued Off

Director Gareth Edwards gave us a visually interesting film that calls back to Star Wars. The entire film is a call back to Star Wars, 'Hey look what we brought back!' Rogue One tells us over and over again. It's both a feature and a bug.

The CGI Tarkin and Leia are pointless and unnecessary. See 'uncanny valley' in your film dictionary. 

We admit the Battle of Scarif was a thrilling, tension filled romp capped off by a terrifying twist at the end. 

But three years later Rogue One lacks an emotional anchor making it watchable over and over again, you know, like Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.  A year ago we called Rogue One a sugar rush. We think that's right.

So we ask our original question again. How can Rogue One be awesome while the three Skywalker movies suck. The answer is, it isn't.

In this way the universe makes sense once more.

Rogue One: The Post of Why

Why is Gyn close to her father? Why is she close to Saw Gerrera? Why did Saw Gerrera leave Gyn in a bar? Why did the Ersos leave Gyn in Gerrera's care? Too many things are told to us in Rogue One. We're told that they are, but not why they are or how. 

Here's another. Why does Saw Gerrera declare he won't run anymore when the city is getting blown up? Seems like he'd be eager to lead the attack on Scarif. For that matter, it seems like he'd be the guy the Rebel Alliance would want to lead the attack on Scarif.

Here's another why. Why are Gyn and Cassian embracing at the end of the movie? Ohhh...we know, they bonded over the course of the movie, but again, we're not really shown this, for that matter we're not even told that Gyn and Cassian long for human bonding. Hey, why was Gyn in the clink in the first place?

Upon re-viewing, Rogue One left us emotionally cold. 

[I'm sorry are you a woman? Are you menstruating? Did you watch Rogue one in your yoga cumphy pants while drinking a glass of chardonnay and ice while wishing you had Gyn's hair?-Ed] 

I'm too proud to admit I want something more than explosions and big tits. But those are nice.

Will's Rogued Off

For us, the new problem with Rogue One is character. We actually like Jyn Erso and we can stare at Felicity Jones' sweet, pouty face all day. As a character we think she's...ok. 

The other two interesting characters are Director Krenick, the driven, obsessed Death Star project manager well played by Ben Mendelsohn and Forrest Whitaker's Sal Gererra. Whitaker plays Gererra as a desperate fanatic, driven to the edge of insanity by war. We wanted to see more of him.

After that, well, here's the problem: until we re-watched Rogue One last weekend, we couldn't remember anyone else's name. This includes Cassian, played like a Frenchman by the Spanish Diego Luna. Imagine seeing The Empire Strikes Back and not remembering Lando's name. 

We still don't know the names of the blind Chinese guy and the big Polynesian guy.  Ok, the droid, whose name we can't remember, unlike, say, C3PO, was fun. And we don't remember the  name of the Imperial Pilot, or even Jyn's dad. The dad....

Will Gets Rogued

OK, upon re-watching Rogue One we liked it. We enjoyed it. We were entertained. As previously noted, we thought the big battle at the end was a ton of fun, exciting, tense. A gritty war movie, appropriate for Memorial Day. The ending is a close rival to the ending battle in Return of the Jedi. Yes we like the Darth Vader twist at the end. Oh, we're all getting away...nope!

But upon re-viewing cracks emerge. We'll be talking about those cracks all week.