Rogue One overview
Originally published at Unimatrix Two. You can comment here or there.
Apologies for any spoilers; I’ll try to avoid as many as I can. If you’ve seen Episode IV, you have a pretty good idea whether our heroes accomplish their objective.
So how was the movie? Well, Maya - whose first Star Wars in the theater was Episode VII - thought it was wonderful, and possibly her favorite of the franchise. Me, I think it was very well done, but I was rather unprepared for the tone. While the main-storyline movies have an adventuresome matinee serial feel, this movie is frankly grim. Bad things happen to good people in this film.
However, the bad things are not gratuitous. This movie has a point to make, and it makes it well. So I think that I will call it a very good movie, worth watching again, but it’s not an Episode. Notwithstanding the many references and linkages to main-storyline Star Wars, and even nods to novel and comic ideas, Rogue One is its own beast.
And why shouldn’t it be?