As you can tell by the headline, I loved the movie as Disney hit a home run again since they bought Lucasfilm and began releasing new Star Wars movies, starting with The Force Awakens back in December 2015.
Now if you haven't seen the movie yet, I suggest you stop reading this article right now because I will discuss many spoilers from this entry as well as other Star Wars films.
For the second straight Star Wars movie, the film's central character and protagonist is a female character in the form of Jyn Erso played by Felicity Jones, a petty criminal who is the daughter of one of the builders of the Death Star, Galen played by Mads Mikkelson(also the villain from Doctor Strange).
Jyn is broken out of prison by Cassian Andor(Diego Luna) and is basically given a free pardon in exchange for arranging a meeting with Saw Gerrera(Forest Whitaker) in hopes of extracting her father.
Erso's arc is similar to that of Han Solo in A New Hope in that she really isn't interested in joining up with the Rebellion in the beginning, but as the movie progresses, she becomes a leader after witnessing a hologram of her father, detailing the weakness of the Death Star that he built in so it can be destroyed, which was apparently a huge plot hole that I never noticed in the many viewings of A New Hope.
Jyn gives Star Wars yet another strong female character like Rey in The Force Awakens as she becomes a believer in the cause of the Rebellion and helps recruit the small squad of Rebels that become known as "Rogue One" to steal the plans for the Death Star.
Erso is just one of the many great characters to come out of Rogue One, but perhaps my favorite is Chirrut Imue, a blind warrior who believes in the Force as he repeatedly says throughout the film "I'm one with the force, the force is with me", played by Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen.
Imue kicks some serious ass in the movie and has some of the movie's funniest lines, such as "Is your foot okay?" when he singlehandly beats up a group of Stormtroopers and when he is blindfolded by Gerrera's gang by saying "Are you kidding me?I'm blind".
That is also Imue's banter with his friend, merceany friend Baze Melbus(Jiang Wen)such as Baze telling Imue "Good luck" with Imue responding "I don't need luck, I have you".
To me, Melbus and Imue go down as the one of the many great duos in the Star Wars franchise and I hope there is a book or comic or something that explains their origin story or how they got together because that would be fun to see.
There is also K-2SO, the Imperial droid reprogrammed by the Rebels, which is voiced by Alan Tudyk, who provides much of the movie's comic relief, but in a way that isn't annoying like Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace.
K-2SO comes across as a Chandler Bing type of droid with his sarcasm during the film such as knocking out Jyn by saying "Congratulations!You're being rescued" when Andor captures Erso early in the film.
There's another great moment with the K-2SO as he tries to utter the famous line "I've got a bad feeling about this" only to get interrupted by Jyn and Cassian when the three disguise themselves as they enter the Imperial Base where the Death Star plans are being held.
Then, there are the numerous Easter eggs and cameos throughout the film such as Jimmy Smits reprising his role as Senator Bail Organa, the adoptive father of Princess Leia, as well as Mon Montha, and the encounter Jyn has with the two aliens Luke and Obi-Wan encounter in the catina scene in A New Hope.
Through the film was great, I do have two minor issues.
One, I thought the main antagonist was going to be Orson Kennic, the man in charge of building the Death Star, played by Ben Maddlesohn, who is also in The Dark Knight Rises as John Daggett.
But it seemed to me that Maddlesohn's role as the main antagonist was overtaken by the CGI version of Grand Moff Tarkin.
I had no issue with the CGI use of Tarkin, he looked pretty real to me, but the trailers had indicated that Kennic was like I said, going to be the main antagonist as he was supposed to be the man overseeing the Death Star's construction, only to have Tarkin to take away his role toward the middle of the film.
Which leads me to my other problem: there was so much stuff from the trailers that were not seen in the final cut, like Jyn's encounter with a TIE fighter.
When I saw that during the trailer that aired during the Olympics, I did my Keanu Reeves' "Whoa", but we did not see that.
I guess I'll have to wait for the Blu-Ray and the deleted scenes to see what happened to the TIE Fighter.
Now that I got my only complaints about the film out of the way, it is time for my favorite moment or moments of Rogue One: Darth Vader.
Vader only shows up for two scenes, but they are memorable as the first one occurs on Mustafar, the planet where he dueled with Obi-Wan in Revenge of the Sith, and gives another callback to A New Hope when he uses the Force to choke Drennic and tells him "Be careful not to choke on your own aspirations" when Drennic asks the Dark Lord if he is still in charge of the Death Star project.
But his best scene, which is also the best moment of the movie, comes in the climatic ending after Jyn is able to transmit the Death Star plans to the Rebels, when Vader boards the Rebel ship in hopes of retrieving the plans as the Dark Lord of the Sith unleashes his fury as he uses his lightsaber, Force chokes and throws as he slashes his way through numerous Rebels in attempts to get back the plans.
This is the Vader that we grew up and loved, and not this guy:
Since I knew that the Rebels were going to win, because it said so in the opening text crawl of A New Hope, the only surprise to me was that Jyn Erso did not survive the film's events, as she dies along with Cassian when Tarkin orders the base where she steals the Death Star's plans to be destroyed by the ray from the Death Star.
I had a feeling that the majority of the new characters in Rogue One would die, but I thought Erso would survive just keep us guessing about who Rey's parents are, since Erso had a British accent much like Rey.
But I guess the head honchos at Lucasfilm want fans to keep that a mystery as we head into Episode VIII.
In conclusion, Rogue One was fantastic and joins the Original Trilogy and The Force Awakens as truly magical films and shows us why so many people around the world love Star Wars.
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