A Look Into Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

We’ve a mission for you. A major weapons test is imminent[…]we need to know how to destroy it.

Mon Mothma

What’s Rogue One all about?

‘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.’

Video source: YouTube

Rogue One’s plot stems from the iconic text crawl of the original Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope and is sandwiched between Anakin Skywalker’s rebirth as the deathly Darth Vader at the end of Episode III and the start of A New Hope, where we find the Death Star’s plans in Princess Leia’s hands. As well as this, we now know that the father of Jyn Erso, the movie’s major protagonist, is in some way crucial to the Death Star’s development; forgive our fathers, for they have sinned…

Why should we be excited?

Video source: YouTube

It’s a new Star Wars film released within a year of the last instalment! do you really need more reasons?! Rogue One is a film of firsts: first Star Wars film to be sent back to production for being ‘too dark’, first outright female lead, and the first canon, live-action instalment without the ‘Episode’ tag (and thus a primary focus on the Skywalker family).

[T]here’s a 96.7% chance of failure.

                                                                                                                                       K-2SO (Kay Tuesso)

Rogue One looks like a Star Wars film, but…

We are slightly concerned that the heart and soul of the Star Wars films so far, the light-saber wielding Jedi, seem to be absent from this instalment – seemingly represented by the gorgeous shots of the giant, fallen statue on some planet’s desert. And yet, even if the script doesn’t quite strike with the same laser-like precision at the Episodes’ core, the out-of-this world dogfights and lush clips of samurai-like showdowns we’ve been treated to so far indicate that, visually, Rogue One’s choreography and cinematography might nevertheless make this the most beautiful Star Wars yet.