thoughts on Rogue One

Finally acquired the Blu-Ray for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Soaked the movie in again, so hey, time to write a bunch of words about it that four people will read.

I think I'll start with Darth Vader, because why not. I was thinking as I watched it that the original idea was to save him for the end, where he ignited his lightsaber and took out all those Rebels while he was chasing down the Death Star plans. The meeting with Director Krennic seemed superfluous, though I guess it would have cheated us out of seeing Vader's ridiculously melodramatic castle on Mustafar, which has been something I've wanted to see for a while. Some concept art for Return of the Jedi featured an Imperial castle on a planet called Had Abbadon, and that was where all the stuff between Luke, Vader, and the Emperor was going to take place. Obviously, the idea was scrapped and all the action moved to the Death Star. Lucasfilm is well-known for reusing concepts later on, and I was stoked to see Darth Vader's castle in a Star Wars movie.

Much digital ink has been spilled about the cast, so I'm not going there.

I like how Jedha really hasn't been explained or explored yet. My thoughts on it are that this is where the Jedi originally came from. (Jedha--->Jedi, get it?) Jedha City is referred to in the film as a holy city, in fact Krennic even calls it a reminder of the Jedi that his weapon has wiped out. Then there's the fallen statue in the desert near Saw Gerrara's hideout- looks like a Jedi to me. I hope there's no novel or comic ever explaining Jedha. Ambiguity is a rare thing in Star Wars (getting worse all the time) so I hope this planet gets left alone.

All the background weirdos on Jedha were great. Except that Dr. Evazan. That's some terrible makeup. As a longtime Star Wars action figure collector, I do wish more of those were being made, but oh well. Can't seem to find them anyway.

The space battle over Scarif. Wow. That was tremendous, giving even Return of the Jedi a run for its money. (Still the best space battle ever filmed...) It's great to see X-Wings and TIE Fighters go at it again, something I've wanted in a Star Wars movie for thirty years. The battles in The Force Awakens were OK, but this was more up my alley.

Which brings me to my closing thoughts. I really felt that this was a love letter to the old fans, those of us who have been there for decades. (Probably because the Sequel Trilogy is going to kill off all our favorite characters...) It was also great to see a war movie approach to Star Wars, since so much of it is based on World War II. I don't really feel like ranking it along the Saga movies. One, it's a standalone movie. Two, it lacks the mythological underpinnings that I so love about Star Wars. Third, and spoiler alert, everybody dies. Not that there's much more we need to see from any of them, it's just that it's one and done, and isn't really part of the Skywalker Saga. I can appreciate it giving us some more Star Wars that wouldn't fit in the context of that.

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