Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

I don't think it's any secret that I really like Star Wars. I have journal entries of the re-releases and prequels that I posted about last year. I was full of excitement when a new trilogy was announced. I was not, however, excited about the other trilogy - a trio of standalone Star Wars stories to be released between each of the new Episodes. Was anyone really clamoring for an origin story of Han Solo? Or, even worse, Boba Fett? I know he gained cult status over the years but I never understood it, and the inclusion of him and his dad in the prequels was ridiculous.

Which brings us to Rogue One, the story of the rebels who stole the plans to the Death Star. This enabled Luke to fire his proton torpedoes into the exhaust port that started a chain reaction that blew up the Death Star. Based on reviews I've read from critics and from friends on Facebook, and the general reaction of the crowd I saw the film with, everyone loves it.

I am not everyone.

I wanted to like it. I really did. I even went into it with fairly low expectations so I wouldn't be disappointed. And it still didn't rise to the occasion.

There's nothing bad about the movie. It's competently filmed with some good movement and decent acting. I just didn't care about any of the characters though. I was bored fifteen minutes into the film. The never-ending parade of new planets, each with their own title card so the audience knows the name - I'm sorry, but is this a Star Trek film?!

I was bothered by how cliche the whole thing seemed. I know that the original trilogy wasn't exactly a new concept - good vs. evil, etc, and George got inspiration from many sources. But what he created felt original. Now everything is just connecting pieces of a larger universe and it bores me. The most cliche moment was when a character falls down a shaft and the audience is to believe he is dead, if not severely incapacitated. However, he returns at the very moment the protagonist needs assistance or else she'll be killed. I literally said, "Oh come one!" out loud, while the people behind me were cheering.

Vader makes an appearance, but he was a weird fit. Grand Moff Tarkin is there with a digitally-added Peter Cushing (who passed away several years ago) and it was distracting. The droid, K-2SO, was meant to be comic relief but I found him annoying and far too human-like for a droid. The filmmakers could never decide if they wanted a love story between Cassian and Jyn or not, and they end up playing it both ways throughout the film. Jyn never gets fully developed into a character we care about, and her rousing speech isn't entirely inspiring. I think the reshoots did not serve her character well.

I liked the final sequence of air and ground battle (which we've seen before in Jedi), which brings us right to the beginning of A New Hope. Even though most of the ground forces are characters we do not know, their battle is nicely done. Chirrut and Baze were interesting characters with good chemistry that I actually did feel sort of fond of.

At this point, I'm tired of all the films that exist just to make Disney money. I can accept George wanting to make the prequels, as he claims that story existed in his head all along. But it's now just getting to be too much. I just want to enjoy my original trilogy and occasionally watch the prequels. I have turned into the old person yelling at kids to get off their lawn.