Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Review

Tien-Li Hsiung

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is Walt Disney Entertainment’s second Star Wars film and is the fourth Star Wars prequel. It stars an enormous cast featuring Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Donnie Yen, Alan Tudyk, Forest Whitaker, Riz Ahmed, Mads Mikkelsen, and James Earl Jones. This film is a story about how the Rebel Alliance from the original trilogy discovered the plans of the first Death Star. At the heart of the film is Jyn Erso (Jones), who is unexpectedly tied with said plans due to her father, Galen Erso (Mikkelsen). Along the way, Erso teams up with Rebel spy Cassian Andor (Luna), homicidal droid K-2SO (Tudyk), Force believer Chirrut Imwe (Yen), former Imperial pilot Bodhi Rook (Ahmed), and war veteran Saw Gerrera (Whitaker).

Rogue One is undeniably better than the original prequel trilogy, being the best Star Wars prequel so far. The film has lots of intense battle scenes with space dogfights between X-Wings and TIE Fighters as well as some well-paced shootouts between rebels and stormtroopers. The plot of Rogue One is also very exciting. Viewers will be kept on their seats wondering,“what will happen next?,” throughout the film.

However, with all of Rogue One’s strengths as an action film, it struggles quite a bit in the character department. The cast of Rogue One is a mixed blessing. On one hand, all the actors do a convincing job of portraying their characters, on the other hand the supposed character development feels so rushed due to the screen time needing to focus on all of them. Out of all the characters displayed on-screen, only Donnie Yen’s Chirrut and Alan Tudyk’s K-2SO felt memorable. The rest of the characters feel more like plot devices than actual characters. Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso has a good moment or two, but she ultimately doesn’t come off as interesting. Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor could have given insight into the Rebel Alliance more morally-grey areas of dealing with the Empire, but this aspect is ultimately overlooked.

Despite all of these flaws, what makes Rogue One better than the original prequel trilogy is its confidence. Rogue One knows what type of film it is: a hardcore war film set in the Star Wars universe. Everyone has a clear and definitive purpose, unlike the CGI, characterless clone trooper characters or the cliche-filled romance between Anakin and Padme. There’s also no talk of politics or trade; it’s just a tale of war and heroism with tons of bloodshed and sacrifice.

    Rogue One isn’t as memorable as the original trilogy, nor is it as bland and mediocre as the prequel trilogy. The film does have its missteps in character and story progression, but its great action scenes and strong grasp of identity does redeem its flaws. Overall, the strengths of Rogue One out does its problems.