OK so like I said, I saw Rogue One a second time last night. I feel like I can give a more informed, detailed review this time, but I do apologize in advance for the length of these posts.
The film starts out with an OK first scene but an extremely poor first act. I think the complaint about Krennic landing a mile away from everything is justified, but I’m not going to get stuck on something like that too much. Compared to the rest of the film, this first scene feels like a visual breath of fresh air. Jyn disappears down some hidden tunnel a few moments later, and from there our Star Wars story gets underway.
After the title “Rogue One” appears on screen (where I would have liked to hear a more rousing score), we skip ahead many years to a cacophony of scenes and settings that read like a ****ing travel brochure. Meaningless superimposed title this, meaningless superimposed titled that. The first act was, quite frankly, very poorly put together. Jyn is grown up, but we only get to see her in her ordinary world for a minute or two. Compare that to Luke in the OT or Rey in TFA, and you see the film never gives us the chance to really get to know her or care about her like we properly should. We get re-introduced to Mon Mothma and the Rebel Alliance, and I really like Mon Mothma in this movie. I feel like she was severely underused. Could she have been a main character even? Yes, I think so. One of the things the film did get right was visually recreating the look and feel of the Rebel Base on Yavin 4, so I do want to give credit where credit is due.
The final thing I remember about all of these glued together expository scenes in the first act was the part where we get introduced to Cassian, a rebel spy. He basically outs himself as a morally ambiguous character–at best–when he kills an innocent guy who just provided him with vital information. Was this a mercy kill? If so, the film needed to show regret or some kind of emotion to get that idea across. Since there was nothing like that, I can only assume he didn’t care about killing the guy, which makes his character inconsistent with many of the actions he takes later in the film.
And oh yeah, I guess there was the pointless nonsense with Saw and the Imperial pilot on Jedha. I have no idea at all what this film was trying to accomplish with Saw, but his character was completely useless. What is the point of his breathing apparatus? When you look back at the OT and the creation of Vader, his breathing and his suit and his machine-like qualities were designed for very specific dramatic purposes. They weren’t just cool characterizations that people thought up. But what is the purpose of Saw gasping for air into an oxygen mask, when he’s on screen for like two or three scenes? Just to make him different? Just to sell toys? And then there was the part where we saw another prequel-like fake CGI rathtar and yeah, all of this was among the worst parts of the entire film for me.
Anyway, that sums up act one. I’ll move onto act 2 and more thoughts in the next post, but I want to wrap up here by pointing out where I think the filmmakers got this introduction wrong: why are we cutting back and forth among 10 different storylines in the first fifteen minutes of the movie? The main narrative eventually coalesces on Jedha in the next part…why couldn’t all or nearly all of the first act have taken place on Jedha? Where did virtually all of the action in act one take place in Star Wars? Tatooine, right? What about Empire Strikes Back? It was Hoth. What about Return of the Jedi? Jabba’s Palace. And in The Force Awakens? Jakku.
There’s just no reason to jar the audience with all of these different settings at the beginning of a movie. I don’t even remember what the name of the trading post planet was, but it was on screen for five seconds and one scene in the entire movie and that was it. What’s the point? That’s just bad filmmaking.
Everything should have been re-written so that we start off with a strong narrative that revolves around principal characters and one world: Jedha. And that’s where I will pick up next in part 2.