Rogue One: The One and Only

When is a Star Wars movie not a Star Wars movie?

There will be Rogue One spoilers below. If you have not seen Rogue One, we’re very different people.

With a mega-dose of Cassian Andor about to be shot into our arms, it’s a good time to talk about the movie that introduced us to him and the creative team behind Andor.

Rogue One has become Kathleen Kennedy-era Lucasfilm’s hottest club. It’s got everything: Easter eggs, Star Destroyers being shoved into other Star Destroyers, Darth Vader cosplaying The Terminator, the death of a wisecracking robot, the death of everyone else, CGI Tarkin, a monkey with a machine gun, AT-ATs fighting X-Wings, Forrest Whitaker, even Ip Man. It’s beloved, which is a surprising fate for a movie that was, by many accounts, almost completely reconceived in the editing room and reworked through reshoots.

I have a complex relationship with Rogue One. My reaction when I read that particular fans put Rogue One in their top tier of Star Wars movies (and hey, you do you) is how I feel when someone names “Hurricane” as their favorite Bob Dylan song. Sure, it’s a great song, but it not very much like his other songs. It’s a weird favorite for being an anomaly. That’s Rogue One, to me. As great as Rogue One is, as spectacular and exciting as it is, it’s a very strange bird, it’s very own thing.

Which was the idea. Rogue One is the first of the Star Wars Story movies, which were conceived of as side-stories that could be released independently of the Skywalker Saga. Only two of these films ever came out, Rogue One and Solo. (The other two in development became The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi.) The point was to untether Star Wars filmmaking and filmmakers, to make Star Wars movies that were distinct from Lucas’s oeuvre. At the same time, Rogue One is told as a story that can live alongside A New Hope. The finished film is not only a prequel to A New Hope, it’s a prologue. (Or given their run times, does A New Hope now play like Rogue One’s epilogue?)

The desire to marry the movie to A New Hope and simultaneously break free of the conventions that have defined Star Wars creates a tension. It doesn’t stand alone as a stand-alone, but it does stand apart. Rogue One is fused to Star Wars and rejects Star Wars. Even Tony Gilroy doesn’t think of it as a Star Wars movie. In this interview from 2018 he says “I don’t think Rogue really is a Star Wars movie in many ways. To me, it’s a Battle of Britain movie.”

This is exactly what makes so many people love Rogue One and one of the most thrilling things about it. It treats Star Wars like a science-fiction action adventure story, like a war story, instead of the Mahabharata for kids. It’s more epic than mythic, like reading a Star Wars comic or novel. There’s a lot of plot, a lot of detail, a lot of added canon, a lot of cameos, a lot of action. The camera darts in and out of fully realized sets, submerging us in the flooded markets of Jedha. Character are muddy, rained on, half-lit, scowling, desperate.

This is an oversimplification, but it feels like other Star Wars films emerge from the Jungian idea of a collective unconscious; and Rogue One is a film of the Freudian, an exploration of personal trauma.

These differences of form become differences of content. For example, if I was asked to use one word to describe the Rebel Alliance before Rogue One? I would never have come up with ruthless. The Rebel Alliance we meet through the eyes of Jyn Erso is a barely lit war room, full of old white British guys who seem about as trustworthy as the old white British guys who lead The Empire. The Rebel Alliance, to this point, has been a warm place, full of hugs, honors, brightly lit rooms, smiles.

This isn’t a small change or just added nuance. Star Wars stories largely consist of archetypes, characters that exist in capital letters - the Son, The Father, The Scoundrel - and even when some complexity was added with the prequels we were still in Capital Letters Country. The Fall of the Republic.

The Rebellion is archetypal. The Rebellion is a collection of heroes. It’s characterized by scrappiness and diversity. Anyone can be a Rebel. That’s not true of the Empire, which is uniform, British (sorry Brits!), officious and often faceless. Rebels dress like they found their stuff lying around. The Empire’s forces? All dress the same.

Rogue One maintains the designs of those things but not the spirit. The Rebellion in Rogue One is nearly as sinister as the Empire. It’s a military operation with a win at all costs attitude. It employs assassins. It lies. It’s secretive. It’s disjointed. When Jimmy Smits shows up as Bail Organa, it’s almost a relief to see someone from the Light Side. The Rebellion’s affiliation with the Light Side is pretty dim. Even the bargain with Saw Gerrera seems like a deal with the devil. Saw himself, a fierce warrior against the Empire, is a man whose fight has all but destroyed him.

Our lead characters tap that same vein. Cassian Andor shoots an unarmed (literally!) man in the back when we meet him. This is makes “Han Shot First!” feel quaint. Jyn Erso doesn’t want to get involved. When she’s asked if she can stand seeing Imperial flags over the galaxy she says “It’s not a problem if you don’t look up.” Bodhi Rook, cargo pilot, a wide-eyed escapee from the Empire, explains why he is carrying a message to the Rebellion with haunted vagueness. Everyone looks like they’ve been through a lot.

The characters that seem most connected to George Lucas’s Star Wars are blind monk Chirrut Imwe and his guardian Baze Malbus, played to perfection by Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen. (I don’t know why, but I think Jiang Wen doesn’t quite get the love he deserves for how awesome he is in Rogue One. He’s a giant pile of soul with a machine gun and I’m here for it.) Perhaps that’s why Chirrut Imwe’s mantra is one of the lines that stuck with audiences: “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.” It’s classic Star Wars, a belief in something greater than yourself that spurs one on to heroism.

Generally, though, when Rogue One tries to plug itself back into the language of Lucas, it can feel incongruous. When Cassian and Jyn say things like “rebellions are built on hope” it can sound strange in their mouths. These are not characters who seem built on hope, they seem driven to survive. Darth Vader making puns in his castle when facing down Director Krennic feels like its in a very different universe than when Krennic is squabbling about his personal achievements with a smug CGI Governor.

The characters in Rogue One are haunted. Cassian has “been in this fight since he was six years old,” scarred by his past and seeking redemption for his choices. Contrast this with Luke Skywalker, who seems to get involved in the struggle against the Empire because it’s more fun that working on the farm. He’s looking for adventure, not to fight in Afghanistan. Contrast the tortured Bodhi with how Han Solo winks at the audience after he’s been tortured by Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back. His assessment? “I feel terrible.” It’s a punchline.

It’s more than the tone that sets Rogue One apart, though. Rogue One eschews the tropes that signal us that we are in the Star Wars universe.

Rogue One starts with a declaration of independence, snapping us out of “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” with a smash cut and a sequence that’s almost 7 minutes long before the title blasts into the frame with a Michael Giacchino fanfare. “Star Wars” does not appear in the title. Solo, by comparison, has its title show up about a minute after we jump into the picture, with the words “A Star Wars Story” front and center.

In essence, the prologue is the Opening Crawl of Rogue One. If it had been

Tyranny! The Empire rules with intimidation and fear, spreading oppression throughout the galaxy.

A hardscrabble REBELLION, built on hope, has learned that The Empire has secret plans that could put an end to their fight for freedom.

With time running out, Rebel agents seek out the wayward daughter of GALEN ERSO, the Imperial scientist behind this dreaded weapon, in a gambit to save the galaxy…

…we could have leapt right into the story after the opening title, Star Wars-style. Instead, we’re given a sweeping shot of open country, and a family separated in a tragic scene. It’s a painful, rich scene, visually striking, but it’s instantly a whole different style of movie.

There are other little things. Rogue One is the only Star Wars film that subtitles the name of each planet. The traditional Star Wars episodes do not provide that kind of guidance. There are planets in the core Saga that are never named at all: Ahch-To, for example. When we see the word “Wobani” as we approach the Imperial Prison Planet, Rogue One is using subtitles like Guardians of the Galaxy, not Return of the Jedi.

It’s a movie made without the input of any of the usual suspects. There is no John Williams score, for example. That’s true of Solo, but Solo was also written by Lawrence Kasdan and (ultimately) directed by Ron Howard, Lucasfilm mainstays. The composer, writers, and director(s) of Rogue One are all Star Wars virgins.

Rogue One’s final 45 minutes are filled with action, heroic sacrifice after heroic sacrifice, with a scope that feels vast compared to the movie it is about to introduce. The Battle of Yavin is smaller than the Battle of Scarif. It’s a little odd that the destruction of the Death Star happens on a smaller scale than the battle for the Death Star plans. (Of course, the reason is that the Death Star is set up to defend against a large scale attack, so a smaller group of fighters is the best approach.) Still, this isn’t how stories usually work: the final battle is usually scaled up from the one that precedes it, not the other way around. But Rogue One is only sort of trying to set up Episode IV. It’s also just trying to be a war picture and damn the torpedoes.

Rogue One even deals with the Death Star plans in the way a sci-fi movie might, instead of a space opera. In A New Hope, the flaw in the Death Star plans are a symbol: they represent the hubris of The Empire. They don’t fear the individual, the small fighter. Tarkin’s refusal to leave the battle station when there is a danger underlines the theme. He thinks he’s invincible. These fascists think they’re untouchable. Their overconfidence is their weakness.

In Rogue One, the flaw in their plans has an explanation. It was put there on purpose by a disaffected scientist who regrets his forced participation in creating a weapon that can kill billions. There’s nothing wrong with that explanation, in fact, it creates an emotional connection between our main character and the ultimate goal… gives Mad Mikkelsen the chance to tee off on great material.

Nonetheless, this element reveals how distinct Rogue One is from other Star Wars projects, because it’s the identical story point handled in a vastly different way. There is a flaw in the design of the Death Star. In the original Star Wars, this is symbol of arrogance. In Rogue One, the flaw in the Death Star is placed there by an individual who has a secret plan. One version fits into a bedtime story, the other is the stuff of spy novels. In a galaxy that rhymes like poetry, Rogue One is written in prose.

In the end, Rogue One is a Star Wars movie like no other because it is not like a Star Wars movie at all. In a movie universe defined by ‘aw shucks’ and good and evil, Rogue One speaks in furious whispers about the grey areas of war. It tosses away the tropes and obsessions of its predecessors, while mixing in nostalgia and callbacks, leaning into cheer-worthy fan service. It’s a film that alchemically transforms an identity crisis into an identity all its own.