The Context
I had bought tickets for the first showing of Rogue One at the IMAX in Braehead. Of course I had - that's what I do. I didn't go.
After having a nice Christmas I came back here and fell ill. Not flu, but worse than a cold. Was laid up all over New Year and had to miss the family get-together on NY Day. But I was feeling well enough to think I would venture out to finally catch up with Rogue One. Early morning showing so it would be empty and me sneezing and sniffling all the way through wouldn't be a big issue.
What I hadn't counted on was bursting for the loo. During the big climatic face-off I had to nip to the toilet, which I HATE doing during a film. Really pissed me off a lot that I didn't feel I was able to hold on. Dodgy guts and all. I only missed a few minutes but it fair put me in a foul mood,
And, of course, I had hoped to see this movie not just in IMAX at Braehead but actually on premiere night in Santa Monica in California. As I had hoped to do so for Force Awakens. So sitting in a miserable grey industrial estate off the M8 feeling like shit and needing the loo was not the ideal way to see this film.
The Background
I have history with Star Wars. I wrote about this in my review of Force Awakens (here) and I'm not going to repeat myself. It is, simply, the defining movie of my life.
*SPOILER WARNING*
From here on in I'm going to delve deep into spoilers. If you haven't seen the movie then you might want to skip the rest. Suffice it to say the movie is pretty good and is worth your time.
The Story
I'm not going to rehash the story. If you've seen the opening crawl from Star Wars you'll know what the movie is about. And you'll have figured out that, as our fearless Dirty Half-Dozen Or So don't turn up in later movies then there's a better than average chance no-one makes it out alive but the Death Star plans somehow make it into Princess Leia's hands, onto a droid and end up with Leia's brother on Tatooine. What are the chances?
But that's not the point of the film. The point of the film is the journey. And it takes many interesting diversions and developments getting to its inevitable conclusion.
What worked
Jyn Erso. As played by Felicity Jones, Ms. Erso is awesome. Having watched her Mother killed by the Empire then raised as a child soldier by freedom-fighter/nut-job Saw Gerrera this woman has seen and done things ... And she is by far the best character in this movie. Ms. Jones brings a toughness and rawness to Erso. It's a real shame she won't be turning up in future movies (although it's almost certain she will crop up in the Star Wars: Rebels TV series).
The Dirty Half-Dozen. I liked all the team. They all were introduced properly, had some character development, did not die in vain. Diego Luna was the most developed, and, of course, got a big speech, some morally ambiguous moments and saved the day at the end. But all were pretty darn decent. The showiest was Donnie Yen's blind Force-sensitive half-monk, half-hitman character. The most sympathetic was probably Riz Ahmed's Imperial pilot. But all were good. Even the droid K-2SO who got the best death scene ...
Krennic. Ben Mendelsohn was pretty excellent as Director Krennic. A proper hissable villain, but with added complexity and shade (he just wanted to get on, after all).
Vader. Darth is barely in this, so when he does show up it has a colossal impact. It was nice to see his castle on Mustafar (which is taken from the Expanded Universe books) though quite why he feels attached to the planet where Obi-Wan hacked his limbs off is strange to me. The final sequence with Vader hacking through dozens of hapless Rebels is brilliant.
What didn't work
The whole film just felt like fan-fiction to me. Sure, I loved the fact that this was clearly set in the Star Wars universe, just before A New Hope. It was rammed with cameos and nods - some of them so blatant and ham-fisted it was embarrassing. It looked like a lived-in real place a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. But it was still fan-fic. And while the effects were stunning (as you would expect) it all felt - the last act especially - like a multi-player melee on Battlefront. Combined with the fact that you knew the plans were going to be retrieved and you knew everyone was going to die then it was hard to care that much about what was going on.
The resurrection of Peter Cushing was troubling. While Tarkin was obviously going to be a presence he didn't need to be front-and-centre a proper supporting character. Technically it was impressive, most impressive, but the uncanny valley effect still kicks in and it was distracting at best, outright offensive at worst. A step forward - ish - I think but still a long way to go. And the final shot - with a beatific Princess Leia - was both ludicrous and, given Ms. Fisher's untimely death, incredibly touching.
The movie I wanted to see
Everyone who follows movies knows that Rogue One had extensive reshoots and was significantly retooled and re-edited. One glance at the various trailers will show you endless footage that did not make the final cut. There's an epic three-hour making-of doc somewhere detailing all the issues, problems, pressures, reshoots, rewrites and re-editing that went on. I hope Disney at one point allows it to be released. But this brings me to my point - I'm far more interested in how a movie gets made than in the movie itself. I want to know the fights over the narrative. I want to know what the first cut was and why the suits in Disney decided to re-shoot and re-edit so much of the film. I want to hear from the Director and Producers and Screenwriters. If you've ever seen "Under Pressure - The Making Of The Abyss" you'll know the sort of warts-and-all documentary I'm hoping for. I fully expect when Rogue One drops onto home video in April that there will be some making-of docs, but they'll be the standard bullshit "all was happy" commercial nonsense. And I would be surprised to see much - if any - of the deleted/re-edited footage. Maybe towards the end of the year when we get the "deluxe" edition there might be a more extensive release with commentary and other insights.
I suppose, like everything, I wanted it harder, grittier and nastier. If t'internet scuttlebutt is to be believed that's exactly what Gareth Edwards - the director - delivered in his first cut which spooked the suits. I'd like to think this original assembly cut might surface somewhere so we can have a masterclass in how movies change from scripting through shooting and editing. If Disney think there's money in it then it may well might.
But in my head, Rogue One was tighter, tougher and much more visceral.
Conclusions
It's worth watching. It ties beautifully into A New Hope, and actually sheds a lot of light on its plot (the exhaust port weakness was deliberate, for example). Vader is awesome. Jyn Erso shoots to the top of the potential Mrs. Donnelly charts.
For a lot of reasons, sitting alone feeling miserable in a shitty cinema at the arse-end of nowhere, I just didn't like it that much.
