Full disclosure: I’ve never been that big of a fan of Star Wars. Sure, I think the concepts and characters presented in the films are intriguing and interesting, but my thoughts on the subject have never gone much further that: “Oh, laser swords are pretty fucking sweet.” I’ve never lionized the movies as anything other than just movies. All of that being said, I can say that Rogue One is A) Not for kids and B) probably my favorite Star Wars film. Here's 5 reasons why this movie changes the tone and tenor of the Star Wars Universe (including spoilers out the ass, so read on at your own peril).
Someone Finally Decided to Tell a Different Story
If we’re all being honest with ourselves, we can say that we never really needed Episodes I-III. The story of how Darth Vader came to be is not one we have to understand in order to enjoy the story of Episodes IV-VI. All we needed to know is that he was once a Jedi who fell to the Dark Side. We didn’t need George Lucas shoehorning in characters that shouldn’t know each other in the intervening years before Luke was born. Over and over again, for 30-plus years we’ve been watching the story of the whiny, christ-like Skywalker clan. It was about time we saw what the rest of the universe looked like.
It’s not a pretty place.
Rogue One doesn’t explore an overly drawn out backstory. It’s not rehashing yet another side quest of The Jedis. Yes, Rogue One does tie us into the rest of the Star Wars Universe, but in new and exciting ways. This is Tears of the Sun as told through the lens of Star Wars. There are no fluffy Ewoks to be seen here. For the first time in a Star Wars movie, we actually see what war is like in an advanced, space faring, reality. And it’s terrifying.
War. Is. Hell.
We all know what war looks like here on earth. We kinda, sorta, know what war looks like in the Star Wars Universe, but this is the first time that we’ve really seen it up close. When Alderaan was destroyed it was like watching a film of the Hiroshima bombing from the flight deck of the Enola Gay. You understand what happened, you can see it with your own eyes, but you can not truly appreciate the human toll that it takes. Your brain can’t conceive of the destructive power of a weapon of that magnitude. Rogue One shows you. It shows you up close and personal exactly what kind of hell can be brought down on your minuscule, human ass.
This is how ants feel under a magnifying glass
It’s not just the toll of the super weapon of the Empire. War is people, StormTroopers and Rebels alike. The fighting in this movie isn’t just blasters and anonymous deaths. This is up close and personal warfare. No Star Wars movie has ever truly embraced the word “war” like Rogue One has. Here we see soldier vs soldier; person vs person and the horrible effect that it takes on the people on both sides of the war. The rebels may have won a major victory by destroying the original Death Star — but here we see the cost and whether it’s all worth it.
Plot Holes Are Filled In
There have always been two large bones of contention for me in the reality of the Star Wars Universe. The first being, if you’re going to breed, or clone, or genetically manipulate an entire species to be your foot soldiers in a never ending, intergalactic war, maybe you shouldn’t make them all mindless idiots incapable of flushing a toilet without written instructions. Well now we know that The Empire did have elite death squads that were total badasses...that they blew the fuck up in an attempt to keep The Death Star plans secret. Honestly, these guys are the worst at contingency planning.
Total badasses - until the planet they’re on blows up
The flaw in the Death Star is intentional and planted there by a man who despised the Empire. This answers almost every pop-culture article about the weakness of the greatest sci-fi weapons ever conceived. How could a group that could build a mechanical moon capable of shooting a planet out of the sky miss such a simple flaw? What kind of engineer could design a system with such an obvious weakness? Apparently, their lead architect was there under protest and put a mechanical poop chute into the plans with hopes that the rebels would fire something up it, all because they took him from his daughter. That’s...love? I guess?
Sacrifice
Earlier I equated this Star Wars film to another great war movie: Tears of the Sun. That, just like this film, is about the sacrifice that it takes in order to win a conflict. Reality isn’t like action movies. Our heroes don’t always have things go their way. They don’t always get to have the happy ending. War isn’t a pretty thing, and this movie encapsulates that in a way that no other Star Wars movie ever has. Han, Leia and the rest were just straight up goddamned LUCKY that they lasted as long as they have.
This is actually the reason that this is the first Star Wars film I’m not ready to let my kids watch. I always teach my kids that, no matter what, the good guys always win. Well, war doesn’t jibe with that. The good guys do all of the right things but they still end up losing. They fight the power of the great and mighty bad men, do all of the right things and, in the end, sacrifice themselves for the greater cause. Which brings me to the last reason this is my favorite Star Wars film.
(HUGE SPOILER IN NEXT PAGE!)
Everyone Dies
Seriously. Straight up fucking DIES. Everyone.
Since this film takes place immediately before Episode IV, we’ve already had four sequels to this film. We know that we never meet any of the characters from this story in the future. We know that their part of the Star Wars canon is complete, in this one film and, because of that, it’s completely fine to just obliterate the shit out of them for the sake of a very real war film.
Buncha cool ass dead people
This film actually has some of the most interesting characters that Star Wars has ever presented. They’re far more flushed out than anyone we meet in A New Hope. These are the people that are the backbone of the actual rebellion. It’s not about people like the Princess, or the unwilling savior — the war against The Empire is about people. People willing to make sacrifices. People who believe in the cause so much that they are willing to die in order to advance it. We never see these people again in any of the films, but we know that their sacrifice was worth it because the information that they get off the planet is what allows Luke to destroy the Death Star. They never get to witness it though because, like actual war, sometimes our heroes die before they get to see the real difference their sacrifice made.
And you thought The Empire was a downer...
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