Skip to main content

A Little Apprehension for Rogue One

          Did you know there’s another Star Wars movie coming out this year? If not, you do now. But if you’re getting excited to see Luke finish what he was about to say before J.J. Abrams’ end credit rudely cut him off, you still have to wait for that. This film has supposedly nothing to do with The Force Awakens.
          Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (the subtitle is really dorky but some would say that makes it ideal for a Star Wars movie) is what happens when you extract a premise from one line in the original film’s opening crawl. Namely the part about “Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR”. This new movie is going to follow the exploits of the Star Wars universe’s equivalent of SEAL Team Six as they navigate war zones to find the plans for the Death Star which will subsequently lead to the destruction of the Imperial super-station in the 1977 film. The recently released trailer shows the recruitment of Felicity Jones into the Rebel Alliance, and her fighting the good fight with her team-mates to various other clips no doubt being dissected by nerds online, while a wise Forrest Whitaker narrates. The film is promising to tell the harrowing story of what took place before the original Star Wars.

          Wait a minute... This is sounding an awful lot like a prequel. 

           Maybe we shouldn’t be so trusting of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story if it’s precedents are notorious for lousy CG, lousy acting, and exceptional racism. The trailer may look good but we’ve been fooled before. The Phantom Menace had a pretty good trailer after all. And it would explain that annoying alarm sound they played. Maybe it was a warning. There’s rumours the film could include Darth Vader in a minor appearance and while not every Star Wars movie with him in it is bad, all the ones that are bad have him in it. Think about it! There’s also Ben Mendelsohn wearing a white Imperial uniform in one shot, but apparently because his skin’s not blue it’s causing a furore among some fans. They’ve recast the only woman besides Princess Leia and Aunt Beru from the Original Trilogy as is typical for Hollywood. And the backlash on Felicity Jones committing the horrible crime of being another female lead in a Star Wars movie has already begun. We didn’t see a single lightsabre either, how do we even know this is a Star Wars movie??
          All I’m saying is there’s reason for concern. The film is directed by Gareth Edwards, who most recently made 2014’s Godzilla; and when your last film is distinguished only by being better than a Roland Emmerich abomination, is it really safe to put our trust in you?
          But I’ll be there. So will you most likely. Maybe it’s worth it if it turns out alright. I’m telling you this much though, most of Rogue One are probably going to die. None of them are mentioned in the other movies and this one’s set not long before the original film. The Rebels are also exceedingly good at dying in their missions. Especially if they’re Bothans. So don’t get attached to Jones, Diego Luna, or Whittaker (does anyone get attached to Forrest Whitaker anymore after Battlefield Earth?) And remember as good as The Force Awakens was and as on track as the Star Wars franchise seems to be, this is still a prequel. That beach they’re dodging AT-AT fire on in the trailer could be hiding Gungans.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Strange History of the American Spoof Movie

Parody movies have been around for a lot longer than we tend to think of them. Even from the earliest days of Hollywood there were movies meant to satirize a particular subject or genre. In the silent era, Buster Keaton was responsible for a few. And in the early sound era, almost as soon as the monster pictures took off did you see comic versions of them -Abbott and Costello hosting a few. But parody movies tended to be subtle for most of cinema history, or parody came in conjunction with another goal of the comedy. It really wasn’t until the 1980s and 90s that it took off and became popularly understood. And there is perhaps a line to be drawn to the counterculture comedy explosion that began in the 1970s through avenues like  Saturday Night Live , which frequently parodied from even its earliest years popular movies and cultural properties of the time. But that is still a way’s back. To my generation though, ‘parody movie’ is perhaps a less known term than the more blunt ‘s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Notes on the Title Cards of The Lord of the Rings

It might be sacrilege for one who both considers The Lord of the Rings  trilogy to be one of the greatest triumphs of cinema and has been an avid lover of the films since adolescence, to declare that the original theatrical cuts of the films are better than the much beloved extended editions. Easily it’s my most controversial opinion regarding these movies. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the extended editions quite a lot, especially as someone who just enjoys spending time in that universe. They flesh it out more, add extra flavour, and in increasing the length by about an hour really emphasize the epic quality of these films. But I find that the original cuts are generally more cleanly paced, more seamlessly edited, and much more accessible to audiences. All the stuff there is to love about The Lord of the Rings  is there in the original versions, the plethora of new and extended scenes merely add to that for fans. And of those, they fall into three camps for me: 1....
1 comment
Read more

Back to the Feature: New York, New York (1977)

New York, New York  is a two hour forty minute musical movie largely about a toxic relationship and I understand why it was Martin Scorsese’s first big flop. Some have blamed its poor reception on the kind of movie it was, of a style and tone Scorsese wasn’t known for, but I find that hard to believe. Even after only five films, he’d proven himself an extremely versatile director, and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore  found an audience. Sure this jazz musical love letter to New York City was following up Taxi Driver and its’ far more cynical take on the city, but then it’s also ‘from the director of Taxi Driver ’ which itself was a big hit. Was it a matter of public appetite for musicals, or mere word of mouth and early critical reception that dissuaded viewers? Irrespective of that, I was stunned to discover this movie was the origin of the titular song, which I’d assumed was much older (it’s definitely got the sound of something that might have come out of the Jazz sce...
Post a Comment
Read more