After acquiring Lucasfilm, Disney announced that on top of a Star Wars sequel trilogy, it would be releasing spin-offs under the “Anthology” banner, stories that would take place outside the mainline saga. This was a tantalizing prospect, especially when the first offering was announced as Rogue One, the tale of the Rebellion’s pre-A New Hope struggle to steal the Death Star plans.
Effectively, Rogue One was a heist movie set in the Star Wars universe and, on paper, that sounded incredibly exciting. As it stands, Rogue One is one of the Mouse House’s best contributions to the Star Wars pantheon, but it’s not without its faults.
10 Right: Darth Vader
Right off the bat, Rogue One nails its portrayal of Darth Vader. The most obvious example is the final scene in the hallway, as the Rebel troops escaping with the Death Star plans are effortlessly slaughtered by the sinister Sith Lord.
The movie introduced fans to Vader’s awesome castle on Mustafar, while the scenes in which he towers over Director Krennic prove that he hasn’t lost an ounce of the terror he had when he first marched onto the screen in 1977.
9 Wrong: One-Dimensional Characters
While the characters in the Star Wars sequel trilogy were all interesting and unique but aimless in their arcs, the characters in Rogue One were all thinly drawn, one-dimensional stock characters seemingly plucked from an online Star Wars character generator.
Cassian Andor is a diehard Rebel and a hotshot rogue, the same type fans have seen in a million other Star Wars stories. Jyn Erso’s crimes are explained in exposition, blatantly ignoring the “show, don’t tell” rule of storytelling. The characterization is razor-thin.
8 Right: Fan Service
Fan service can sometimes come off as pandering, but in Rogue One, it works wonders — especially in an age where a lot of Star Wars media fundamentally misunderstands the franchise.
Rogue One is a movie that was made with the fans in mind. It wasn’t watered down for a broad audience; it was made for Star Wars fans, with passive viewers having to play catch-up.
7 Wrong: Large Scale
Disney might have had to make a $200 million Star Wars tentpole to appease shareholders, but one wonders if the “Anthology” banner would’ve been more effective if it had been used for smaller-scale, lower-budget fare. Rogue One has an epic scale, jumping from planet to planet, with the story involving the daughter of the guy who designed the Death Star. None of this was necessary.
A relatively intimate $50-100 million movie about a band of Rebel spies spearheading the alliance’s first major victory against the Empire would’ve been great. Rogue One is too big for its own good.
6 Right: K-2SO
Every piece of Star Wars media — even the most despised — can be counted on for some lovable droids. The most iconic will always be the ones who started it all, R2-D2 and C-3PO, but there are plenty of great ones, like BB-8 from the sequel trilogy.
Courtesy of a hysterically dry comic performance by Alan Tudyk, Rogue One gave fans another beloved droid character: K-2SO, a reprogrammed Imperial enforcer droid.
5 Wrong: Resurrecting Peter Cushing
Although actor Guy Henry does a fine motion-capture Peter Cushing impression and ILM’s digital artists provided top-of-the-range de-aging effects, Rogue One’s digital resurrection of Grand Moff Tarkin didn’t work. Outside of the questionable moral implications, it slips into the uncanny valley and it’s distracting.
It might’ve been able to work if Tarkin just appeared for a small cameo, like young Princess Leia’s one-word appearance at the end, but he takes up an entire subplot and it’s impossible to see past the creepy effects.
4 Right: Surprisingly Dark Ending
As a Disney-mounted holiday tentpole targeted at children with the potential to start a franchise within a franchise, Rogue One was naturally expected to play it safe. No one went into the movie with the expectation that all the major characters introduced in the first act would die in the third.
Since the template for a blockbuster is pretty rigid at this point, it’s hard for a big-budget studio movie to really surprise audiences, but the dark ending in which a Death Star test wipes out the entire Rogue One ensemble was truly jaw-dropping.
3 Wrong: Disjointed Storytelling
This might be a result of the Disney-mandated reshoots that led to all the coolest shots from the trailer not actually appearing in the movie, but the storytelling in Rogue One is all over the place. The second act drags on and the whole thing is totally unfocused.
Many commentators have mentioned this before, but the Vader hallway massacre might’ve been even more effective if he’d slain all the main characters — who were going to die in the movie anyway — instead of a bunch of Rebel troops we don’t know anything about.
2 Right: Final Battle
While the second act of Rogue One stumbles in its muddled attempts to mix together the various story threads, the third act sort of makes up for it with an awesome final battle.
The combat on the ground has the aesthetic and intensity of a Vietnam War movie, while the combat in space has the breathtaking cinematography and state-of-the-art CGI of Revenge of the Sith’s opening battle sequence.
1 Wrong: Cutting Out All The Best Action
It’s actually pretty common for shots that appear in the trailers for major blockbusters not to make it into the actual movie. Such is the nature of film editing — especially when the edit has to please a large board of directors who have stumped up $200 million for the production.
But Rogue One really took the cake. All the most exciting action scenes from Rogue One’s marketing campaign don’t appear in the final movie. Instead of running from AT-ATs with the Death Star plans in hand, Jyn has to send a transmission from a tower. And instead of facing a TIE fighter before sending that transmission, she faces nothing. All the best action wound up on the cutting room floor.
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