Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

A film telling what happened just before the first film of the series. A scientist is taken. Galen Erso is forced back onto a weapons project and his daughter Jyn goes into hiding. Years later Jyn is taken out of a prison. The rebellion wants to use her to reach her father. A pilot has defected with a message. It says a weakness was deliberately left inside the weapon. From there the film becomes a plan for a theft. The plans are held in an archive and the rebel council will not authorise an attack. A small group goes anyway. What the narrative is interested in is not heroism but cost: nobody in this film survives, and the narrative gives that not as a surprise but as the natural result of the work. The rebel side is not clean either. An officer kills an informant at the start of the film and the narrative does not look away. The last section is a battle on a beach and a lift. The corridor scene at the end is the most discussed thing in it. A droid carries the humour. K-2SO is a converted imperial machine and states the odds out loud. The production went through extensive reshoots. The last section changed considerably, which can be seen in the difference between the first trailers and the released version. Two characters were recreated digitally; one is the face of a dead actor, and that was argued over on ethical grounds after release. It was shot in Jordan, the Maldives, Iceland and Britain. Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Donnie Yen, Ben Mendelsohn, Mads Mikkelsen and Alan Tudyk are in the cast. Gareth Edwards directed. Who it is for: anyone who wants a war film out of the series. Who it is not for: anyone looking for attachment to characters; the team is assembled late and some of them are barely introduced.