Rogue One Review (No Spoilers)

At this point, pretty much everyone that has been planning to see the new Star Wars story in theaters has already watched it. Perhaps there might be some out there that feel that an eighth movie in any franchise isn't worth seeing, and maybe some out there saw it, but didn't understand how much effort, love, and time went into each second of the movie. I will now recollect every right move that the crew over at Disney did in order to make a movie impossible to hate, without spoiling it of course.

There is a little known rule in the movie industry called the Bechdel test, which is put in place as more of a guideline than anything for gender diversity in the media. What entails inside it are three vague rules making one vague sentence: at least two female characters that discuss with each other something other than the opposite gender. The test doesn't specifically state how long those characters have to be in the movie or if their talking plays a prominent role in the story, making it confusing as whether or not Rogue One correctly passes this test.

There is a scene where the actress of Mon Mothma from the prequels (Genevieve O'Reilly) speaks to Jyn Erso about what her mission is. That scene is probably what some would think to be not enough for Star Wars to pass the test. However, I propose that Rogue One correctly allowed gender diversity without having to pass that dumb test. If Disney decided to use exactly two main female characters, then they would be pandering to a suggested rule more than anything. They would be following a rule that they don’t legally need in their movie. If Disney had three female characters, that would be too much woman at once for a saga like Star Wars, which may lead to people thinking that Disney is attempting to be too equal in gender roles. Whether or not Disney theoretically did that is only guessing. In short, by having only a single female character that is also the main protagonist with no relationship, even implied with any man in the squad she’s in was the best choice to go, and possibly the only correct choice.

Multiple interviews with the creators and cast talk about how this Star Wars film is not like the other ones, where there’s no optimistic Jedi such as Luke Skywalker or any members of Rouge One who are even close to having the cunning accuracy of Han Solo. Some come close to being like them, but in truth, they aren't. This was the first Star Wars movie when you felt that at any point one of the heroes could die just from not ducking under a blaster bolt. Before this, all of the deaths in Star Wars were implied before they happened or mentioned years later, with the entirety of the Jedi Order falling to Order 66 mentioned in A New Hope. In the new movie, not a single thing is mentioned about the squad besides that the Death Star blueprints were transmitted, beamed to the Tantive IV, the ship that R2 and Threepio are on at the beginning of the first Star Wars released to the public. This led to many speculations as to why these characters were never mentioned again. Maybe they became the Knights of Ren in Episode VII, maybe they left the rebellion afterwards, or maybe they died in action, or all of the above?

All questions about who are these characters are and what happens to them are answered throughout the movie, leading to an ending that is even more memorable now only months after we first saw it, for obvious reasons I won’t spoil. In my opinion, it is the best story.