Few other franchises downplay the horror of war crimes to the scale Star Wars does. Whether its destroying entire planets and their billions of inhabitants, or torturing information out of foreign royals, morally reprehensible tactics are a mainstay of the trilogies and their spin-offs. Disney's second go at their newest cash cow is no exception to this.
I was quite excited to see dir. Gareth Edwards at the helm of Rogue One. An action-heavy sci-fi romp is exactly the sort of film he would excel at, and with his take on the latest Star Wars installment he's cemented himself as one of the best blockbuster makers around. As far as 'big-dumb' action movies go, he is certainly pushing the genre in a different, better direction: subtlety to the action when needed, stories that support the big set pieces rather than hurriedly push us along to the next one, and so on. Much like Edwards' Godzilla (2014), Rogue One moves along at a confident pace, knowing when to let us breath and when to ramp up. In that regard, Rogue One provides some of the best entertainment value for your time of any film in the franchise, and also signifies a crowd-pleasing returns to the grimy, dirty, 'real' aesthetic of the originals.
Unfortunately, also much like Godzilla, all attempts at nuanced sociopolitical commentary fall a fair bit flat (and to be sure, there is an attempt). In Godzilla, the running theme of nuclear caution is unfocused and poorly-targeted. While that message is quintessential to its source (Gojira 1954) and relevant the original post-war Japanese audience, it lacks poignancy for a 21st-century global movie-going people. Even more so, the lack of strong lead characters to carry those themes is a shortcoming of both of Edwards' works. I don't blame Aaron Taylor-Johnson or Felicity Jones for this; these are problems with the writing. Whether its Walter White or Ip Man, Edwards' has better success with his side characters than his leads.
But characters aren't the reason I'm doing this write-up. As I say in the opening, mass destruction and personal violations are rife throughout the Star Wars universe, and I thought Rogue One was going to be the movie to finally explore the consequences of these acts more deeply, both on an individual level and a societal (galactic?) one. How is Leia really feeling after her home and family are obliterated? Does anyone feel at all bad about the thousands of non-combatant support staff aboard the Death Stars and Star Destroyers and Starkiller Bases they blow up? Surely Stormtrooper #10231243 might be rethinking some things after massacring and torching two moisture farmers. But the end of the day this is a franchise designed to engage all audiences of all ages. Expecting a director to seriously examine the fallout of bad-guys-doing-bad-things is a stretch, especially if they're being held on Disney's leash.
One of the earliest action sequences in Rogue One features a band of extremist rebels ambushing an Imperial convoy in the middle of a city square. While these rebels are ostensibly 'the good guys', the reality is that their tactics are far more brutal than anything the Empire throws back (save for the Death Star). Snipers, explosives, and no consideration given to collateral damage and civilian casualties. These are tactics characteristic of a terroristic guerrilla campaign, and dir. Edwards' seems fully aware of this: the visuals design of the setting, and the voyeuristic cinematography feels like the combat footage we see coming out of Syria or Iraq. It is very much an intentional effort on his part to subvert our expectations--in Rogue One, it's the good-guy Rebels that are violating the war convention, not the Empire.
But then the rest of the movie happens. Five minutes later we learn that the leader of this fringe Rebel faction is actually a pretty nice guy (ignoring the part where he tortured a surrendered prisoner just half-an-hour before), and the Empire decides the blow up an entire city because they wanted to test their new toy. And so it goes: Imperials slaughter their own noncombatants without trial, the Rebels launch a kamikaze attack at a vessel that's already disabled, Lord Vader cuts down a dozen men he's already disarmed, and thousands more die, but its okay because in a few days Luke is gonna blow up the Death Star (and every soldier, scientist, janitor, and cook on it).
A dichotomous moral spectrum is a flagship trait of Star Wars. Light, Dark, Alliance, Empire, Chewbacca, Jar Jar... Bad Guys are are Bad because they like doing Bad things, and Good Guys are Good because they like doing Good things. Rogue One could've been an opportunity to use the established Star Wars vehicle to critique a pervasive mentality that so often does not match reality. What started out as a promising commentary on our attitudes towards the morality of war and wartime tactics devolved into another checklist of action set pieces, albeit a very well-made one.
And not gonna lie, watching Vader slice through, like, a dozen dudes was rad as hell.