Rogue One – A Star Wars Story – 2016
Oh, they came so close! So close to me giving them five stars, so close to wowing audiences, so close to bringing a deceased Peter Cushing and a young Carrie Fisher (she was still alive at that time) back to reprise their rolls which they made famous in 1977. They did their best to match their CGI avatars to the Original Star Wars as part of the film’s plot. *sigh* They really did come very close.
Most of the film contained the wonderful visual effects that are the hallmarks of every Star Wars movie ever made. There were exciting space battles that are like high-speed Air-Force fighter-jet battles, complete with bright, glowing laser blasts and fiery explosions. There was an awesome ground battle with giant ATAT walkers. Of course, there was the Death Star, using its green planet-killing compound laser to destroy entire cities and bases. The destruction of the Holy City on Jedha was really awesome. As the mega-blast from the Death Star hits the city, a concentric wave of devastation rolls across the surface of the desert planet like a mile-high ocean wave made of rock and dirt. It looked amazing!
We even had a bit of light-saber action near the end of the movie that was fantastic. In one of the coolest sequences of the movie, we finally got to see what an unleashed Darth Vader could do, as he single-handedly took out about fifteen Rebels armed with blasters. And they got all the details right so the film could dove-tail right into the beginning of Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope. Seamless!
But one of the most memorable parts of the movie, memorable because it had never been successfully attempted before, was Grand Moff Tarkin and the young Princess Leia. ILM used CGI and digitally altered archival footage, which they were able to superimpose over live actors, Guy Henry and Ingvild Deila. Unfortunately, in my opinion, they fell just short of believable. There was just something about them that made them resemble the very sophisticated animation style of the movie, The Polar Express. Here, it helped that they were placed in live environments, but they stood out. It was their movement. Tarkin was the better of the two, but he still looked like an amazingly animated digital character. And Leia, though her face only had a mere six or seven seconds of screen-time, just didn’t look at all real. I think it was the bold shape of the face, the eyes that looked a tiny bit too big, the immobile upper lip when she said the word, “Hope”, and the flawless smoothness of the skin. There were no slight imperfections that mark something as real. She just looked a little too plastic.
But I don’t want to give the impression that I didn’t like the movie or its special effects. I did. The way they were able to use archived footage that was nearly forty years old to bring back even other characters like the X-wing pilots Gold Leader and Red Leader was very cool. And the familiar space-battle sequences, were all pretty awesome! I especially liked when they crashed one Star Destroyer into another, or when they blew up several of the ATAT walkers. Awesome effects!