Yet I will watch it for that closing battle. Most of the Star Wars films are cover versions of the original movie- Rogue One included. As soon as Rogue ended, I was ready to go online and pick up a ticket for a second viewing. And, like most viewers, I was left agog by the film's third act, which makes for the most satisfying Star Wars climax since The Empire Strikes Back I can't believe it's taken us this long to discover the joys of beach-blazing AT-ATs, and watching a Mon Calamari commander smash two deep-space Star Destroyers together was Monderful.

To be sure, there's lots of stuff in Rogue One to stoke the fan-fumes, whether it's the deep-cut droid cameos (I see Threebee, yo!) to the faithfully restored Imperial architecture (though, until Rogue One came along,* *I never realized how much the Death Star-with its muted lighting scheme and brushed steel-like surfaces-resembled a high-end industrial test kitchen). Which is something it tries to do from the very first shot-and with mixed results. One year later, Rogue One lands in theaters with far less onerous expectations: It doesn't need to redeem the Star Wars saga it merely needs to feed it, ideally by giving some us deeper intel and understanding of what exactly went down a long time ago and far, far away. And, to that end, it mostly worked: The Force Awakens may have been a slicker, bigger-budgeted cover version of 1977's A New Hope, but it retained a lot of the clumsy warmth of the original films, and it introduced several dynamic new characters-something these movies desperately needed in order to make the jump into the future.Īs soon as Rogue ended, I was ready to go online and pick up a ticket for a second viewing.but now, a few days after seeing the movie, I wonder if I'd be better off just sneaking in halfway through. A lot of fans, including myself, had hoped that Awakens would serve as both a reminder of the sprightly, gee-whiz greatness of George Lucas' original trilogy, as a well as rebuke of his stilted, Sandcrawler-slow prequels. Want to Really Get Rogue One? Read the Prequel Novel Arrowīut as Rogue One chugs along to certain box-office domination, we can't help but wonder: Is this latest Star Wars story really necessary? Or is it merely a temporary diversion-an escape pod-from the dauntingly gargantuan ongoing narrative that is the traditional saga? WIRED's Brian Raftery and Angela Watercutter discuss the movie below-and, lest we be accused of Dianoga-like stealth and sneakiness, we should be upfront about the fact that spoilers are everywhere.īrian Raftery: First off, Angela, it's worth noting that this month marks the one-year anniversary of the release of The Force Awakens, a movie that inspired months (years?) of pre-emptive plot-forensics and nervous-nelly hand-wringing.

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