Reviewing - The Star Wars Stories
What was likely supposed to be a much bigger spin-off franchise ended up as just two movies - evidently in part due to poor release scheduling but also because of the backlash that “The Last Jedi” received. Even so, both of these movies are well worth the watch to even the most casual Star Wars fan.
Rogue One (****)
This was a great movie. First of all, spoiler alert, I found the ending surprising and yet totally believable. Everyone dies. Like, everyone. And it totally makes sense. We’ve all seen the “And they all went off on many more adventures together” ending before. We don’t often get the “And they all died – the end” ending. So it was cool to see that.
Some people say that this film starts slow but finishes with a bang, and boy, does it ever. This is definitely one of the best space battles in the series. We get Darth Vader being a freaking boss. He’s in this movie for like five seconds but when you walk away he’s all you remember. The land battle is also really cool – we get walkers again, and it’s always great to see stormtroopers on the battlefield.
You can’t talk about this movie without talking about the CGI depiction of Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin. Joel and I saw this movie together, and we both looked at each other and said “No way” when he came onscreen. He looks incredible. We knew he was animated, but a lot of people I talked to who didn’t know Peter Cushing had been dead for a million years had no idea that they were looking at a CGI creation. It was a very cool addition, and one that helped bridge this film to A New Hope. The Princess Leia redo didn’t work as well for me, but she was only onscreen for a second so it’s really not a big deal.
All in all, this was both a great Star Wars film and an inconsequential chapter of the saga. You don’t need to watch this film. But you still should.
Solo (***1/2)
It’s a shame this movie underperformed. I think it’s better than Episode I and II for sure, and there wasn’t much that I really disliked about the movie. I wouldn’t call it one of the best Star Wars films, but it was a fun movie. The guy playing Han Solo did a pretty good job. It was actually Donald Glover who stole the show – he’s very charismatic throughout the film. Han meeting Chewie was a lot of fun too. I also thought seeing Darth Maul again was really cool – although if they don’t follow that up, it’s going to be a bit of a letdown.
It’s tricky with Darth Maul because they’ve brought him back in the animated Star Wars TV shows. And I know that some adults watch those, but I feel like most Star Wars fans haven’t. So we’ve reached a problem because in the Star Wars TV shows, we’ve seen Darth Maul return and been given an explanation for that. We’ve also seen Darth Maul die (again). So if you show either of those in a live-action film, you’re retreading old ground for the sake of fans like me. And there, you run the risk of discounting source material that the more die-hard fans love. On top of that, because Solo underperformed, who knows if we’re ever going to see more Darth Maul on the big screen.
Other than that, there’s not too much that I found super memorable. I’ve only seen this film once so far at the time of writing this, so maybe that’s part of it. Overall, this was a fun non-essential Star Wars movie.