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Top 10 Moments in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story


So after spending 2016 in a mixture of hopeful optimism and denial over concerns like reshoots and making a prequel story work, Rogue One finally exploded onto our screens this December and in short, it was incredible! A solid story fitting perfectly into the existing saga, filled with wonderful characters and an action-packed final act to die and come back as a Force ghost for. At time of writing, I’m already on my 3rd viewing and still wanting more. The film packs so much goodness that narrowing everything down to my 10 favorite moments was about as simple as squeezing a Hutt into an escape pod but eventually, after many painful jettisons, I had the final manifest. So first up, for anyone that’s not gone Rogue yet, this will....

CONTAINS SPOILERS

So please please watch the film first. Secondly, the list is subjective to my own enjoyment of the film and purely written for fun, being the moments that resonated best with me and I’m in no way asking you to agree. Finally, as usual with such list, we’re being fast loose with the term “moment” to be anything distinctive from a few seconds to a few minutes. With that in mind, let’s punch it!

  1. Mads Mikkelsen 1; Fanboys 0

    This could have been taken from a few different points in the film but we’ll go with the Galen’s hologram message to Jyn and Saw Gerrera on Jedha. Now, no Star Wars film (or indeed any film) is perfect and  just like the structural plans of a colossal battle station, if you look hard enough, you will find a weakness. That said, one of the most annoying and frustratingly-picked apart moments from A New Hope is just how easy the Death Star was to destroy with its magic “shoot here to make it all blow up” hole. Then along comes Mads Mikkelsen, and he doesn’t just explain things, he makes complete sense of it all by revealing that he pretended to play the Empire’s pawn to make sure he built in that very destructive weakness as his Rolo Tomassi (checkmate from the grave) revenge. He even manages to mix some good displays of emotion into his confessions. It also pulls into what will become the film’s central theme of sacrifice for the greater good. It serves as character development for Jyn while driving the plot forward, but most of all, shoots down anyone ripping on A New Hope’s Death Star attack ever again because everything finally makes complete sense!

  2. AT-ATs in the mist

    There were a lot of big moments in the battle of Scarif, both in the space above and on the picturesque beaches below. It packed several turning points and moments of escalation but one of my favourite incidents was the emergence of the AT-ATs into the battle against the initial stand by Baze, Chirrut, and the rest of the team. The Rogues have just set off the pad explosions and are holding their own against the first wave of storm troopers they face. The film is luring us into belief, “Okay, maybe they can actually do this” before out of the smoke and mist emerges an AT-AT head on their flank, and we’re reminded of how hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned the team really is. It was a moment that took the battle from being a stormtrooper-swatting affair to pledging the Empire forces as powerful and formidable opponents that will take more than rousing moral to overcome. The timing is excellent as Chirrut gets a Spidersense-like alarm bell just before the emergence. Then the scattering Rogues into the trees conjures immediate images of the Ewoks (stay with me here) as they flee the AT-STs in the forest. The team feels hopelessly overpowered with nothing left to do but make a desperate run for it,which makes their later save Blue Squadron all the more rewarding.

  3. Jyn speaks to the council

    The hero/heroine makes a rousing speech.... well that’s a new one. It may have been arguably the most clichéd point in entire the film, but the simple fact remains: Jyn’s speech was a bloody good one! It affirmed the transition of her character from being indifferent to the Empire/Rebel conflict (“It’s not a problem if you don’t look up”) to believing with conviction in the value of their cause. It saw her drawing from earlier planted quotes like Rebellions being built on hope while writers Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy still saved plenty of original material for her, “What chance do we have? The question is what choice?”. This showed us the Rebellion as we didn’t know we wanted them to be: a bunch of flawed heroes. Let them have doubts, let them be terrified of failure but show them eventually choosing to fight anyway because they understand they have something worth fighting and dying for. It fulfilled every requirement of establishing grounds for Cassian and the rest of his rebel Rebels to join Jyn in defying the council on the unsanctioned mission and ultimately getting the rest of the Rebellion onside too.

  4. Destruction of Jedha

    There’s probably a joke in here about, “it’s not the size that matters, it’s how you use it”. We’ve seen a Death Star blow up a planet before. We’ve seen Starkiller Base take out a whole system. Yet the smaller weapons test city-destroying blast from the Death Star on Jedha trumps them all, not for the scale of its destruction but how the said destruction is shown on screen. First of all, the orbital shots from the Imperial contingent looking down on the blast are breathtaking. As the Imperials watch the gargantuan blast marker slowly expanding across Jedha’s surface --an image that will resonate in the film’s climax. Not to mention the parallel angle shot panning up the central column of fire and dirt to show the Death Star sitting almost like an Eye of Sauron at the tip of it.... and that’s before we even get to the people on the surface! We know a few billion innocents died on Alderaan when the planet was destroyed but we never experienced it from their perspective. Here, we not only get the atrocity of seeing the familiar Jedha City obliterated but the thrills of watching the Rogue team trying to escape the looming shock wave of the blast. Even knowing the team will escape, it’s still an immensely tense sequence as the debris falls from the skies while the K-2 flies them to safety. The droid even breaks up well with a midway laugh, “It’s the horizon.... there isn’t one”.

  5. K-2SO’s sacrifice

    If you’ve read my review, you’ll know that Alan Tudyk’s K-2SO was my favorite character. The final Scarif battle had no shortage of character deaths due to the ill-fated nature of their mission. Baze raging out of the Deathtroopers after losing Chirrut was great. Bodhi getting grenaded after risking it all to send the vital transmission was sad, and others that we’ll get to later. A Top 20 list would have featured them all but through a combination of love for the character and the nature of the sequence itself, the one I’m choosing to represent here is K-2SO. Firstly, it’s the only such scene that balances in some lighter comedy as well as tragic material as we see K-2 initially holding off incoming stormtroopers while casually conversing with Jyn and Cassian. Then there’s his demise itself. He’s not just killed, he’s virtually dismantled as he takes blast after blast to make him the film’s Boromir. In his final moments, he’s not even fighting back as he sacrifices himself so Jyn and Cassian can find the vital file. His last words say it all. A character established as saying what he thinks bids farewell to his friend accepting his demise, “Goodbye Cassian...”. When a film can make you care that much about a robot character, you know it’s doing something right.

  6. Force Fu

    Donnie Yen’s casting as Chirrut Îmwe raised a few eyebrows as to whether or not we would see Yen kicking some serious ass in the movie. For those unfamiliar with this Hong Kong-born legend, he’s a multiple World Wushu tournament champion, and over his years, has travelled the globe mastering all manner of disciplines to see him regarded one of the most accomplished martial artists and fighters in Asia. He’s successfully applied this to the film world not only as an actor but one of the world’s best action choreographers with a habit of mixing and adapting numerous different styles into his work. For Rogue One, Yen not only gets his fight on but actually created a new style of martial arts for his blind but Force-attuned character, dubbed by many as “Force Fu”. His showpiece sequence in the streets of Jedha is mind-blowing to watch as he dodges, dances and stick slaps his way around a fully blaster armed squad of stormtroopers. Not only was it a magnificent visual spectacle but it actually expanded the existing lore of The Force by showing how those other than Jedi can learn to utilize it. It’s something the Force Awakens tried to do with Maz Kanata but it felt more like a lecture. Here, the simple combination of Chirrut’s blindness and Yen’s flawless fight prowess shows us empathetically of such possibilities. Chirrut gets other good action moments throughout the film but none better this initial onslaught.

  7. Cassian’s dark side

    One of things I really loved about Rogue One, was the way it used its “war film” approach to finally show the Rebels as something other than squeaky clean good guys. In our first meeting of Cassian Andor, we see him killing in cold blood at the trading outpost to imply that dirty deeds must be done for the greater good. This creates superb inner conflict for his character when he’s secretly ordered to kill Jyn’s father rather than a rescue leading to an emotional confrontation between Jyn and Cassian in the departing shuttle. As Cassian screams at Jyn that he’s been in this fight since he was 6 years old, it reflects that realities of being part of the Rebellion better than anything in the saga to date/ It echoes the way the conquering Empire have been destroying people’s lives as they subject their cruelty. and Deigo Luna in particular gives an outstanding performance. It could so easily have been throwaway “required conflict” moment just so the team can rally for the final assault but ultimately, it felt one of the most emotionally significant moments in the entire film.

  8. Rebel fleet incoming!

    I’d say the biggest surprise twist of the entire film was just how epic in scale the final act battle of Scarif turned out to be. We’d seen the trailers and knew some bigger features like AT-ATs would be involved but general feeling was it would still all revolve around the small Rogue One team on the planet’s surface. So when the entire Rebel fleet blasted in out of hyperspace suddenly, there were no words. Only inaudible gasps as the hairs on your arm stand up in stillness as you realize, we were being given something on the same scale Return of the Jedi’s ground & space assault on the 2nd Death Star with modern day SFX capabilities. Things immediately felt very very special and everything that followed only served to reinforce that. Then there’s the arrival shot itself from the fixed perspective of an X-Wing’s hull coming out of hyperspace and all the Empire forces expanding into view. The music kicks in, Admiral Raddus starts ordering the fighters, and we don’t even care that he’s not Admiral Ackbar. Then just to top it all off, the editors manage to seamlessly splice in snippets from A New Hope to give us the original Red Leader and Gold Leader as squadron commanders. Beloved memories of the older films come flashing back while immaculate and gorgeous space combat CG lights up the screen as the past and present collide into a cluster geek-gasam.

  9. Vader unleashed

    When word started drifting through rumor pages that Darth Vader would be appearing in this film, quickly one question was in everyone’s minds: Would we finally get to see him as a full-blown Force-wielding badass in the way that only other publication formats have yet managed? Yes, the strong but sombre Darth was great in the original trilogy but limited by the filmmaking technologies of his time and evolutions of such have made his subsequent lightsaber wielders look cooler and more formidable than he ever was. Then along comes Rogue One, and gives us a corridor demolition derby that embodies Vader’s very character while wrenching our jaws apart in awesomeness. As soon as he breathes into shot, he feels all imposing. Then we see him lashing out with anger and hatred like the tormented beast we’ve come to know him as, by mercilessly dispatching everyone in his path. He isn’t fighting this unfortunate Rebel jobber squad, he’s dominating them and having them so hopelessly outclassed amplifies the desperation of the escape. It’s so incredible it actually detracts you from the certainty of the events. We know the Rebels will escape with the plans (because continuity and stuff) and that Vader will fail to stop them, but everything on screen is so spectacular we just don’t care.

  10. “Rogue One, may the Force be with you”

    As already discussed, this film had a lot of fantastic character final moments but none rivalled the beautiful sequence that saw the demise of everyone on Scarif and the impending fate of Jyn and Cassian. From the moment the two smashed together, Star Destroyers fall towards shield gate and the music shifts to slow and poetic piano tones, it culminates the entire film in magnificent fashion; it’s a bittersweet victory. The plans are transmitted, and though the Rebels rejoice, the moment is short-lived as they look down upon the planet ignited by the power of the Death Star. While Jyn and Cassian face their deaths together by the picturesque shore, Admiral Raddus bids them their final farewell, “Rogue One, may the Force we with you”. The film could so easy have made this into a predictable happy ending but instead, Gareth Edwards sent a single rector blast straight to our hearts. From Jyn and Cassian’s slow journey down to the beach, gazing into each other’s eyes like just maybe they’ve fallen for each other but will never know what life could have been, to the hazy glow on the horizon of the blast fireball mixing in with blazing sunshine: it’s a touching, heart-wrenching and poignant swan song to film’s lead characters. Even on the second and third viewing this moment still had me harder than anything else, and I can’t see that ever changing. The Force will be with you Rogue One..... always.

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