I typically don’t post reviews of current films, but as a long time Star Wars fan, I wanted to put down some thoughts on Gareth Edwards’s new entry in the film canon, and the first standalone film (assuming you don’t count the 2008 animated entry The Clone Wars): Rogue One. So here we are!

I read Steven Greydanus’s review for his site, Decent Films, prior to seeing the film, in which he persuasively argues that this new film, subtitled “A Star Wars Story,” is a major change in the mode of the storytelling from the numbered Episodes of the main Saga. There is a shift from the fairytale like quality of the original trilogy, into a slightly more mainline sci-fi style. Not only is the violence more visceral than in most of the films, but also the heroes and even possibly the Rebel cause itself, are tainted with war crimes and murders that are made a central part of the story. The mythic mode of storytelling has had the bright lines between the “good guys” and “bad guys” smudged. For some, this is a welcome change, a more “realistic” look at the horror of war. For Greydanus, it’s basically a dealbreaker, in that he feels this form of storytelling betrays what is essential about the original Star Wars fantasy, with its archetypal presentation of the story of the triumph of purity and idealism over the evil forces of mechanical domination.

I found myself in neither camp, really. Years of dipping  into the well of the now-defunct Expanded Universe off and on has primed me for an incredible variety of storytelling modes set in this universe that, God help me, I can’t help but love. Greydanus’s argument that the core, canonical (film) stories are betrayed by Rogue One in a way that wasn’t the case with the peripheral books and comics is legitimate—and nagged at me—but I still found more to appreciate than he did.

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