Shortly before Rogue One was released,
a clip of the late, great Carl Sagan discussing
the original Star Wars made the rounds
on social media.
In it, Sagan noted the fact that
the people who populated the fictional sci-fi
setting of the film were almost entirely white.
"So among a bunch of other things,
they're all white.
The skin of all the humans
in Star Wars, oddly enough
is sort of like, like this.
"Right."
"And uh, noot even the other colors
represented on the Earth are present --
much less greens and blues and purples
and oranges."
"They did have a scene in Star Wars with
a lot of strange characters."
"Yeah.
But none of them seemed to be
in charge of the galaxy.
Everybody in charge of the galaxy
seemed to look like us."
It's wonderful that 39 years after the release
of that film, Rogue One rectifies this issue
to some degree,
giving us a vision of the galaxy
far, far away and that more closely reflects the
diversity of humanity here on earth.
In A New Hope,
the headquarters of the Rebel Alliance
on Yavin 4
is populated almost entirely by white people,
"If the Empire has this kind of power,
what chance do we have?"
In Rogue One, the Rebellion really does appear
to be an alliance of people from a range of places
and cultures, desperately united against
a common enemy.
It's refreshing to behold,
and highlights the fact that the original Star Wars
and most films out of Hollywood before and since
function to center and glorify whiteness,
marginalizing people of color in the process.
But while Rogue One succeeds
in the "big picture" sense of depicting a
crucial moment in the Rebellion struggle
against the mighty and oppressive Empire,
it fails to make us care about
the individual characters who are
swept up in this conflict.
The film is so densely plotted,
so busy advancing the particulars of its story,
or plowing through one of its many
visually-impressive action scenes,
that it rarely takes the time to breathe
and let us get to know the people
who are doing the fighting.
So as visually-impressive as they are,
the film's space battles and ground skirmishes
aren't as absorbing as they would be
if we felt more of a connection to the characters.
And when major characters die,
you can almost feel the film
straining to generate some powerful emotion
that it hasn't earned,
because it hasn't taken the time
to develop those characters.
"Where'd you get it?"
"I found it."
"I find that answer vague and unconvincing."
"Trust goes both ways."
If you 're a Star Wars fan,
some of the most effective moments
in Rogue One may be those times when
familiar characters from Episode IV show up;
because we've already developed
an emotional investment in those characters.
Rogue One uses this to its advantage,
occasionally tossing in familiar characters
or visual references to Episode IV,
purely as a bit of fan service,
rather than because it's important to the story
this film is telling.
"The Empire is building a weapon
capable of destroying an entire planet.
We have to capture the plans if there's any hope
of destroying it."
Rogue One's central character is Jyn Erso,
a young woman with a close personal connection
to the development of the Death Star --
a connection the Rebellion hopes to exploit
in order to deal with the Empire's
terrifying new weapon.
Unfortunately, despite being at the center
of the story,
Jyn is the least distinctive character
in the film's core cast of heroes.
She doesn't seem like anyone in particular.
At least the people surrounding her
have some defining characteristics.
Diego Luna's Cassian is a freedom-fighter
haunted by something in his past
that makes fighting the Empire
deeply personal to him.
Donnie Yen plays Chirrut Imwe,
a blind disciple of the Force,
whose connection with his gruff friend
and protector, Baze Malbus,
is the most emotionally-involving relationship
in the film.
Even Saw Gerrera,
played by an underused Forest Whitaker,
is more well-defined than Jyn.
Gerrera is a former ally of the Rebellion
who has been written off as too much of a
militant extremist and who now fights
his own kind of resistance.
Both Cassian and Saw Gerrera are characters
who have done morally questionable
or reprehensible things in the name of fighting back
against the Empire.
And while previous Star Wars films have always
presented the conflict between
the Rebellion and the Empire
in very stark terms of good versus evil,
Rogue One at least flirts with questioning
whether it's possible to go too far --
even when your cause is just.
You can see more clearly here than any other
Star Wars film,
how one person's freedom fighter
might be another person's terrorist.
And how desperate times may indeed call for some
truly desperate measures.
"We were on the verge of greatness.
We were this close to providing peace
and security for the galaxy."
"You're confusing peace with terror."
Still, it's clear that Rogue One
isn't really interested in exploring these questions
and doesn't want viewers to dwell on
or even think about the tremendous loss of life
that happens on the Imperial side of the conflict
as Star Destroyers explode and stormtroopers
are slaughtered.
And for all the talk from some people
about how Rogue One and films like it constitute
some kind of feminist propaganda,
it doesn't take much to see that it's still
very much a universe of men.
There are a few female pilots in the rebellion fleet
this time around,
and Mon Mothma is presented
as the leader of the Alliance,
but in the core cast,
Jyn Erso is the lone woman
surrounded by many, many men.
So while it's great to see characters like
Jyn in Rogue One, and
Rey in The Force Awakens
having prominent roles,
it hardly indicates an end to patriarchy --
either in the Star Wars universe
or in the film industry.
In the end, Rogue One works well
as a narrative that fills in some gaps
in other, better films:
explaining not just how
the rebels got their hands on the Death Star plans,
but also why the Death Star has such an
easily exploitable weakness in the first place.
But because so much of its focus is on
communicating plot,
not enough focus goes into developing
its characters, and their relationships
with each other,
the all-important human element gets a bit lost
in all the sound and fury of war.