This film came out at kind of a weird time. Star Wars Episode VII had just come out the year prior, and Episode VIII was looming in the shadows for the year to follow. Why would those in control of the franchise decide to go back in the timeline to tell a story we more or less knew the outcome of? (And that’s somewhat of a problem for any prequel, really, but I don’t want to digress too much.) Thankfully this ended up being incredibly well-made, and well-received, and was released long before any of us felt that “Star Wars fatigue” that many of us had by the time Solo came out. And honestly, that film wasn’t too bad either, but I’ll likely talk about that some other day. This post is about Rogue One, and that story ended up being a worthwhile one to tell.
To briefly sum up, Rogue One links the prequel Star Wars trilogy to the original films. And it does a mighty fine job of doing so. We get a look at some of the behind-the-scenes heroes of the Rebellion, struggling to survive as the Empire spreads across the galaxy. It leads in perfectly to the original trilogy, ending almost immediately where A New Hope begins, and incidentally uses hope as a theme throughout the film: as long as hope survives, there’s a chance for a better future.
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