AT its release in 2016, we hardly dared to imagine it, especially not after the rumors of reassembly of the film from which it was said to be excluded. Coming out of the cinema, however, it was obvious: Gareth Edwards succeeded in his suicide mission; Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is a surprise of intergalactic dimension. Between the flashy copyist J. J. Abrams and the discreet gifted Edwards, the gaping chasm jumps violently to the retinas. When The force awakens d’Abrams duplicated, sequence by sequence, the DNA of the seminal Episode IV, RogueOne kicks fans out of their comfort zone while elegantly inserting itself into the mythology. When one, after a more than honorable first act, got bogged down in fan service by multiplying clumsy winks, the other ventured into a kamikaze warrior epic holding its sacrificial note to the end.
It is true that the very concept of RogueOne allows its creators to escape the (too) heavy specifications weighing on Abrams’ shoulders. Here, a story without continuation, without obligation to encumber itself with this caricature of grumpy old baderne that Harrison Ford has become and with a multitude of characters written never to return. No question either of total revolution and RogueOneas The force awakens, summons writing schemes that conform to the canons of mythology. It simply gives the impression of doing it much more subtly, with infinitely more humanity, less pomp and, above all, in a visual setting of stunning splendor and inventiveness, despite the bias of the style ” the hard “.
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Franchise repainted in khaki
Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), the “Luke Skywalker” of RogueOne, responds to the call of adventure from childhood when, before her eyes, at the start of the film, her father Galen (Mads Mikkelsen) is kidnapped by an Empire commando. A genius engineer, Galen Erso is summoned by senior officer Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) to return to complete the construction of the Death Star, which he himself helped design. As an adult, Jyn enlists the Rebel Alliance willy-nilly for an impossible mission: to steal the plans for the Death Star from under the Empire’s nose.
Battles in space or on the ground, imperial quadripods, talkative droid (K-2SO, wonderfully embodied by Alan Tudyk), last act intermingling three simultaneous actions… We are obviously not in unfamiliar territory. Fortunately by the way! But whether it’s the innumerable visual and sound reminders of theEpisode IVthe return of Darth Vader or the discreet recycling of old Lucasian ideas (the “Kyber crystal”… we won’t say more), RogueOne never confuse homage to the essence of Star Wars and slave pumping.
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Inside this playground, Edwards seems to have had carte blanche to repaint the franchise in khaki and take the title of the saga literally: on the screen, it is indeed a war that we are witnessing . Between The Dirty Dozen, A bridge too far, Apocalypse Now And Beyond Glory, RogueOnedespite its quintals of frenetic action, is crossed in this title by a signal sadness, a feeling of gravity due to the desperate character of the rebellious mission of the title.
No cute BB-8s, no goofballs
In the many ground combat scenes, lasers hiss like bullets, explosions rage, Stormtroopers are shot to the head, while in the sky, X-Wings and TIE fighters shoot each other like fire. Air Force and Luftwaffe aircraft during World War II. No cute BB-8s, no monster fairs or goofballs like in The force awakens : there is humor in RogueOnebut it is more like the boastfulness of soldiers aware of their one-way mission than a nudge for the whole family.
Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), the partner of the heroine Jyn Erso, acts as a rebel spy with methods as dirty as those of the agents of the Resistance, as told to us by Melville in Army of Shadows. Han Solo bumping into Greedo, it’s a Care Bear next to Cassian! Among the other members of the suicide squad, the magnificent Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) and his sidekick Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen) portray a poetic and tasty mystical duo, poignant in their valorous destiny.
The circle is complete with Lucas
The realistic cachet of RogueOne, still legible thanks to a staging that does not confuse warlike chaos with incompetent hysteria, does not prevent the film from dazzling at almost every photogram. We are not about to forget this imperial cruiser crossing the shadow of the giant circular cannon of the Black Star, this imperial quadripod emerging from the mist like a King Kong or this cloud of apocalypse sweeping the planet Jedha.
So yes, RogueOne will perhaps destabilize purists as soon as it opens, deprived of the traditional rolling credits and the immutable theme of Star Wars. Don’t worry about Michael Giacchino’s music by the way: he is exemplary, a miracle given the emergency conditions in which the composer worked. But it is this impression of new flavor that makes the experience so valuable. On condition of accepting this audacious dark tonality, less pop, almost naturalistic, very different from the gravity of The Empire Strikes Back And from Revenge of the Sith (reputed to be the most depressive opuses of Star Wars), you will be amazed by this step aside bordering on the miracle.
An incredible war movie that dazzles the eyes and wrings the heart
A few regrets, which in no way spoil the immense pleasure: the rebirth in synthetic images of the evil Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing, brought back from the dead by the magic of a digital, alas, far too obvious), the excesses of Forest Whitaker and the inconstancy of Felicity Jones. Not always fair in emotion, alas, she does not allow her scenes (however poignant) with Mads Mikkelsen to reach the tearful peak that was within their reach.
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No matter: on the forehead shivers, RogueOne has many other tricks up its sleeve, up to this overwhelming finale with the mad elegance with which it comes full circle with the work of George Lucas. The author of these lines, during the final plan that he will be careful not to reveal to you, found himself face to face with magic Star Wars as he had felt almost forty years earlier. RogueOne is an incredible star wars movie that dazzles the eyes and wrings the heart. We had REALLY never seen this since The Empire Strikes Back. Go for it!