Rogue One: Rebel ReBoots in a Time of Empire (FILM REVIEW)

I know what you are thinking.

Does the world need another Star Wars film?

Of course. Let me explain.

First – it’s holiday time, and raining (after early snow falls elevated excitement) in the once and future Vermont republic. “Rogue One” is a much-needed distraction from the realities of climate change, the 2016 election circus, and January 2017’s impending ascendancy of Lord Vader, er, I mean, the Donald, to the D.C. Beltway’s House of White, surrounded by his emerging imperial retinue: climate change deniers, intolerant political reactionaries, public school privatizers, alt right racists, fossil fuel Exxon energizers, militant China (and Russia?) bashers, greedy Goldman Sachs vampire squid(s), and other assorted corporate con men and women – a Trump’ian tragi-comedy of terrors whose overarching goal seems to be the complete annihilation of our global public commons to enrich the private coffers of the Drumpf and his new base of corporate 1%’ers. The Death Star’s got nothing on this crew, who are poised to serve as glorified 21^st century Planet (Earth) Wreckers. The only difference? Reality ain’t no Hollywood movie.

Second, in a new millennium where the U.S. of Empire’s “Deep State” manages a global network of close to 1,000 military bases (“full spectrum dominance!’ cries the Pentagon) in more than 150 countries around Planet Earth, Hollywood needs to remind American audiences of the U.S. republic’s plucky rebel roots. Inconveniently, director J.J. Abrams, who brilliantly rebooted the Star Wars franchise one year ago with “The Force Awakens,” moved on t0 other projects. With Abrams absent, director Gareth Edwards gets the nod, delivering a workmanlike “Rogue One” that is entertaining enough, although strangely out-of-synch with imperial realities here on the ground in the 21^st century United States.

The “Rogue One” story? Let me get all fan boy on you for a moment, I was ten years old in 1977, when the original Star Wars hit the silver screen. All of us wondered, after seeing the film dozens of times – where did Princess Leia actually GET the blueprints for the Death Star, allowing Luke, Han, Chewie and the Rebels to destroy Lord Vader’s planet-killing machine by film’s end? (Forty-year-old SPOILER ALERT – sorry). “Rogue One” answers this question in two hours. Rebel heroine Jyn Erso (a capable if monochromatic Felicity Jones) organizes a band of rebels who engineer a desperate mission to capture the plans from the Empire as the destructive Death Star is coming on line. We meet a somewhat predictable if energetic band of rebel misfits – the Force-channeling dojo Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen), the wise-cracking passive aggressive droid K-2SO (Alan Tudyk), the buccaneer Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), and some digital bread crumbs dropped for us old school SW fans, including CGI cameos by a dead Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin, glimpses of R2D2 and C3PO, and at the very end, well, go see the film.

Perhaps my mixed feelings about “Rogue One” stem from realities on the ground here on our real Planet, Earth. “From our 21^st century vantage point here in the United States of Empire,” I wrote in my review of director J.J. Abrams’ “The Force Awakens” exactly one year ago, “the ‘Star Wars’ phenomenon suddenly becomes more complex and disturbing, in a world of ‘terrorism’ (real and manufactured), false flag attacks, drone warfare, full spectrum dominance, Peak Oil, climate change, nuclear war,” and now, of course, Trumpism, which will plow full force into our dying republic and our Planet like a fleet of imperial battle destroyers beginning in January 2017. Unlike “Star Wars,” there are no Rebels to save us – we are the ones we’ve been waiting for, provided we can muster our inner resources and work together to make a stand here in the Green Mountains of Vermont’s once and future republic. “May the Force be with you,” this holiday season and into what is sure to be an epic year ahead.

Rob Williams professes media, communications, and global studies in Burlington, Vermont, and helms the Vermont Independent.