Why Rogue One Might Be Better Than the Force Awakens

Star Wars fans should always be quick to remember that the Star Wars movies were not created in a vacuum (regardless of their various deep space settings).  George Lucas himself has stated that the Star Wars movies were essentially an amalgam of some of his favorite movies and genres assembled within a new and different science fiction setting.

For instance the Dune novels by Frank Herbert are directly referenced more than once in the Star Wars films and it doesn’t take much additional digging to find their influence throughout.

The samurai film epics of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa were another major influence on George Lucas and many elements from the movie The Hidden Fortress are woven into the narrative of the original Star Wars movie.

The film noir genre itself and movies like The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca were ones Lucas grew up enjoying and many of the seedier elements of the Star Wars universe find their origins with them.  The Mos Eisley Cantina and Jabba the Hutt are a direct result of Lucas’ love of the gritty gangster ridden noir films.

There are of course other influences and aspects of the creation of the Star Wars movies which can be traced to many different sources; various science fiction, other films, fantasy literature, mythology, and even real world politics all of which are too numerous to mention here.  All of this is to say that originally Star Wars was never about the things for which it has now become famous, like reinventing the movie industry or altering the perception of science fiction on the big screen.  Instead I would argue that Star Wars was Lucas’ attempt to reintroduce many of the elements of “classic” Hollywood back into the harsh and often dreary cinemascape of the 1970’s.

At this point I must immediately interject here that I in no way believe Star Wars to be a rip-off or even unoriginal, in fact quite the opposite.  Although the Star Wars movies are heavy on familiar themes, pulp fiction references, and film making of a bygone era (even the scene transitions are antiquated wipes, pans, and dissolves) it was all pieced together in a wholly unique blend of space opera epic which introduced the world to the lightsaber, X-Wings, TIE Fighters, Wookiees, droids, and a whole slew of iconic planets, characters, aliens, and starships.

My point is this: As a long time Star Wars fan I have cultivated the opinion that, as a general rule, Star Wars (in all it’s varied forms and formats) is at its best when it emulates other things and frames them within the Star Wars universe; and doesn’t try too hard to be “Star Wars”.  Star Wars is not purely sci-fi, it isn’t purely fantasy, and it isn’t meant to be dramatic high art.  When any of these elements over shadows the others or when the elements of Star Wars itself begin to dominate the storyline the result is failure.

From my experience this balancing game falls apart in the expanded universe books, games, and other forums.  Though there is an argument for such an imbalance within the prequel movies as well and the reason why that trilogy has become so universally panned (though all of that is a topic for another time).

With the Star Wars novels in particular, especially the now defunct old EU, the authors attempt to capture the feeling of Star Wars too much by directly referencing the Star Wars universe in an awkward forced way.  Or they focus far too much on the sci-fi elements of the setting, presenting high tech jargon while casually rattling off obscure alien species and bits of Star Wars trivia in order to seem authentic.  All the while lauding a story lines which might seem clever in other sci-fi but seem out of place in the context of Star Wars.

There are however some great Star Wars novels, some of my favorites are the Death Troopers books by Joe Schreiber which are essentially horror/zombie novels set in the Star Wars universe.  Additionally Cloak of Deception and Darth Plagueis by James Luceno take up the staples of political thrillers set during the time of the prequel era and include all the Sith intrigue and Jedi apolitical maneuvering you’d expect, along with plenty of action and starships.

Similarly many of the best episodes of the Clone Wars series were when Dave Filoni and company played with various concepts and framed genre and  various trope story lines which had not been seen in the Star Wars universe beforehand.  The Clone Wars cartoon included murder mysteries, heist episodes, and giant kaiju-like monster attacks; all under the interpretations of the Star Wars universe.

Even the Star Wars video games have been at their best when they simply borrow from other popular video games and lend their unique and exciting Star Wars spin to the premise and gameplay.  Star Wars Battlefront was essentially Battlefield 1942 in space.  Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds was very much the Star Wars version of Starcraft.  Star Wars Racer, the Phantom Menace podracing game, was the Star Wars answer to any number of popular racing games of the day.  Those video games were GREAT!  Sure there were other impressive Star Wars games through the ages but many of those put a tight focus on specific characters or directly put the players in control of reenacting scenes from the movies.

Other Star Wars games did not stand up as well.

One of my least favorite games were the Force Unleashed series.  I believe they suffered from trying far too hard to feel Star Wars.  There certainly was some enjoyment in the array of Force powers available to Starkiller, the main character of the games, and the sandbox of destruction possible as a result.  However that game was a ridiculous mosaic of random elements from the Star Wars saga combined with fanboy wish fulfillment, wrapped in an incomprehensible story arc which was absolutely contradictory to the canon of the movies themselves.  I know a lot of people enjoyed that pair of games but not me and I’m sorry, it’s how I feel.

The only real example of a Star Wars property making a success from overtly trying to be “Star Warsy” was The Force Awakens, which does it’s best to redesign the original movie nearly beat for beat while adding several new and exciting characters and twists throughout.  In fact my biggest complaint regarding Episode VII is the plots general unoriginality.  However the characters and overall execution were so great that the redundancies in the narrative could be overlooked.

This December will see the release of the first Star Wars spinoff movie, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (ugh.  Just call them Anthology Movies).  Rogue One is being touted as a war film, a pilot ace flick, and a heist movie all taking place within the setting of the Star Wars universe.  It is because of what we know regarding the plot that I believe Rogue One will be a great Star Wars movie and possibly better than The Force Awakens, for the reasons stated above.

The Star Wars universe is precisely that, an expansive diverse universe of possibilities and has the possibility to be so much more than a story of the Skywalker family and the Jedi.  Star Wars is also not simply a pattern of film making which if done right can be repeated ad nauseam into infinity.  And the Star Wars universe certainly is not just another sci-fi franchise that any tired sci-fi story can pasted onto, sprinkled with a few lightsabers, and titled Star Wars.  It is the exoticness of the well-worn settings and pervasive mandate for adventure which the Star Wars universe was built upon and which is able to take old stories and reform them in new ways.

Hopefully this is the case with Rogue One.

I really hope Rogue One takes off (pun intended) and is a big hit for Disney and Lucasfilm and I would love to see this first spin off movie blow The Force Awakens out of the water.  I’ve said this before, and although I have absolutely no ill will towards the Force Awakens, but I really hope that in the long run Episode VII really isn’t anyone’s favorite Star Wars flick.  With so much new Star Wars on the horizon hopefully as new movies keep opening up in theaters they will continue to outdo the previous ones in new and different ways.

Update: The Colonel’s Pants

So my post about Colonel Wullf Yularen’s pants apparently has gained some traction recently (reread it here) .  The post has acquired quite a few new views in the past couple of weeks and the images in that post have gotten a lot of clicks.

And I do mean a lot of clicks (at least relative to the obscurity of this blog as well as the definitive obscurity of the subject matter of that particular post.)

The only thing I can come up with to explain this phenomenon is the recent release of the trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.  In case you haven’t seen it yet, go take a look immediately! Seriously, watch it NOW!

 

One of the tantalizing tidbits from that magnificent trailer which pertains to this discussion is the appearance of Ben Mendelsohn’s character who, from what we can tell, is a new Imperial villain.

What has me most excited about this new Imperial baddie is his uniform!

Ben Mendelsohn as he appears in the upcoming Star Wars Anthology Movie, Rogue One.

 

Look what we have here!  It appears to be a variant of the same white and black ISB uniform which we see throughout the first Death Star during the events of A New Hope (refer to previous post for those details).  As it so happens the plot of Rogue One is going to center around the first Death Star and the Rebel Alliance stealing the plans for that battle station!

What a coincidence.  As it so happens that original Death Star was crawling with dudes who were dressed very similarly to this guy!

But if you’re a follower of this blog you’d have already expected that!

Now there are some differences between Ben’s uniform and the ISB uniforms which we see in the original Star Wars.  I’m confident this is simply a stylistic choice on the part of the filmmakers but there is a slim chance that this uniform is something new and not meant to be in line with those seen aboard the Death Star.

Anywho let’s take a minute to discuss these differences.

First the tailoring itself.  The cut and style of the white jacket seen above is very much the same as the grey and olive Imperial jackets seen in the three original Star Wars movies.  However the white uniform jackets seen in A New Hope were moderately simpler and were essentially plain chefs jackets.

Secondly this jacket has the distinctive silver Imperial code cylinders located at either shoulder of the uniform.  This feature and the small pockets set in the jacket are not found in any of the white uniform jackets we see in A New Hope.

Black gloves.  Although it is very popular for Star Wars cosplayers to sport black gloves with their Imperial uniforms there are really very few examples of that in the actual movies and there are absolutely zero examples of black gloves being worn by the white coated ISB officers from A New Hope.  However the preeminent Star Wars costuming group, the 501st Legion, does allow for the option of black gloves within their strict guidelines for most Imperial officer costumes, so there’s that.

Now that cape which is draped across this character’s shoulders is another major difference in the costume.  This is something completely new for the Imperial era uniforms and I’m guessing indicates some sort of prestigious rank or position within the Empire.  Head of the Imperial Security Bureau perhaps?  We’ll just have to wait and see.

The rank insignia is also new to this uniform and again signifies importance.  With 6 red bars above 6 blue bars that would make this character an admiral, at least according to the Empire Strikes Back system of ranking, making this character the highest ranking individual seen wearing this uniform (fun fact each movie of the original trilogy has a drastically different system of rank insignia all utilizing some variant of the red/blue/yellow rank bar combination).

With this new Mendelsohn uniform we still have the standard belt of the galactic Empire and thankfully this character is wearing the correct, BLACK PANTS, which I thoroughly discussed in the original post.

All in all I have no doubt this character will belong to the same branch of the Galactic Imperial Military as the original black and white uniformed Imperials that we see in Star Wars, now whether or not these guys are firmly defined as members of the Imperial Security Bureau, as was established in the now defunct expanded universe, is yet to be seen.

I guess what I’m saying is all of my analysis and speculation is wasted effort and that I should just sit back a few months and wait to see Rogue One!  Until then I leave you with this pic of my personal ISB uniform because of course I have one, black gloves and all!

 

That is all!