Rewatching “Rogue One” for the first time since it was in theaters, it’s impossible not to see the movie it could have been — a dark, nuanced exploration of the central conflict of “Star Wars,” the Rebellion against the Galactic Empire.
In fact, “Rogue One” has always felt like it was meant to be that exploration of the gray area between good and evil, before rewrites and reshoots turned it into more of a compendium of plot threads than one coherent story. For evidence of that, look no further than Saw Guerrera, Forest Whitaker’s character — who should have been a much, much bigger deal.
“Rogue One” spends most of its first act talking about Saw — pretty much whenever it’s not talking about Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), the former Imperial defector and weapons scientist who is more responsible than anyone else for creating the Death Star.
The Rebels have it on good authority that removing Galen from the equation would halt or terminate the development of the as-yet-unknown superweapon. They think Saw has received intelligence that will tell them how to find Galen, so they can assassinate him. Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is Galen’s daughter and was raised by Saw after her father was recaptured by the Empire, so the rebels send her to make contact with Saw and get info on Galen.
It’s telling that nobody wants to deal with Saw. A former rebel, he’s now created a splinter resistance group on Jedha, where the Empire is ravaging old Jedi temples for crystals to power the Death Star. He doesn’t like the rest of the rebels, and they don’t like him — we don’t know what Saw’s issue is, but it seems like the rest of the Rebel Alliance, up to this point content to operate clandestinely in small skirmishes and mostly through spies, thinks he’s too reckless and brash. And when “Rogue One” gets to Jedha, we see why.
As Jyn and Rebel spy Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) are wandering Jedha looking to get in touch with Saw, his guys launch a guerrilla ambush on an Imperial tank and a squad of troops. They do this in the middle of a town square occupied very obviously by civilians, including children. The battle results in some severe destruction, a destroyed building and a lot of collateral damage.
Saw isn’t running an army — he’s running an insurgency in a desert city against an occupying force. Skipping over the obvious present-day political implications, Saw’s choice of tactics is packed with gray-area morality. In his view, the ends — disrupting the Empire’s operations — justify the means, even if that includes blowing up some kids.
Spend any time watching Saw and looking at his extensive getup and you can see he was meant for more in “Rogue One.” There’s a lot about his character that’s extremely thematically and visually significant. He’s missing both legs, which have been replaced with robot parts. He can barely get around. He’s basically wearing an iron lung, and breathes occasionally from a handy mask attached to his chest.
If all this sounds familiar, it should. Because Saw Guerrera is basically Rebel Darth Vader.
Later in the movie, we get a sense of maybe why Saw split from the Rebels. Faced with Jyn’s information about a flying superweapon space station full of Imperials that can also decimate planets (or at the very least whole cities), the Rebels turn into a flailing bureaucracy. Half or more want to flee outright, disband the Alliance, and pretty much hope they don’t get cooked by a capricious Empire. The other half want to fight but don’t really have, uh … any kind of plan.
You’d almost think their amassed forces aren’t really up to the task, standing in the old temple on Yavin, the camera tracking across their collected faces.
Meanwhile, you have Saw and his band of like 30 guys spending all their time trying to disrupt Imperial activities in a single occupied city. Arguably this is an almost empty gesture given the Empire’s size and might, but they’ve been doing it anyway with at least some success, in that they’re not all dead, for long enough to become well-known. No wonder he bailed on this collective of all-talk senators.
Saw is obviously not the kind of rebel the Rebellion wants, and he probably sees his counterparts as ineffectually gesturing at opposing the Empire more than actually doing anything about it. And then we have Jyn and her team, who should be caught between these two extremes.
Watch early trailers with Saw’s voice-over asking, “What will you do when they catch you — what will you do when they break you? …What will you become?” That dialogue isn’t in the final cut of the movie, but it lends more evidence to the central idea of what “Rogue One” and Saw as a character were aiming at: This movie should have been a battle for the soul of the Rebellion.
And that’s a story “Star Wars” could really stand to tell. Stories in the franchise are all about redemption for past bad deeds. The prequel trilogy movies try to show how fear can be corrupted into evil. “Rogue One,” bridging the gap, was primed to be a story about intentions versus consequences, and about the fact that how the characters fight their war is as important as why they fight it.
Saw was the fickle, paranoid, and cruel mirror that would have helped us to understand the Rebellion, and the people in it, on a much deeper level. Like Luke Skywalker tossing away his lightsaber rather than executing Darth Vader in “Return of the Jedi,” it would have given Jyn and the rest of the rebels a way not just to oppose evil, but to actively choose good.
That story would have taught us a lot more about the Rebellion than showing us exactly how the Death Star plans ended up with Princess Leia.
'Rogue One': 35 Characters Ranked, from Worst to Best (Photos)
Who was the biggest star in "Rogue One"? That's a question we're setting out to answer, and it's a tough one at that. With a cast that boasts the talents of Felicity Jones, Forest Whitaker and Diego Luna (just to name a few), it's hard to pick out the best of them. See how your list compares to ours.
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34-35. C-3PO and R2-D2
The worst of all the “A New Hope” call-backs. Not only does C-3PO continue the trend that no one has written him a funny line since “Return of the Jedi,” but this almost comes off as a plot hole, since the two droids must be immediately sprinting to Princess Leia’s blockade runner in order to appear in the next movie.
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32-33. Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba
Of all the call-backs to “A New Hope,” Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba — the two guys who mess with Luke at Mos Eisley before Baba gets his arm sliced off by Obi-Wan — seem the most unnecessary. These guys must have walked directly to their ship and taken off in order to avoid getting wiped out by the Death Star, only to pick the extremely wrong bar fight just days later.
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31. Red 5
It’s hard not to feel bad for this pilot, whose whole reason for existing in the battle of Scarif is to explode and leave space on the call sign roster for Luke Skywalker. This blurry look of panic is the beginning and end of his tragic story in the movie.
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30. Tentacle monster
Because apparently, it just wouldn’t be New “Star Wars” without a nonsensical, completely extraneous, totally gross alien with tentacles.
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28-29. Edrio Two-Tubes and Benthic
Working under Saw Gererra, Edrio Two-Tubes may not have been the most gentle freedom fighter, but he certainly was efficient. Along with his eggmate Benthic, Two-Tubes was a daunting addition to Gererra's ranks of radical fighters. Of course, the problem is that they're horrible people without being the bad guys -- and since we don't really get to know them they're kind of just these random extra irritants.
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27. Bistan
Another of the new aliens, Bistan was part of the ground team on Scarif, and another incredible participant to watch throughout the battle. You'll wanna keep your eyes on the awesome new pair of aliens -- because if you blink you'll miss them.
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26. Pao
This ferocious little freedom fighter was a daring part of the battle on the beaches of Scarif, ready to go into battle the moment he recognized the perfectly rebellious plan. Though awesome, he and Bistan are ranked so low because they're massively underused.
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25. Gold Leader
Hey, remember him? He doesn’t have long to live. Like a couple of weeks at the outside.
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24. Red Leader
Red Leader at least has a better exit than Gold Leader’s panic-stricken Death Star trench death, but neither really helps get anything done in “Rogue One.”
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23. Weeteef Cyubee
An explosives expert and a sniper, Weeteef’s major actions were seemingly cut from the final version of “Rogue One.” While we see nothing about this guy, he does rank as the Warwick Davis character most difficult to recognize as Warwick Davis -- after Wickett the Ewok, since that required Davis to wear an entire Ewok suit.
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22. Tivik
Cassian unceremoniously executes this rebel informant to avoid capture by the Imperials. He’s one of the few people in the game who comes off as sufficiently worried about the Empire as a threat. While he’s mostly for setting up plot and giving some insight into Cassian’s character, Tivik at least gets to freak out appropriately before getting blasted.
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21. Leia Organa
And one quick nod to the Princess herself, who would eventually lose her planet and nearly her entire family to the ruthless wars across the galaxy, yet still picked up at the beginning of every day to lead in place of her adoptive father. Leia, like her brother Luke, represents the hope that carries forward from the efforts of the "Rogue One" crew. Unfortunately, the surprise appearance of her CGI face is, uh, pretty alarming.
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20. Cute plot contrivance kid
Jyn manages to save this kid, who exists simply for Jyn to save her in a heroic moment. Too bad she, her whole family, and probably everyone she knows got eradicated within a few hours.
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19. General Draven
He may not be a fan favorite, but Draven functions a lot like the Mace Windu of the Rebellion, with orders that are well-intentioned but perhaps harsh and misguided. Draven has very obviously seen quite a bit in his time, and still believes in the Rebellion, despite his seemingly too-militaristic nature. Needless to say, his attitude bumped him down quite a few notches.
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18. General Dodonna
A gentle nod to the General who saw the Rebellion through alongside Mon Mothma and was part of Leia's most trusted pool of advisers. Dodonna's years and empathetic nature mesh well in stories like Mark Waid's "Princess Leia" miniseries, so it was nice to see him again. Of course, here he's played by Ian McElhinney (Ser Barristan from "Game of Thrones"), who has a pretty alarmingly different voice from the actor who played Dodonna in "A New Hope."
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17. Corporal Tonc
Among the rebel commandos on Scarif, for a while it seemed like Tonc had a winning ticket. He got to stay back on the ship with Bodhi and hold down the fort until everyone escaped. That didn’t really work out, but Tonc still got to die semi-heroically by trying to fight toward the communications tower linkup. He provided essential human shield assistance.
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16. Admiral Raddus
Of the military commanders in the Battle of Scarif, Raddus is the most heroic and together. He wants to take the fight to the Empire from the start and doesn’t back down from a fight. Unfortunately, someone at Lucasfilm decided he should have an extremely gross, wobbly chin, and it’s impossible to focus on the fact that he’s a solid character because of it.
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15. General Merrick
This guy deserves a massive shout-out as one of the most enthusiastic and skilled rebel pilots in the film. Devoted to the cause, General Merrick likely earned his status thanks to his excellent strategic skills -- and his determination to do good in the face of the most dire situations. And then he crashed his X-Wing into the ground.
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14. Lyra Erso
Toughened in the face of ongoing war and a crumbling marriage, Lyra Erso may not stand out too much in "Rogue One", but her dedication to her family -- and her clear hatred of the Empire -- shines in James Luceno's novel, "Catalyst". It's hard to hate Lyra, but her use as little more than a classic Dead Disney Mom was a little bit of a bummer.
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13. Director Orson Krennic
Okay, so Krennic's guidance of the Death Star project may not have been successful without Galen Erso's extensive genius and a little babysitting by Tarkin. Still, his sarcastic nature and epic cape painted a picture of the Empire at the top of its game. That facade is probably why, in the face of any failure, Krennic can't help but get angry. His hissy fits, though not as bad as Kylo Ren's, keep him down at unlucky number 13.
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12. Mon Mothma
The former chancellor now oversees the growing Rebellion, seemingly benevolent in the face of exceptionally hard decisions. Leia Organa's future mentor is best known calm and thoughtful nature in the face of massive chaos throughout the galaxy. She has a lot of lines, but it feels like she's kind of just there most of the time.
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11. Senator Bail Organa
Bail Organa practically funded the Rebellion by himself and pushed it forward from the moment Padme Amidala proposed it to her most trusted political allies (in a deleted scene from "Revenge of the Sith"). Jimmy Smits' return to the character showed a grey-haired, yet ever determined Organa whose faith in his daughter would help see the Rebellion to victory. His part is actually much better than the random cameo we were expecting.
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10. Darth Vader
The Dark Lord of the Sith makes a triumphant return of sorts in the film at the very height of his career, and it shows. He may not have been around for everything, but his moments were intense and so perfectly Vader that he would have slashed his way to the top -- if not for that horrible one-liner he throws at Krennic. He may not have known he was a father at that point, but he still managed one hell of a dad joke.
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9. Grand Moff Tarkin
One of the surprise key players in the film was none other than Grand Moff Tarkin himself, who's been pretty important in a lot of recent ancillary materials. Tarkin has popped up in the "Rogue One" prequel novel "Catalyst," the novel "Lost Stars," the "Star Wars Rebels" TV series, and even had a novel that was all about him (called "Tarkin"). He's still a force in "Rogue One," and at least his CGI face (RIP Peter Cushing) is pretty good most of the time.
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8. Saw Gererra
Partially insane thanks to almost three decades' worth of radical fighting, Gererra is no longer the militaristic older brother that he was during the Clone Wars. Thanks to Forest Whitaker, Saw has an absolutely huge presence in "Rogue One."
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7. Galen Erso
The man behind the Death Star's design may not have had the best marriage to write home about or the best judgment when it came to friends. Still, as he dug the hole that would eventually land him under Krennic's iron fist, he tried his best to stop it. And he did, through his daughter and, by extension, Luke Skywalker exploiting a weakness Galen had built into this monstrous creation.
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6. Baze Malbus
Chirrut's partner-in-justice may appear gruff, intimidating and huge (which he is), but Malbus has a sense for things that many of his violent nature don't. Empathetic and supportive in his own unique way, Malbus doesn't think twice when it comes to following Chirrut into the Rebellion, and seems to like the idea that he's helping others out. Oh -- and he's a totally badass sniper, too.
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5. Bodhi Rook
Don't overlook the fidgety Bodhi. His anxious nature and comedic one-liners mask what seems to be a massive amount of regret. Without Bodhi's abandonment of the Empire, the Rebels may have never known about the Death Star project at all. So, you know, he's kind of a big deal.
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4. Cassian Andor
So very often in narratives about war and conflict, valiant heroes are given the choice to do what is right, or to just follow orders. This war-weary rebel was more than just a soldier, and his decision to abandon orders in the face of a suicide mission made him a hero for good.
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3. Jyn Erso
Jyn's shock at being thrown into the fray by the Rebellion didn't last very long, and the self-sufficient heroine didn't piddle around with her decision to join when the stakes were made personal. Jyn may not have been the most heroic person starting out, but her worth was proven by a relentless determination to do the right thing when the galaxy needed her to step up.
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2. K2-SO
The scene-stealer of "Rogue One" was none other than the reprogrammed Imperial security droid with an attitude. "Star Wars" is known for having complex, interesting robots, but "Kay" might rise above the rest with its steely, protected little heart of gold.
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1. Chirrut Imwe
Donnie Yen's casting made headlines for good reason -- the talented actor and martial artist puts everything into his performance to create incredible characters. Wise, loyal and kind, Chirrut is a fantastic representation of the confidence and belief in the Force that the Jedi Order of the prequels was missing. Future heroes take note: this is how you do it.
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‘Rogue One’ boasts an incredible cast, but who stands out?
Who was the biggest star in "Rogue One"? That's a question we're setting out to answer, and it's a tough one at that. With a cast that boasts the talents of Felicity Jones, Forest Whitaker and Diego Luna (just to name a few), it's hard to pick out the best of them. See how your list compares to ours.
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