PULP & POPCORN

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Maybe it even did work like that in the original cut of the film. It’s clear from
just looking at the trailers that the overhaul that was done over the summer was
fairly extensive. There are major sequences that are used in the marketing for the
film that do not exist at all in the finished movie. That’s fine. All that really matters is
how well it works when it’s done, and Rogue One is incredibly effective. One of the
reasons I like that they remove revenge from the equation is because it makes these
characters and their sacrifice mean more. Jyn Erso could walk away after she brought
the Rebels to meet Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker), but she stays. She stays because
she sees what her father did, what he put up with, and how he kept finding ways to
fight all the way to the end. She stays because she is moved to action by the threat of
the Death Star, and she refuses to simply stand back and watch a weapon like that be
used anywhere on anyone. She fights for reasons that are much larger than personal,
and so do the rest of the characters. They sign on because they believe in what
they’re doing, and because if they don’t, no one will.
It feels important that we don’t have a Jedi in the film. No one has actual
superpowers, and it makes the choice to stand and fight feel more urgent. If
anything, these people are overpowered from the start and they know it. Again, these
things all add to why I feel like there’s real weight here. Hollywood has become so
reliant on the notion of the Chosen One that when we see someone who is clearly
not special in any way stand up, it makes that person’s choice feel like it matters
more. If you’re told that you have special powers, then it’s not particularly surprising
to see you use them. But if you are completely average and you still put yourself in
harm’s way for reasons that are larger than you, then that is something to be noticed
and commended and celebrated. The Darth Vader scene near the end of the film
underlines what it must feel like to exist in a world where there are people with these
insane superpowers, but they’re almost mythic figures that you don’t believe in until
an encounter like this one.
Oh… that’s right. Darth Vader. Holy shit. In that four or five minute sequence,
we get a Vader that we’ve never really seen on film before, and it restores every bit of
menace to him that the Prequels ever even remotely took away.