Jaicee said:
I'll be unorthodox with my list:
1. Rogue One
2. Revenge of the Sith
3. The Empire Strikes Back
4. Return of the Jedi
5. The Force Awakens
6. The Phantom Menace
7. A New Hope
8. Attack of the Clones
I have always enjoyed Star Wars ever since I first saw the original trilogy on video more than 25 years ago! Here's what stands out about Rogue One to me in my admittedly unorthodox opinion though:
If 2015's The Force Awakens could be described as new in peripheral ways (such as its diverse cast of characters, for example) but familiar at its core (a core storyline that's very similar to that of A New Hope), Rogue One is the other way around: familiar in peripheral ways, but new at its core. It's the backstory of how the Rebels acquired the Death Star's schematics back in the original 1977 Star Wars movie, these days known as Episode IV: A New Hope. It features a strong aesthetic similarity to that film due to the painstaking faithfulness of the production design style to that of A New Hope and contains numerous references to that movie and other Star Wars installments, many of which only the most hardcore fans of the franchise will get.
In the fundamental respects though, Rogue One takes a very different course than the franchise has up to now. You get that sense immediately when there is no text crawl following "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...", but instead the movie immediately leaps into a backdrop presentation. There are also no Jedis in this film and Darth Vader is the only character with a lightsaber. This is instead a movie -- the only Star Wars movie -- that's truly about the, if you will, real people involved in the conflict between the Empire and the Rebellion. Thus does it feel less like just a particularly well-made superhero movie (like most Star Wars films do) and more like a (mostly) serious war story that is essentially about conveying the sacrifices that go on behind the scenes of the conflict of superheroes and supervillains (the Jedis and Siths) in the series' main storyline. Serious as in we hear the bones of soldiers crunching while children look on and cry. This harsh presentation of war gives some much-needed added weight to the rest of the Star Wars movies. All of these films have the word "wars" in their title, but this is only one that feels like it is taking such a serious subject seriously. Not that there isn't welcome comedy relief from time to time, but the general thrust of the film is serious. The action isn't terribly cartoony in general and isn't meant to feel empowering. Indeed, even the comedy could be described as grim in nature.
There's also more moral complexity to this movie than in traditional Star Wars films. One of the most common criticisms of the Star Wars series is that its moral dichotomy is generally features very limited nuance. Among the top reasons why this and Revenge of the Sith are my favorite Star Wars movies is because they revolve to a very substantial degree around exploring that nuance rather than more or less boiling down to simple tales of heroism. When you observe some of the tactics that the Rebels employ and the character arcs of, for example, Bodhi Rook on the one hand and Saw Gerrera on the other. I found that to be a welcome change too. This is still very sci-fi, but it bears a bit more resemblance to life.
Perhaps most importantly though, this movie has a message that couldn't be more timely. It's not just one of resistance against a tyrannical empire (like in so many other Star Wars movies), but of a resistance in which race is implied to be a big factor. Unlike in other Star Wars films, the composition of the Rebels here is overwhelming people of color and led by a woman while the Empire, the film's creator has explained, "is a white supremacist organization" that is not diverse at all. You can't help but think that, in casting white men as villains and diverse characters as Rebels, the film was making a political point, albeit subtly. The Empire's successor organization in The Force Awakens, known as the First Order, was more diverse. I like that the Empire is not diverse in this movie. Having things this way conveys a more specific politics than the franchise usually does. It doesn't just make its villains emblems of authoritarianism and entitlement in the abstract like other Star Wars movies, but rather dares to get more specific, by implication, about the KIND of tyranny that the Empire represents: specifically fascism. With the revival of specifically right wing brands of authoritarian politics in the real world (not least of which in my own country) in recent years, Rogue One feels more directly relevant to the current times to me rather than like another "universal" movie that's for everyone who believes in concepts like freedom and compassion in the abstract. (It's no coincidence that supporters of Donald Trump organized two separate boycotts of this film.)
Critics complain that Rogue One lacks an adequately humanist feel and point to The Force Awakens as more exemplary. *rolls eyes* Well that is an excellent concentration of the problem with humanism's individualist logic right there! The Force Awakens is a superhero movie that has very little to do with real life. This is a movie about a real(ish) revolutionary struggle against fascism and that is what is needed more than anything else in the world right now in the opinion of this contributor. Superhero movies are elitist pictures about special individuals saving the helpless masses. This is a movie that depicts revolution, successful or not to whatever degree, as a mass act and war as genuinely consequential. Which shall we embrace in this time: the individualism of the superhero genre that makes us feel better for a moment in time or the collectivism of revolutionary politics that can actually lead to real-world change?
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