Movie Review - Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

From Lucasfilm comes the first of the Star Wars standalone films, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” an all-new epic adventure. The time line is set between Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope

 In this time of conflict, a group of unlikely heroes band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction... 

 The movie begins in planet Lah’mu filled with green hills and blackened desert where Commander Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) and his men are here to capture former Empire engineer Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) and his family. His wife Lyra, sends their daughter Jyn Erso away reminding the little girl what she has to do...

The little girl watches as her mother gets killed and runs away to hide to be eventually found by Rebel zealot leader, Saw Gerrera ( Forest Whitaker)...

Years later, Jyn Erso is a prisoner of the empire when some people from the Rebellion breaks her out and the ungrateful girl attacks them back and runs away only to be stopped and knock out by K-2SO, the a former Imperial slave droid, belonging to rebel captain Cassian (Diego Luna), or should I say devoted to the rebel captain Cassian..

Jyn Erso is brought back to the Rebellion and Mon Mothma ( Genevieve O'Reilly) sets her to help find Saw Gerrera and also her father, both whom she had not seen in years.. under captain Cassian and K-2SO's care, much to the droid's displeasure and distrust.

Along the way they meet up with Chirrut Îmwe ( Donnie Yen), and his partner Baze Malbus ( Jiang Wen)  and escaped Imperial pilot Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed) - who had been send out by Galen Erso with the secret plans of the Death Star's weakness.... Ok... that's all folks.. am not going to spoil the fun for you... so I will stop here...

It is an amazing story of ordinary people who decides to do extraordinary things in the hope of saving the planet, and in doing so, become part of something greater than themselves.....

Do watch it in IMAX if you can as it makes the experience simply breathtaking and you will be so immersed in the movie you feel like you are part of it....

Check out the new IMAX cinema at TGV Sunway Velocity... 
Read about it here http://www.mieranadhirah.com/2016/12/tgv-cinema-with-largest-imax-screen-in.html

Some Rogue One Fun Facts

              ·“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” is the first in a series of standalone films that are being developed to complement the new saga films and also allow filmmakers to explore the universe and experiment with different styles and ways of telling stories.

·“Rogue One” welcomes back several characters familiar to fans, including the head of the rebel senate Mon Mothma, played once again by Genevieve O’Reilly.

·To create the look and feel they wanted for “Rogue One,” director Gareth Edwards and Grieg Fraser, the cinematographer, went back to the camera lenses of the 1970s and combined them with modern digital technology.

·To get the character Jyn Erso’s look for actor Felicity Jones, filmmakers looked at Kurdish female freedom fighters as well as Japanese influences. Jyn’s undershirt was based on a Japanese design.

·The creation of the new droid K-2SO, played in performance capture and voiced by Alan Tudyk, took the combined skills of the team at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and Neal Scanlan and his team of creature and droid experts. K-2SO was first created as a full-scale maquette by Scanlan’s team and then realized by visual effects.

·Recreating the look of Darth Vader was a challenge for costume designers Glyn Dillon and David Crossman as in each Star Wars film there would be some subtle changes to the villain’s attire. For example, the helmet worn by Vader in The Empire Strikes Back is shinier than its predecessor, but after much discussion, the director decided that he preferred the matte version as first appears in A New Hope. The end result is a faithful reproduction of Vader’s look, with the boxes on Vader’s belt matching exactly those in A New Hope, even down to the little scratches. And the chest box is again painted wood with buttons stuck on.

·In addition to the iconic Stormtroopers, director Gareth Edwards wanted to give fans something new and intimidating. And so were born the Death Troopers. The Death Troopers are a completely new design specially created for “Rogue One.” They are an elite group of fighters costumed in black. Whereas Stormtrooper costumes were made for anyone over five-foot- nine inches, the fearsome Death Troopers each stand at well over six-feet tall.

·The director wanted the “Rogue One” creatures to be organic and fit realistically into the environments, so to meet that goal the creatures were treated the same as the other actors on set, even to the extent that the hair and make-up team added dust, grime, sweat and grease to them, just as they would any of the other cast.

·One set familiar to fans will be the rebel base on Yavin 4 first seen in Star Wars: A New Hope. But whereas, for budgetary reasons, Lucas was only able to build a part of the rebel base, relying on a matte painting to give the illusion of size, the “Rogue One” production was able to go all out on its construction. In addition, the team was able to revisit the exact location of the original Yavin 4 set—Cardington Airfield in the U.K. The enormous hangars offered the production designers the opportunity to actually build Yavin 4 to scale. The completed set measured approximately 350 feet in length by 200 feet in width.

·The Yavin 4 hangar set was fully dressed on all sides, with even the crew in costume. The Jedha set was done in a similar way, and filmmakers did as much on-location shooting as they could to keep the film grounded and follow director Gareth Edwards’ vision. Even when blue screens were required, production built as much of the set as possible so that they would have real-world references to help inform how the visual effects should look and feel.

·For the inspiration behind the creation of the holy city of Jedha, production designers looked to the ancient city of Jerusalem and the desert fortress of Masada in Israel. Another key influence in the creation of Jedha was Paris during World War II.

·With its clear horizons and accessibility, Bovingdon Airfield, an old RAF base unused for nearly half a century, was ideal for recreating the Maldives. All it needed was some sand and palm trees. So, the filmmakers shipped in 2000 tons of sand and imported over 60 palm trees from Spain as well as various greenery from the U.K. They also built a beach and recycled water from the water tank at Pinewood so it wouldn’t be wasted. In fact, the art department recycled over 211,000 gallons of water into a giant tank measuring 200 feet by 100 feet. 

·When the Maldives set at Bovingdon Airfield was finished, it measured a staggering 700 feet by 500 feet, or about eight acres. A smaller unit later filmed in the Maldives as well.