I was a bit late posting this movie as it had been playing in Indonesian theaters since Wednesday when it premiered the first time. It was a hectic week at the office and I only got the chance to see it on Friday. I was fortunate enough that my wife was quite free in the afternoon so she could help buy a ticket for me. She was not a fan of Star Wars series, so it was a bit easier to look for ticket for 1 person rather than 2. If it hadn't been for her, perhaps I would only be able to see this on Sunday. The studio was fully packed from top to bottom row and no empty seats at all, so it would be a challenge if I tried to look for tickets at the last minute by myself. Anyway, let's get a move on to the juicy stuff of this movie.
Brief Story Line
Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen - Doctor Strange, Hannibal TV series etc) was a very good scientist who was working for the Imperial under the command of director Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn - The Dark Knight Rises, Exodus: Gods and Kings etc) to finish the completion of creating the ultimate weapon called Death Star which supposedly could destroy a planet. Meanwhile, Jyn Erso the only daughter of Galen was taken under the wings of extremist named Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker - The Last King of Scotland, Vantage Point etc) who fought against the Imperial and was based in the rebel city called Jedha.
Years later, Jyn who was an adult now (Felicity Jones - The Theory of Everything, Inferno, A Monster Calls etc), was rescued by the rebels after she was captured by the Imperial soldiers. They were going to use Jyn's relationship with her father to find out about the plan of the "planet destroyer". This was based on the information acquired by Cassian Andor (Diego Luna - Elysium, Blood Father etc) from his informant, about a transport pilot named Bodhi (Riz Ahmed - Night Crawler, Jason Bourne etc) who defected from the imperial and brought the message from Galen to Saw Gerrera.
Jyn who at first was hesitant, thought that it might be a good idea for her to see Saw and find out about her father. So Jyn, accompanied by Cassian and his wise crack android called K-2SO (Alan Tudyk - Wreck It Ralph, Zootopia etc), went to the city of Jedha to look for Gerrera. Without her knowledge, Cassian was given a different order by the council. When they finally reached Jedha, Jyn met with the blind person who seemed to be able to "see" named Chirrut (Donnie Yen - Ip Man trilogy and many other Hong Kong cool action movies) with his side kick/protector named Baze (Jiang Wen). They were soon caught in a fight between the rebels and imperial soldiers on Jedha.
Meanwhile, Krennic was being asked by Governor Tarkin about the reliability of Death Star and demanded a demonstration of this ultimate weapon, which Krennic duly showed. Krennic insisted that it could destroy a whole planet, but Tarkin informed that destroying the rebel city of Jedha would be sufficient.
So would the Jedha city be destroyed? Would Jyn be able to see Gerrera and get the message from his father? Would Cassian be able to fulfill his other assignment? Would Jyn be able to meet her father again and what was the message that Galen passed to Bodhi which the rebels were chasing and also made the Imperials anxious? Find them all in this latest space opera movie in the Star Wars world.
End of Brief Story Line
After watching this 2 plus hours movie, I was quite satisfied. It was a good movie, but sadly not very great. Of course there were the usual great parts like the special effects (top notch!), the action sequence and the final war scene which was great. However, I was feeling the first half hour was a bit draggy in term of trying to explain the background story and introduction of the main characters. My particular annoyance was the scenes involving Gerrera and Bodhi which felt too long. My personal view was it should have been cut short and showed something else that I believe would be more meaningful, like for instance the reason of Jyn being captured by the rebels, or even the way she was brought up.
Meanwhile, the usual musical effects that I love in Star Wars felt a bit too much here (this is my personal opinion). There were some scenes where the music were becoming too loud or not really necessary, unlike in the previous Star Wars movies where the music were just nice & perfectly timed. There was also the crying scene of Jyn in the middle part which I personally felt a bit too much. Again this perhaps due to the too little time/scenes showing Jyn's personality developed since most of them were only by words.
As for the characters, I personally like the character of Baze better than Chirrut (despite I am a big fan of Donnie Yen). Another character that I really loved was the android K-2SO, especially the scene during the fight between rebels and imperials in the Jedha city (in the middle of the movie which was probably the only funny moment in this movie) plus his contribution during the final war scene. Yes, the movie was a bit serious with not too much of funny scenes.
However, as an overall Star Wars movie, it did provide the satisfaction of seeing the great space war between the rebel forces and Imperial armies. Of course there were cameo appearances that really fulfilled the longing of seeing those characters which were not seen in Star Wars episode VII (The Force Awakens).
If you ask me whether I was entertained with this movie, I say definitely yes. But if you asked me whether this is the best Star Wars movie, it certainly would not be. So if you are a fan of Star Wars, definitely a must watch movie, just to see the continuity and seeing how it was linked to the rest of those Star Wars anthology. As a stand alone movie for non Star Wars fan, or for someone who never watched Star Wars movie at all, hmmmm, it would be quite challenging to appreciate the story line. But of course, the choice is yours, coz you can still be entertained by this movie at least for those lovely breath taking war scenes and the dramatic moments.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Note:
If you want to know where this movie fits into the Star Wars whole series, the answer is below. Please only read if you really are interested in finding out, as there might be spoiler to the movie.
The story of this movie happened prior to the 1977 Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope. So if you still remember the scenes from the beginning of that movie, the ending of this movie was the reason of all that was happening then. This would explain why Darth Vader was still alive in this movie and why the Death Star was the main arc story plus the role Jyn Erso played in the Star Wars episode IV onwards.
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