Rogue One Fits Fine

Movie Poster at Marcus' High Point

Star Wars. or what is now referred to as Episode IV - A New Hope, opened in the UA Theater in the Janesville Mall in 1977.

Forty years later, I saw how Princess Leia received the plans for the Empire's Death Star and secured them with R2-D2 until they could help the Rebel Alliance.

Rogue One wasn't part of the nine movie story arc originally planned by creator George Lucas.

My first thoughts, when I first heard about the film that it was essentially a money grab.  The series' reputation practically gives it license to print cash.  Thankfully, the writers took the project seriously.

Justifying one's Star Wars bona fides isn't easy and the most ardent of fans would scoff at my credentials.  I've seen all 7. Most more than once.  I can't tell you the name of the Blue Leader, one of the Rebel Alliance squadrons.  I am a fan.

The movie starts a year or less in "movie time" before Episode IV.

Darth Vader is hunting rebels across the galaxy and plays a fairly small, but still substantial part in Rogue One.  Hearing James Earl Jones sonorous tones from behind the mask transported me through hyper-space to that long since vanished three screen theater at the mall, evil dripping from every syllable.

I loved it.  I think most Star Wars fans will place it in line with the rest of the movies.  The film gives us a peak at how the menacing Death Star came to be and a family destroyed by the Empire which wanted an ultimate weapon at its fingertips.

There are delightful new characters and younger versions of those we will see in the films next in line.

You don't have to be a Star Wars geek to follow this movie.  In fact, you wouldn't need to know any of the films prior to this one for Rogue One to make sense.

And if some how, some way the Force hasn't secured you in its grasp up till now... I think you will be searching for Star Wars - Episode IV A New Hope when you get home to learn what happened next.