Another year means another ‘Star Wars’ film. Because that’s what the film industry has become right? Just an industry full of remakes, spin-offs and adaptations. For some people, hearing about another ‘Star Wars’ film is just ”whatever”; they don’t care. For me, it’s everything. ‘Phantom of the Menace’ was the first film that I ever saw in the cinema – I was three years old. I have always loved ‘Star Wars’ and I always will. 

‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’ tells the story of a former scientist, Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelson) who lives on a farm with his wife and young daughter Jyn (Felicity Jones). His peaceful existence comes crashing down when the evil Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) takes him away from his beloved family. Many years later, Galen is now the Empire’s lead engineer for the most powerful weapon in the galaxy, the Death Star. Knowing that her father holds the key to its destruction, a vengeful Jyn joins forces with a spy and other resistance fighters to steal the space station’s plans for the Rebel Alliance.

This was a brilliant film; it was better than ‘The Force Awakens’ due to the main point that it was nothing yet everything like the original ‘Star Wars’films. Confused? Okay, so with ‘The Force Awakens’, it was so similar to ‘A New Hope’ that you could argue that it wasn’t an original storyline. But with ‘Rogue One’, it’s a prequel to ‘A New Hope’, so there was only the groundwork of the Death Star plans to work on. It felt new due to its storyline, yet it felt like the original ‘Star Wars’ films due to the way it was produced, the atmosphere of the film and the dialogue. 

There are a couple of things throughout the film that will leave fans with their mouths open wide – whether it’s in anger or amazement is up to them, personally, it was amazement for me. (If you’ve seen the film already, you’ll know what I’m going on about).

The acting during this film was superb; here were the funny one-liners that are consistent throughout the ‘Star Wars’ franchise which gave this dark film it’s funny quirks. Also, let’s talk about the actors. A diverse cast – finally! A female lead (Felicity Jones), a Hispanic (Diego Luna), an African-American (Forest Whitaker), a British/Muslim/Pakistani (Riz Ahmed), two Chinese men (Wen Jiang and Donnie Yen) – who may also be in a relationship with each other – and a male Dane (Mads Mikkelson). Never before have I seen such a diverse cast in a Disney film and it was such a massive breath of fresh air to finally see a representation of different races. It was a breath of fresh air knowing that children watching this film, finally had role models that they could identify with. 

‘Rogue One’ was spectacular, from the storyline to the acting to the subtle nods to the original ‘Star Wars’ films. It was so good, that I’m considering buying Odeon Limitless just so I can watch it over and over again.