Saturday 8 April 2017

The Evil Empire.


The setting is a polished clean, impersonal room; control consoles, covered by electronic displays and buttons, surround a group of dignitaries, all of them professionally dressed, in the elegant but sober style one has come to associate with important people.

They are observing the world from far above.

A man in his fifties runs the show. He is handsome, with that kind of unexceptional good looks appropriate to his job. His hair is already turning grey. And what a show he is running: epic images of global destruction observed from a distance of hundreds of kilometres.

In awe with the apocalyptic power he feels it's his, the man only manages to say: "Oh. It's beautiful".

----------

I wish I were a better writer to convey that scene. It once was fiction. No longer.

Those who watched "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story", the latest in the franchise, will remember it: the master of ceremonies, so to speak, was Director Orson Krennic, the Death Star project manager (as people doing that kind of job are called in business jargon). He was testing the Empire's new toy, in partial mode.

Life, however, does imitate art more than art imitates life. Read this and watch the video attached.

It's eerie how a scifi movie can get things so right, isn't it? Capitalism is evil.

----------

Let's not kid ourselves, as a life-long Star Wars fan I'm not impartial. On my behalf, I'll say that I'm not so biased, however, to love every single Star Wars movie ever released. Personally, I didn't hate "The Force Awakens", but I didn't love it either.

"Rogue One", directed by Gareth Edwards and starring Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Riz Ahmed, Ben Mendelsohn, and Forest Whittaker, plus a support cast too long to mention, was just released on DVD.

Maybe one day my enthusiasm will fade and I'll change my mind, but I think "Rogue One" is the best Star Wars movie I've seen.  Jones' character, Jyn Erso, in my fanboy eyes, is the greatest, most tragic hero of the Star Wars saga. Luna's Cassian Andor, the weary veteran, makes a perfect foil to Jyn's inexperience. A crew of damaged goods in search of redemption completes the team.

I'm old enough to be Jyn Erso's father. I know Cassian Andor's last line would apply to me.

"Rogue One" is more than eerie. In a good way.

No comments:

Post a Comment